SUO: motions
Adam,
You may in fact be correct that it is time to split the group. I think you are doing fine work and, as you are aware, I have found it useful. But the effort here must be more distinguished than any particular content ontology effort - it must be capable of encompassing many such efforts. We cannot give special treatment to one without according such treatment to all that proclaim to be "upper" content. Should John D. resurrect his OpenCyc motion? Are others lurking out there as well? What then does it mean if we have many "standard upper ontology"? I am reminded of the saying, "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them from which to choose."
I am certain that the term "upper" has very different meanings among group members - imagine that. The SUO scope states that, "An upper ontology is limited to concepts that are meta, generic, abstract and philosophical, and therefore are general enough to address (at a high level) a broad range of domain areas. Concepts specific to given domains will not be included; however, this standard will provide a structure and a set of general concepts upon which domain ontologies (e.g. medical, financial, engineering, etc.) could be constructed." I suppose we all have different notions of "domain" as well.
Anyway, we have already agreed to proceed with IFF and we probably need to get on with it. The question now, as it has been for some time, is how do we state this thing as a standard and use this thing in productive ways? You are not alone in your skepticism and the difficulty of crafting something more down-to-earth is daunting. But, because my experience leads me to believe that your kind of "upper", as evidenced by SUMO, cannot possibly meet my expectations for "upper", I am willing to work with others on that approved effort.
Cheers,
Richard