SUO: Re: Loading the Hierarchy
Jon,
The motion for ontology specification and registration only
mentions the generalization/specialization hierarchy.
But it makes room for whatever kind of "metadata" the
SUO working group decides to include.
> Still, a little bit of strategic thinking at the offset,
> which accepts the inevitability of fallibility in human
> design, can make a big difference in long-run reliability.
> And keeping every predication indexed by its predicator
> is one good way of doing this.
I agree. The work on software development has addressed
many of those issues, and the metadata registries make room
for including information about who added or modified each
data item, down to the level of a single bit.
I believe that some such metadata about the ontology modules
and their components (i.e., the axioms and definitions) is
also essential for development, maintenance, and reliability.
However, that is far too much to include in the motion
to begin work on the project. The indirect reference to
metadata registries (by the phrase "such as") should be
sufficient to inform the dvelopers that there are places
to look for "prior art" about what to include in a registry.
But as we all know, developers tend to overlook anything that
is not immediately relevant to "getting the job done", and
documentation and audit trails tend to be neglected.
So reminders such as yours are important. Even more important
is specific wording in "standardese" to be placed into the
standards documents that govern what goes into the modules.
John Sowa