SUO: Re: Topic :> Blithe And Barely Examined Laws
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
Topic :> BABEL 2. <JA, 05 Dec 2003, 08>
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
JA = Jon Awbrey
JS = Jim Schoening
MW = Matthew West
GH = Guha & Hayes
In reference to:
Topic :> ECORD :> Email 3. http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg11913.html
Reiterated here:
JA: I think that it's time that we had a Group-wide up or down
decision on the substance of the following Bull, nominally
defining Relevance as the Chair, for now, would define it:
JS: | Subj: SUO: Re: Effective Logical Formalism -- Literature Notes
| Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 08:01:09 -0400
| From: Jim Schoening <jim.s3@juno.com>
| To: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@att.net>
|
+ Regarding: http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg11311.html
|
| Jon,
|
| Could you help me understand the relevance of these
| postings to the work of this group. I would define
| this as "directly relating to any of the three
| starter documents."
|
| Taking this posting as an example, I don't see any
| reference to any of these documents. I don't see
| any recommended changes to wording of any of the
| documents.
|
| Of course, any advance or consensus in ontology could
| be shown to be relevant to these documents, but that's
| unfairly stretching the rule. That approach will never
| get us to a completed document. Maybe no other approach
| will either, but that does not justify turning this into
| a general ontology discussion list.
|
| If you have a change you want to propose to a document, you
| should explain it from the perspective of the document, and
| you should propose specific wording changes. You can then
| debate the merits and seek to build consensus. That's how
| documents are advanced.
|
| So, taking this posting as an example,
| please explain how this relates.
|
| Jim Schoening
JA replied to JS here:
ELF Discussion 04. http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg11324.html
Reply reiterated here:
JA: Thanks for the question. I will attempt to explain the relevance of
this line of discussion to the extent that I currently understand it.
I believe that there are others who can speak to the finer details.
JA: I think that all of the current starter groups have expressed their
intentions, perhaps at varying levels of commitment and enthusiasm,
to work within a prospectively more general ontological framework
that will be structured along the lines of IFF, including various
levels of modular structure such as might be reflected in a LOT,
and all of us in the SUO community have been anxiously awaiting
the return of the S/CL (Streamlined/Common Logic) subcommunity
to the fold of our ongoing discussions. I have been informed
that the LBase proposal of Guha and Hayes shows some promise
of a concrete relationship to the prospective S/CL formalism,
and this line of discussion was initiated in part to begin
reading through the latest version of the LBase document:
GH: http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/NOTE-lbase-20031010/
JA: This thread grew out of discussions that included several other
web oriented frameworks and languages, like OWL, RDF, Topic Maps,
and so I chose a more non-descript subject line in order to cover
the lot of them without special pleading, but for the moment I was
asked to focus on LBase.
JA: I believe it is abundantly clear that our discussions here, for all
their need to remain exacting, specific, technical, competent in the
current research base on formal specification and modeling languages,
and informed by the current state of the art in the multiplicity of
fields of knowledge for which the SUO will need to embody axiomatic
bases, are not yet to the point of a final editing process, such as
would be feasible to carry out simply by proposing and debating one
or another typographical alteration to one of our current starter
documents. I honestly cannot see how anyone would imagine this
to be possible at the present stage of the game. If you have
some reason to believe that such a strategy would be feasible
or successful at our current state of development, I would
genuinely like to see some argument for it.
JA: I hope this will go toward explaining the general relevence of
this line of discussion to the aims of the SUO working group.
If you have more specific concerns, I will try to clarify
its more specific components of relevance to our goals.
The rest is hystery ...
JA, reflecting on a new recurrence of almost the
exact same scenario a month later, remarked:
JA: Now, a few things are abudantly clear to this observer:
JA: 1. The substance of this guidance is de facto null and void in
this Group, since the vast majority of posters besides those
who have been working on starter documents -- that is, mostly
JA and MW since 01 Sep 2003 when we began work on the LIS Doc --
almost wholly ignore both the letter and the spirit of this
nominal prescription.
JA: 2. The force of this directive is enforced wholly arbitrarily,
capriciously, selectively, and unequally by the Chair on
whatever individuals he chooses to bear the brunt of it,
and seldom if ever on the more flagrant and notorious
transgressors of the supposed rule.
JA: 3. There is no good reason for any member to respect
this rule unless and until the Working Group as
a whole, by and large, in the majority, most
of the time, begins to do so.
JA: I think that it would bring about clarity with regard to the norms
of Posting Policy if this "unwritten rule" that has been unwritten
by the present Chair were either written down in our constitution,
as they frequently do in all the more advanced nations these days,
or else have its sporadic force in this Group formally nullified.
JA: Perhaps you will have some idea of how we might do that
short of a vote, otherwise I will move that we vote it
up or down, once and for all.
To which MW replied:
MW: I think the implicit rule on posting is quite clear:
MW: If you post on average less than one post to this
list per day, then the content can be judged with
generosity as to its relevance. As the number
of posts per day rises, a more stringent
quality criterion applies.
MW: I think that is reasonable. If you wish to
play a leading role, you should demonstrate
leading qualities.
This (3 + x)-fold transaction among JA, JS, MW
and a cast of unknown assentors will give us the
text of our examination for an extended period of
after action autopsy ...
^
(Extended period .....|)
Jon Awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
http://www.cs.bsu.edu/homepages/mighty/history.html
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o