Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 2nd Edition

Expressivity in Modeling

There is a trade-off when we model, and although anyone can say anything about any topic, not everyone will want to say certain things. There are those who are interested in saying details about individual entities, like the preferred symbol for Pluto or the themes in life that it signifies. Others (like that IAU) are interested in talking about categories, what belongs in a category, and how you can tell the difference. Still others (like lexicographers, information architects, and librarians) want to talk about the rules for specifying information, such as whether there can be more than one preferred label for any entity. All of these people have contributions to make to the web of knowledge, but the kinds of contributions ...