[sc34wg3] a new name for the Reference Model

[Mason, James David (MXM)]

Dr. Newcomb has provided us with a right weighty response to some questions
about models, and I thank him for it (though, like the RM, it's going to
take some digesting). As Sam says, it gets a bit beyond the scope of this
thread, but so did the questions it's attempting to answer. However, I think
it gives us an answer to the supposed topic question of the thread: what do
we call these things.

If we accept Steve's explanation, then it's clear that the RM is more meta
than the SAM. But I also get the feeling that the current names for the
models are sufficiently accurate that we ought to acccept Sam's suggestion
that we live with the names until London, then decide whether we need
something better for marketing reasons.

I also concur with Mary's suggestion about singular/plural usage. Thus we
should make a choice about whether the titles appear as:

*	Topic Map Reference Model

or

*	Reference Model for Topic Maps

or, should we choose to play with the formal cover of the standard,

*	Information Technology - Topic Maps - Reference Model




And likewise in running text we should talk about the "Topic Map Reference
Model" or the "Reference Model for Topic Maps" but not the "Topic Maps
Reference Model".
 
  _____  

 
At the risk of wandering back off thread, I want to return to the subject of
what conforms to what and how these things together fit into a standard.
 
There is considerable merit in Steve's assertion that we need something
lightweight for marketing purposes. I could almost say that I didn't start
doing TMs until I got XTM - then I ditched the standard, read the DTD, and
started coding. (I say "almost" because, like a lot of the rest of the
crowd, I was already building TMs, on paper, using an ad hoc notation that I
could validate but not really process. XTM got me to some easy-to-set-up
tools for processing TMs.)
 
Of all the things Steve says about the models, the speculation on audiences
satisfies me the least. I think JTC1 standards are for techies. Our
standards are supposed to tell software developers how to build a data
stream and how to process it. If we expect knowledge managers, etc., to read
our standards, we're in trouble. I recognize that we're in the predicament
that SGML was in twenty years ago, that we have to do a lot of explaining
and marketing along with standardization, and that compromises the purity of
our standards. Steve says, "we will defeat ourselves if we direct public
attention toward 'ISO 13250'"; does he think the public will be able to read
the RM, whether it's part of ISO 13250 or some separate standard? This is
why I am with the RM sort of like I am with the base standard:  I skip the
text and go straight to the diagrams.
 
After reading Steve's essay, I'm still asking the same questions I asked
before. Are these things standards or technical reports? How do they fit
together? Some of these issues may fall out in the course of revision and
editing, but I'm still troubled. When Steve says the RM is for someone who
wants to "achieve subject location uniqueness for subjects that are
specified by domain-specific relationship types", he's using language that's
way out in philosophical territory, not something that sounds like the
specification of "Document Description and Processing Languages" (with
emphasis on "languages"). How can you write a conformance specification to
something like that (and if you can't specify conformance, you're not
writing a standard)? Graham's  message, which he placed outside this thread,
is appropriate: (to oversimplify greatly) we need a formula for getting from
the RM to the SAM and back.
 
Steve is aware of the issue. To my question, "Does [the RM] specify or
interpret?" he responds:

It specifies. If it only interprets, then its constraints are optional, and
we abandon the idea that "Topic Maps" means reliable, predictable,
ontology-neutral knowledge aggregation.

I agree that a standard must specify. But at this point I find the RM is,
like this essay, heavily interpretive.
 
I believe that Steve's essay is extremely valuable, as is the RM. But we
need to ask ourselves how much of this work is part of our own process of
coming to understand what the Topic Map paradigm is/means, and how much is
necessary for the specification of a standard. Steve is doing a wonderful
job of leading us through the process of understanding. But for the
standard, we need to distill that into something else.
 
Jim