[sc34wg3] Association items

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Nikita Ogievetsky
| 
| That is exactly what I meant. Only schema for TM4KA should be more
| relaxed.

That makes sense to me.
 
| It would mean that in scope X there no topics related through an
| association of type Y.
| Still two topics X & Y are in this relationship.

Well, I think we can agree that this is not a very useful feature.
 
* Lars Marius Garshol
|
| That's pretty clear from the prose: the intended semantics is that of
| a relationship.

* Nikita Ogievetsky
|
| But it is not clear from the historical use of associations,
| especially the way that they were meant to replace facets.

Well, they weren't meant to replace facets; they were in topic maps
before facets were. It was just realized that when topics can
represent information resources, the reach of associations is extended
to areas previously only covered by facets. Therefore, facets were no
longer needed. (And, in any case, facets *did* represent
relationships; their purpose was to represent resource -> topic
relationships.)
 
| I wonder if facets should be considered to be brought back into XTM.

For the reason given above (there's nothing they can do that cannot be
done with topics and associations) I don't think there's any point in
doing that.
 
| On the other hand, even "monadic" associations (re: Murray's posts
| on the other sub-thread) have a few topics related - if you count
| association type and scope.

True, but I don't think it is right to count these. They define the
nature of the relationship, and don't count as being among the things
related.

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >