Re: Request to register "identifier" relation type

[Erik Wilde <[e-mail]>]

hello.

On 2017-08-09 11:13, Peter Williams wrote:
> Personally, i think relations have usages more than definitions. There 
> are clear and confusing ways to use relations, not really right or wrong.

absolutely. that's where i always pull out wittgenstein: "the meaning of 
a word is its use in the language." corollary: in open systems, you do 
not fully control the use of things, and therefore you do not fully 
control their meaning. at least not as much as you might want to...

> The more the usages of a relation diverges the less useful it is. This 
> makes it important to ensure that new relations are evocative and 
> cohesive enough that usages will tend to cluster together and that they 
> are distinct enough from existing relations that they will not reduce 
> the usefulness of existing relations.

completely agree. and it's a tricky balance to find with no single 
correct solution/answer. i really like the imagery of "meaning clusters" 
we do not fully control, but that we ideally want to be both cohesive 
and distinct.

you do not want every link to be labeled as "related" (my very favorite 
link relation ;-) and then have to completely rely on context to 
understand how. on the other hand, you don't want definitions to be too 
narrow that very likely will not be used in their very narrowly defined 
way (if you want those, mint link relation URIs you own and use those 
instead).

cheers,

dret.

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