I agree with using "instance of" as RO prescribes, also because it would
clarify its use.
Regarding #2, what is the difference between stating "<ethanol> instance of
<type of chemical compound>" or "<ethanol> type of <chemical
compound>? We
have some antecedents using ad-hoc typing properties, that perhaps could be
merged into a more generic property:
https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?search=p%3Atype&title=Special%3ASe…
Cheers,
Micru
On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 3:51 AM, Emw <emw.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I have removed the statement *"instance of*
chemical compound" from
ethanol (Q153) [1].
A few proposals have been made in this thread about how -- or whether --
to use *instance of* (i.e. rdf:type, P31) to classify 'ethanol' and other
chemical compounds, but there seems to be consensus that "*instance of*
chemical compound" is not the way to do it.
Summary of proposals:
1. *Do not use instance of for chemical compounds*. Such statements
make Wikidata incompatible with many major scientific ontologies, like
ChEBI, Gene Ontology and Disease Ontology, which use *instance of* as
defined in the Relation Ontology (RO) [2]. Note that RO defines instances
as particular things that have a unique location in space and time, whereas
classes are universal, general entities which have particular instances.
Instances and classes are thus disjoint, so RO-based ontologies cannot have
entities that have both *instance of* (rdf:type, P31) and *subclass of*
(rdfs:subClassOf, P279) statements as is possible in OWL 2 DL via punning.
2. *Use statements like "instance of type of chemical compound" for
chemical compounds*. Doing so makes it easier to generate lists of
chemical compounds, and is valid in OWL 2 DL -- it is metamodeling via
punning.
Let's build consensus for how (or whether) we want to use *instance of*
for chemical compounds before any mass edits to remove or replace the 14969
other "*instance of* chemical compound" claims [3] or adding statements
like "*instance of *type of chemical compound" to ethanol.
Micru has a different proposal for how to model items, which incidentally
does not represent "ethanol" as an instance [4]. However, that proposal is
clearly a more radical vision for Wikidata, and probably warrants a
separate thread for discussion.
Eric
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/User:Emw
[1] Removal of "*instance of* chemical compound" from ethanol:
https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q153&diff=162563849&oldi…
[2] Barry Smith et al. (2005). *Relations in Biomedical Ontologies*.
http://genomebiology.com/2005/6/5/r46
[3] All "*instance of* chemical compound" claims on Wikidata.
http://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/autolist.html?q=claim[31:11173]
[4] "'ethanol' is no longer an instance, but a class".
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata-l/2014-October/004691.html
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