Steven, Ray, all,

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 2:19 PM, Steven Folsom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I’m officially confused?

Likewise!

Given this, a bf:Review which has a bf:Work as its target (to use annotation as an example) is a review of an RDF description, not of the abstract Work? Or it should be interpreted as a review of the abstract work that is described by the RDF description?

Or (to pick the first relationship between Works), that one rdf description is absorbed-by another rdf description? Or rather, that it should equally be interpreted as the abstract work that is described by rdf description 1 is absorbed by the abstract work that is described by rdf description 2?

If *all* of the properties and relationships follow this same pattern, what is the value of the pattern? It would be much easier if the resources were the abstract work (or instance, or item etc etc etc)

I was about to write Simon back to suggest that maybe the choice to use the word reflecting in the bf:Instance definition was to acknowledge that the rdf resource isn’t really a material thing; I think we can all agree that no one is ever going to hold a triple in their hand. (In the same way FOAF defines a person, "The Person class represents people. Something is a Person if it is a person.” http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_Person)

Right. This brings us full circle on what bf:Person represents ... it's now back to representing an rdf description rather than the real world (or fictional) person :(

Rob

Rob Sanderson

Information Standards Advocate

Digital Library Systems and Services

Stanford, CA 94305