Talk:Ontology language

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[edit] Thick

I think we all agree that this shit is pretty thick and hard to understand. I suggest someone using wikipedia as a *great* example of ontology in action. Hopefully that will provide a clear understanding and an appropriate context? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.217.244.128 (talk • contribs) .

Hi, I'm not sure that I understand your question. The Ontology language article does need some improvement. But Wikipedia is not an ontology, so I don't see how it would make a great example. Also, have you taken a look at the Ontology (computer science) article? That may have more of the introduction you're looking for? Gwernol 12:45, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming the links in the "Context" part might make things clearer

Presently the initial "Context" part says:

" Ontology languages are formal languages used to construct ontologies. They allow the encoding of knowledge about specific domains and often include reasoning rules that support the processing of that knowledge."

And in theory that would be fine because the link on "ontologies" leads to ontology (computer science), which is a very clear introduction (and I'm speaking as someone who only knows of the Semantic Web by hearsay so far). But psychologically, the problem is that the sentence "Ontology languages are formal languages used to construct ontologies", read on the surface level, sounds just tautological and thus doesn't incite one to click on the ontologies link. So maybe the Context part could be reworded with a small addition at the beginning:

"The phrase Ontology languages refers to "ontology" in the computer science meaning of the word. If you are not familiar with this meaning, please read ontology (computer science) first."

(I'm not going to risk editing the item myself, though, due to my ignorance of the subject) Calmansi

[edit] Business Management

Business Messaging is a prime example of Ontology. With Business Messaging, a group of companies with varying technology, can send similar data, but in different formats, to the Business Messaging company. The various types of data are scanned, if hardcopy, or imported into the system. Ontology languages are then used to sort/recognise and group the data to give a unified set of structured data in a format all parties can use. What the customer submits is a mish-mash of flat-file, harcopy and/or database data. What he receives is one set of data sorted into catagories, sub-catagories and objects. - Jason Davis - jd_abc@hotmail.com

That is a good example of the use of an ontology. If you can find good references for this use, then you can add that to the article. Good luck, Gwernol 22:03, 20 December 2006 (UTC)