[MOBY-dev] Changing only the description of an ontolgy entry

[Paul Gordon]

But in Moby, the description is what tells you the meaning.  The user 
will infer the appropriateness of using a term based on that free text.  
Whether that inference is reasonable or not depends on the user and the 
person who created the term.  I didn't say that the description is 
necessarily *correct* or precise, but that it *is* the usage contract in 
Moby.

Andreas Groscurth wrote:
> Of course the description is important for the understanding and the 
> use of the datatype - but as its free text where everybody can add any 
> information (and therefore also less information) i wouldnt count this 
> as the *essence* of the datatype. If we would talk about a description 
> ontology or other controlled vocabulary... I would agree. You could 
> also say that random characters do not give an implied meaning - thats 
> basically what the description is.
>
> Just as an example what i mean (actually this shows it for the 
> description of a service) - if you have a service called "runBlast"... 
> the description about is "Runs a Blast".
> Does this give you any implied meaning ? what version of blast, 
> against what database, what blast program etc etc...
>
> Sorry - this is a general issue ... a random user based text should 
> not be seen as the essence of any element in the ontology.....
>
> And my suggestion in the way i want to change them is basically add 
> new information, being more specific or erazing typos... I know that 
> allow this would also enable people to completly change the 
> description of a datatype... but as we allow people already being that 
> much I wouldnt dare to give this opportunity.
>
> Cheers
> Andreas
>
> Paul Gordon wrote:
>>
>>> I agree here with Martin ... i dont want to change anything which 
>>> will change the LSID and therefore which might change any 
>>> dependencies - in my case its ONLY the description.
>> I respectfully disagree: the description is the *essence* of the data 
>> type.  Otherwise the data type is just a random assortment of fields 
>> with no implied meaning in the real world, and therefore useless.  If 
>> you change the description, you change the version, even if you think 
>> its minor, others may not.
>>
>> I agree that you should be able to change it without deregistering 
>> though, that's a major flaw...
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>
>