User:Dan Polansky/Definition via statements

Definition via statements

As per Help:Description#Descriptions_are_not_definitions:

• "The concept represented by the item is defined by the statements not the description. If you need to distinguish an item from another item, add the right statements with sources before you add a special description. Also when searching items don't rely on the description's correctness, check the statements to ensure you found the right item"
  • The first sentence quoted suggests statements should be used to capture definitions, including genus and differentiae.
  • Genus is usually captured via a subclass statement.
  • Differentiae via statements seem to be challenging for top and middle ontology. It is unclear how far this is actually practicable.

Links:

• User talk:Dan Polansky#Identifying concepts via defining statements

Definitions in descriptions

• The descriptions should ideally contain a textual version of the definition. The reader and user cannot be expected to assemble the definition using defining statements; that would have very low usability.
  • From practical standpoint, it is even more so since the defining statements are so often missing and hardly anyone knows how to actually add them.
• This view contradicts this: "The concept represented by the item is defined by the statements not the description", from Help:Description#Descriptions_are_not_definitions.
  • The item does not trace to any discussion.
  • It is hard to know that the designers were thinking and how they responded to possible objections, concerns or issues.
  • An interpretation worth considering: never rely on the textual definition alone without considering the defining statements, if any. If textual definition and defining statements disagree, one can perform a possibly challenging alignment process, in which one has to decide what definition from which sources establish the identiiy of the entity or concept.