For all the talk about assigning subjects identifiers, all subjects already have identifiers.
The ones we can talk about anyway.* Try it, you will see what I mean. As soon as you say a name or otherwise identify a subject, it has an identifier.
In the classic topic map use case, mapping indexes together, all the subjects had identifiers, the words the indexers had used. But the indexers had used the same words for different subjects and different words for the same subjects.
The search for universal identifiers is a known dead end, so what is the next best solution?
Interchangeable Identifiers.
Interchangeable identifiers provide more information to assist in matching up different identifiers for the same subjects. And distinguishing different subjects.
The development of “interchange” markup for texts and data started over twenty (20) years ago and continues today.
The sooner we start exploring interchangeable identifiers the sooner we will make up for lost time.
*(I don’t worry about subjects I can’t talk about.)
[…] Subjects & Identifiers shows why we need interchangeable identifiers. […]
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