What happens when users use ontologies? That is when ontologies leave the rarefied air of campuses, turgid dissertations and the clutches of arm chair ontologists?
Would you believe that users simply take terms from ontologies and use them as they wish? In other words, after decades of research, ontologists have re-invented natural language! With all of its inconsistent usage, etc.
I would send a fruit basket if I had their address.
For the full details, take a look at: The perceived utility of standard ontologies in document management for specialized domains. From the conclusion:
…rather than being locked into conforming to the standard, users will be free to use all or small fragments of the ontology as best suits their purpose; that is, these communities will be able to very flexibly import ontologies and make selective use of ontology resources. Their selective use and the extra terms they add will provide useful feedback on how the external ontologies could be evolved. A new ontology will emerge as the result and this itself may become a new standard ontology.
I would amend the final two sentences to read: “Their selective use and the extra terms they add will provide useful feedback on how their language is evolving. A new language will emerge as the result and this may itself become a new standard language.
Imagine, all that effort and we are back where we started. Users using language (terms from an ontology) to mean what they want it to mean and not what was meant by the ontology.
The arm chair ontologists have written down what they mean. Why don’t we ask ordinary users the same thing, and write that down?