Proposal: Normalized BFO about bfo HOT 8 OPEN

I think having a BFO for non-philosophers would be nice. Altering the names and descriptions can only go so far. The abstractions are the same and will have the same overhead.

Having more tractable labels and descriptions may offer a great deal of value to end users. Is there a sample population that this approach could be validated with? What might a pilot test of this approach be? a set of examples with users followed by a few questions that address acceptability and appropriateness?

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Could adding synonyms annotation properties to BFO classes with the values BFON(BFOClass) be an easy first step to see how the community responds?
Reusing the example above, this would mean bfo:continuant would have an alternative term property with value 'exists in whole at a moment in time'.

I like the idea in the post above, I'm wondering if we should work a little bit more on the details (e.g. defining the has-characteristic OP, defining the suitable range etc). Adding alternative terms would allow us time to formalise this better while gauging interest?

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+1 to releasing list of proposed names, saying those will be used to logically define BFO classes. As there have been many request for clearer names in the past this should be well received, and we can then proceed with implementation as you propose. I agree we don't want to alter the label of the existing classes.

I'm not keen on the data propertyproposal because I don't see how saying continuant EquivalentClass is_continuant xsd:true helps clarify things.

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+1 to releasing list of proposed names, saying those will be used to logically define BFO classes. As there have been many request for clearer names in the past this should be well received, and we can then proceed with implementation as you propose. I agree we don't want to alter the label of the existing classes.

I really don't think it matters much. The names can all be is_X for this proposal.

I'm not keen on the data propertyproposal because I don't see how saying continuant EquivalentClass is_continuant xsd:true helps clarify things

The axiom is not there to clarify things for humans. On the contrary, that humans would not see the BFO class is the point of the proposal. They would instead see ugly axioms such as AnatomicalStructure is_continuant true but this is largely hidden compared to a superclass axiom

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A semantically identical proposal with the similar structural properties
would be to create a data property for each BFO class, e.g. continuant
EquivalentClass is_continuant xsd:true. This may be seen as preferable
as it doesn't introduce any new non-BFO individuals into the model.

The axiom is not there to clarify things for humans. On the contrary, that humans would not see the BFO class is the point of the proposal. They would instead see ugly axioms such as AnatomicalStructure is_continuant true but this is largely hidden compared to a superclass axiom

This versions sounds promising to me - pure semantic sugar that doesn't require any arguments over ontological status. Could you outline a workflow for working with it?? At some point you still need to import BFO to infer classification and test consistency, but presumably that would be handled outside of standard imports?

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I like the use of data properties in this way too. I was worried reading the original approach how something like "BFON(material entity) rdfs:label 'has non-zero mass'" would interrelate with the PATO mass quality.

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I think having a BFO for non-philosophers would be nice. Altering the names and descriptions can only go so far. The abstractions are the same and will have the same overhead.

Just to reiterate, my proposal is not to rename. It is to create a shadow hierarchy that could be used with the same logical entailments.

It would have a vastly lower cognitive overhead for domain ontologies, as it would no longer be necessary for domain scientists to drill down multiple levels to get the root terms they understand.

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