Collaborative ontology sharing and editing

TL;DR

This paper advocates for collaborative ontology sharing and editing, proposing a protocol that maintains consistency without requiring consensus, aiming to enhance long-term knowledge base development.

Contribution

It introduces a novel KB editing protocol that ensures consistency without consensus, facilitating collaborative ontology development.

Findings

Proposes a protocol for consistent collaborative editing

Highlights benefits of shared ontology over independent ones

Addresses challenges in maintaining consistency

Abstract

This article first lists reasons why - in the long term or when creating a new knowledge base (KB) for general knowledge sharing purposes - collaboratively building a well-organized KB does/can provide more possibilities, with on the whole no more costs, than the mainstream approach where knowledge creation and re-use involves searching, merging and creating (semi-)independent (relatively small) ontologies or semi-formal documents. The article lists elements required to achieve this and describes the main one: a KB editing protocol that keeps the KB free of automatically/manually detected inconsistencies while not forcing them to discuss or agree on terminology and beliefs nor requiring a selection committee.