> Combined with "a Bag has not authored anything", this effectively means
> that the Alt/Bag/Seq containers are useless for grouping singular values
> of a property, then.
A Bag can author something. But the difference between.
<dc:creator>
<rdf:Bag>
<rdf:li rdf:resource="#bob"/>
<rdf:li rdf:resource="#fred"/>
</rdf:Bag>
</dc:creator>
and
<dc:creator rdf:resource="#bob"/>
<dc:creator rdf:resource="#fred"/>
Is that the first says that a group of people are the creator (this group
could even be described further if you used something like <rdf:Bag
rdf:resource="#workingGroup">). The second makes two separate statements,
the first asserting that the person identified by #bob is a creator, the
second that the person identified by #fred is a creator.
In such a case all 3 statements could well be true. (BTW: It's worth noting
that none of these statements preclude the possibility that #janet is also a
creator, either as part of the Bag (although a syntax for marking a closed
collection is in the works I hear) or separate to that Bag.)
> And I assume that the RDF primer is also wrong?
>
> "An Alternative (type rdf:Alt) is a collection of resources or literals
> that represent alternative values (typically for a single value of a
> property). For example, an Alternative might be used to specify
> alternative language translations for the title of a book, or to provide
> a list of alternative Internet sites at which a resource might be found.
> An application using a property whose value is an Alternative collection
> should be aware that it can choose any one of the items in the
> collection as appropriate."
It's not wrong, but it's a subtle distinction. If the predicate was defined
to indicate "titles" (plural), or to indicate either a title or a collection
of titles (hence allowing it to be used with either an Alt or without,
though weakening the meaning that the predicate has to do so), then the use
of rdf:Alt would be appropriate.
You can group items together in an Alt, and then reference those items from
statements outside of that Alt. There was an attribute in RDF/XML for doing
so ("forEach" if memory serves), but it was deprecated.
> But I'm still confused. Is RDF M&S, RDF Primer, DCQ/RDF and DumbDown all
> wrong on this, then?
I don't think RDF M&S or RDF Primer differ from what I'm saying on this.
DumbDown still works, but is perhaps being used incorrectly.
I have "overheard" the suggestion that the subtleties of Alt, Bag and Seq
are so great that they should be dropped! (I certainly hope not though, they
are extremely useful despite the hassles they may cause).
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