Ontology: We should discuss about using alphanumerical identifiers for classes

[akleinau]

Description of the issue

It is often listed as a best practice and recommended by the BFO book "Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology" to use alphanumerical identifiers as class names. Human readable names should then be added as labels.

pro:

• versioning and backward compability: a name for a concept can change in a new version of the ontology without its identifier (in databases etc) having to be changed everywhere
• user groups: if people talk about the same concept but can't decide on a main name for it they can both be added as labels for this concept and the people can get there own views showing their prefered label
• better readability of long names: in labels we dont have to use CamelCase so long names like NonRenewableMunicipalWasteFuel would be better readable as "non renewable municipial waste fuel"

contra:

• the file is harder to read without a tool like protege (that will automatically show labels instead of the alphanumerical identifiers)

Workflow checklist

• [x] I am aware of the workflow for this repository

[akleinau]

We decided in the february ontohack to switch to numeric identifiers after some of the heavier ontology changes were made.

• Structure of the identifieres: OEO_[yyyy][xxxx]
  --> yyyy identifies user, 0000 for already existing classes
  --> xxxx unique for each class of the user
• Labels will be used for human readable names and will be changed to lower case and white space instead of CamelCase.
• after the documentation is prepared (#260) all users will change their user settings accordingly and the ontology changed to the new system

[akleinau]

@jannahastings, @stap-m, @l-emele after the powerplant pull request should be a perfect time to switch, do you agree?

My idea for the user identifiers would be to open a list in wiki, give us the 1-4 ones and everyone who want's to contribute too can add himself there?

[jannahastings]

Yes that's a good idea.

Technically I will be ready to make the change to the existing ontology content e.g. early next week.

[akleinau]

going after the time of first commit (which will line up nicely with the way newcomers will get their numbers) this would be:
0 - pre-numerical classes
1 - @l-emele
2 - @stap-m
3 - @akleinau
4 - @jannahastings

[akleinau]

then I'd like to use the days till then to make some small pull requests that should be no-brainers :)
(at least if I find some)

[l-emele]

@akleinau , as you did so many changes I'd be also okay if you are our number one :)

[akleinau]

thank you, but I'm happy with 3, especially because my changes are more collaborative efforts as I have no idea of energy systems and modeling :)

[akleinau]

concerning branches, I just deleted some, the rest is:
dev - will be changed
master - can be ignored
contribute-PK, powerplant - have to be merged
readme, travis - don‘t change oeo, can stay active
geo, sector - have to be reworked anyway so won‘t be (ever) merged but should stay active for inspiration, especially sector

so no deep problems with branches :)

[jannahastings]

Great! I will just wait for the PR #306 to be merged and then I will make the changes.

[akleinau]

merged :)

[akleinau]

The wiki page: https://github.com/OpenEnergyPlatform/ontology/wiki/Numerical-Identifiers