Minor issues with Contractor Role definition

[gregfowlerphd]

I'm working with the CCO class Contractor Role in an ontology I'm developing, and I believe there are two minor problems with its current definition:

A Role that inheres in an Agent or Group of Agents by virtue of that Agent or Group of Agents entering into a Contract to provide materials or labor to perform a service or complete a task.

The first, and less interesting, problem is that the term 'Contract' is capitalized in the definition, as CCO does with class labels, but there appears to be no class in CCO with that label. (Note: The scope note also suffers from this problem.) The second is that you can enter into all the contracts you want, but you don't bear a contractor role until you've fulfilled a contract.

Both problems seem like they could be fixed with minor changes to the definition (and the scope note).

[BrendaBraitling]

Capitalization by convention problem

@gregfowlerphd as we are working to standardize CCO, I took a quick look at capitalization and the term contract.

Most of the skos entries in CCO are careful to use lower case if the word "contract" is used. However, many of the skos statements throughout CCO are using capitalized words which are not CCO Classes.

If the capitalization is a problem within the skos, this seems to be a systemic editing problem you have discovered.

• If terms external to CCO are being used for reference, they should be defined as such.
• If Capitalization is reserved for CCO Classes, then the convention needs to be enforced.

I am not an expert but this could be a usability problem. @cameronmore

[gregfowlerphd]

Looking for suggestions about how to proceed here. I agree with @BrendaBraitling that the capitalization by convention problem extends beyond the Contractor Role class. However, I'd like to open a PR addressing at least the concern about the necessity of contract fulfillment--which was the main concern motivating for the original post--if not also the capitalization by convention problem as it arises for this particular class.

Should my PR address just the first or also the second concern? Should I link the PR to this issue or open a new issue so as to preserve this one as a record that the capitalization by convention problem extends beyond this class? (Obviously, there are also other options and further details to be worked out.)

@cameronmore: Also tagging you here, both because Brenda did so above and in hopes that you might have good advice.

[mark-jensen]

@gregfowlerphd states

you can enter into all the contracts you want, but you don't bear a contractor role until you've fulfilled a contract.

Can you provide evidence for this claim? MY guess is that existence of the role is not dependent on fulfilling a contract, but rather only entering into a formal agreement, ie., a contract, with another party.

I agree there needs to be a clear link to another entity, be it a contract or something else. Did you review the term 'act of contract formation'? Can the role class be defined wrt that one or do we need to introduce a species of ICE for contract? Or both?

[mark-jensen]

@BrendaBraitling This inconsistency has been noted before and its resolution is in discussion. I absolutely agree that there is inconsistency in CCO and that it needs to be addressed.

I am going to create a new issue specific to this problem and tag you as the creator. Thank you!

[gregfowlerphd]

@mark-jensen: I'm not sure what you take to constitute evidence in this context, but hopefully the following counts.

First point: BFO uses roles to deal with sortals like 'contractor' in such a way that someone's a contractor iff they bear a contractor role.

Second point: Consider someone who enters into lots of contracts during the course of their lives but never fulfills any of them. (While I haven't provided a particular example, odds are people like this have existed.) A number of ways of describing such a person might be appropriate--including attempted contractor or scam contractor--depending on the specifics of the case. However, contractor doesn't seem to be one of them.

Putting the two points together: The second point indicates that someone can enter into a contract (even lots of them!) without being a contractor. By the biconditional in the first point, then, someone can enter into a contract without bearing a contractor role. And this indicates that the current definition for Contractor Role is mistaken.

As far as the term 'act of contract formation' goes, my initial inclination is to say that whether the role class can be defined wrt to it depends on the resolution of the dispute above. If entering into a contract is sufficient for bearing the role, then the role class can be so defined. If it isn't, then it can't.

Regardless, I do think it would be beneficial to introduce a subclass of ICE for contract.

[Finn1928]

@gregfowlerphd Assuming the contracts haven't ended, I think this person still has a contractor role. They're just not acting according to their role. The same would apply to any job role. Having a role doesn't imply you're realizing the role.