[Ontology-editors] What does the MF ontology represent?

[Amelia Ireland]

Back in Gotham City on 2 Sep 2008, at 03:42, Jane Lomax wrote:

> I'm all for this proposal. I think the exercise of splitting the  
> molecular processes in MF from the molecular 'functions' will in  
> itself be a useful one in improving the broad structure of the node.
>
> David, I think there are more 'dirty' functions (heh) than you  
> think...Amelia and I once had a discussion where we came to the  
> conclusion that the only true molecular processes in MF are  
> catalysis, transporter & regulator and their children (and I agree  
> that 'regulator activity' is probably redundant with the regulation  
> BP terms). I think that's probably still true, will be interested to  
> see!
>
> Should we take this to the Montreal meeting? Or is this something  
> that we can agree on now?

Could this be done in small steps? E.g. classify some/all of the  
"true" functions as is-a bfo:Process first, based on criteria that  
your average GO person can understand without having to venture into  
the territory of words like 'realizables' and 'occurrents' that they  
don't use in everyday life. I think that the full proposal is too big  
and scary, but broken down into small, logical steps, people will be  
able to handle it and see that they're not going to have to undergo a  
huge paradigm shift in either their thinking or working practices.

I definitely think that we should bring up the topic before the  
meeting so that people are aware of the issues and any basic  
misunderstandings can be cleared up without taking up meeting time.

Cheers,
Amelia.

PS: Can I be added to the ontology-editors list?

--
Amelia Ireland
GO Editorial Office
http://www.ebi.ac.uk || http://www.berkeleybop.org
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