Review and contribute

Start with the distinction you know matters

You do not need an ontology editor to say that a report is being confused with its inspection, that two choices overlap or that a rule excludes an ordinary case. Technical specialists can help formalise the distinction. They cannot replace your knowledge of the work, evidence and exceptions that make it important.

You can contribute before there is a draft. A question such as “Which listing does this withdrawn status describe?” is already useful: it identifies a subject and a possible misunderstanding without prescribing a software feature. If you have a candidate page, you can start directly with that page instead.

Choose the question in front of you

• Turn experience into a modelling question

  Start before a candidate exists: move from “our data is wrong” to an answerable question with an ordinary case and a difficult variation.

• Review a definition

  Test what wording includes, excludes or confuses. Compare plausible revisions rather than just choosing a nicer label.

• Review a diagram and its relationships

  Read connections as sentences, then locate a missing version, an unjustified identity or a role without its setting.

• Review choices and mappings

  Find overlap and missing cases; explain when a proposed correspondence loses or invents meaning.

• Test a rule with ordinary and difficult cases

  Establish applicability before judging the result. Say whether the problem lies in a rule, a record or missing evidence.

• Bring evidence others can interpret

  Prepare the relevant passage, source version, purpose and restrictions without overstating what the source proves.

• Read a candidate and compare a change

  Use the actual Property Pack resource page, then a separately labelled fictional revision across the agreement's views.

• Follow feedback, disagreement and revision

  Recognise a reasoned response, understand what changed and keep unresolved meaning visible.

These are working references, not enrolment stages. Use site search to find a familiar subject, Explore the model when you want a distinction explained in more depth, or the separate Ontology modelling route when your task is to make formal modelling decisions.

Where to contribute

The member guide is the maintained home for participation arrangements. It explains working-group discussion and page-specific feedback where comments are available to authorised participants. If you are not a participant, you can express interest in a working group; you do not need to finish this guide first.

Keep the page reference and candidate version with a real review question. An example in this field guide submits nothing, a comment is not a vote, and technical validation does not approve a meaning or release. The candidate-reading scaffold explains which standing to inspect.

Make the case useful without exposing a customer

Use wholly invented names, addresses and circumstances in public examples. Do not quietly carry recognisable details from a live transaction into a “fictional” case. Bring source files only through the authorised intake, with permission and enough context to interpret them.

Disagreement is not necessarily failure. It can reveal a wording problem, a source conflict or different legitimate purposes. Explain both interpretations and their consequences. A useful agreement may retain a distinction rather than require everybody to call different things the same thing.