Disambiguation is making something unambiguous. For example, there are many [John Smith]?s. However, by writing [John Smith (beer)]?, [John Smith (Labour leader)]?, etc. we can make things clearer.

Even this does not fully identify all the many thousands of John Smiths. An individual user can use their own namespace to say "my friend John Smith": but what if they know two?

They could say [John Smith (London)]? and [John Smith (New York)]?, but what if one moves? Full names can help: [John Maxwell Smith]? but even these are no use when two people have exactly the same name.

Similar problems:

• NameGoldRush

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Solved!

Solved the issue of disambiguation and literal verses object reference in one hit!

So far I can see 3 levels of ambiguity:

Level	Object Representation	Example
User Interface	Words	Jane
XML	Words+Numbers or Numbers	Jane573461532
Database	Words+Numbers or Numbers	4732032845839

User Interface

• Humans need to disambiguate but they shouldn't have to live with display names that are forced on them in anyway. That means many objects may have the same display name and the only way you can tell the objects apart is by seeing what they link to or what links to them (their relationships).

XML

• Here different objects can't have the same name. We'll use unique key values. Sometimes XML is human read so we might want to be kind and make it Words+Numbers rather than just Numbers.

Database

• Same as XML but less likely to be read by humans. Can be optimized for more efficient operation. So, probably just Numbers then.

Example:

Take the triple: person / name / Jane

When entered by the user they get asked: when you said "Jane" did you mean:

• 1 Jane as in triple: Jane / sister / John
• 2 Jane as in triples: Jane / age / 35
  •  and: Jane / friend / Peter
• 3 Jane as in triple: Paul / father / Jane
• 4 None of these.

In each case of 1 to 3 Jane is referring to a different object but has the same display name.

If the user chooses 4 that means that it's a literal because Jane makes no references to any other items.

• Question: is a literal an item that has only one reference to it? A literal turns into an object when 2 or more references are made to it?

There should be options for using quotes to denote literal - makes no reference to any other items. But that should be user definable in their Preference area.