[Obo-discuss] Suggested changes to ChEBI

[Chris M. <cj...@fr...>]

Hi all,

I'm looking at integrating the terms in ChEBI with GO terms. I have a few
suggestions that will make this task easier.

The root term of the chemical ontology should be named 'chemical', not
'chemical_ontology'. Each term should be a concept within the domain of
interest, and the root term should be the most general term.

There are term names in chebi that are present twice with different IDs -
I've attached the list. Each term name should be unique within an ontology
(John, can you add a check to dag-edit to flag warnings here?).

Personaly I don't think it's a good idea to use plural forms in
ontologies - all plural forms should be changed to singular forms. I
understand this will cause problems for cases where the plural has been
used to represent a more general concept (eg zeatin vs zeatins), but I
don't think pluralisation is a good solution here. Perhaps some additional
word suffixed or prefixed onto the more more general or specific form?

The name is sometimes repeated as a [ChEBI] synonym - is this deliberate?

Cheers
Chris