  Ontology development methodologies emphasise knowledge gathering from domain
experts and documentary resources, and knowledge representation using an
ontology language such as OWL or FOL. However, working ontologists are often
surprised by how challenging and slow it can be to develop ontologies. Here,
with a particular emphasis on the sorts of ontologies that are content-heavy
and intended to be shared across a community of users (reference ontologies),
we propose that a significant and heretofore under-emphasised contributor of
challenges during ontology development is the need to create, or bring about,
consensus in the face of disagreement. For this reason reference ontology
development cannot be automated, at least within the limitations of existing AI
approaches. Further, for the same reason ontologists are required to have
specific social-negotiating skills which are currently lacking in most
technical curricula.
