One broad response to these challenges [of knowledge modeling], emphasized by the “formal ontologists,” is to attempt to produce a “once and for all” description of the underlying reality of the subject domains, and to link the types of those subject domains into a standardized upper-level ontology describing the most basic, enduring features of reality. While this approach can hope to minimize the amount of change needed in future iterations, when change is called for it is usually performed manually. Another approach might be characterized by the phrase “dynamic ontology.” On this approach, more effort is placed on automating as much of the design and evolution process as possible rather than on attempting to produce a final description in the initial stages of a project.