[dwc-mixs] DwC "picklist" extension to MIxS IRIs

Pier Luigi Buttigieg pier.buttigieg at awi.de
Tue Jun 22 15:41:00 UTC 2021


Thanks Tim, this clarifies a great deal.

Measures to make it clear that the URNs (wherever they appear, e.g. on 
documentation pages, lists...) used by legacy systems are not to be 
understood as resolvable or under the control/custodianship of the GSC 
would help.

While technically valid, prefixing URNs with HTTP does indeed set a 
false expectation - anything that can mitigate that would be appreciated.

On the GSC and TDWG side however, it would be very interesting to find 
out how to do this more sustainably by, e.g., sharing vocabulary files 
with all the metadata needed to, e.g., map to ontologies, qualify terms 
with comments, include provenance data, etc

On 22/06/2021 17:18, Tim Robertson wrote:
> Thanks, Pier
>
> Just for a bit of background - you're assuming these are IRIs, but the DwC-A work was all designed at a time when URNs were common and expectations of resolvability weren't as high as today.
> The original design was really just to ensure a globally unique URN was used.
>
> I think the concerns you raise are valid, and especially with the current intent to achieve resolvability for all the w3id.org/... terms.
> We do need a URN though, and I understand there isn't an intention to make resolvable terms for these concepts. The rs.gbif.org namespace has been used for this kind of thing in the past, which might be an alternative option to lower expectations.
>
> Thanks,
> Tim
>
>
>
> On 22/06/2021, 16.02, "dwc-mixs on behalf of Pier Luigi Buttigieg" <dwc-mixs-bounces at lists.tdwg.org on behalf of pier.buttigieg at awi.de> wrote:
>
>      Dear TG, Dear Ramona (GSC CIG), Chris, Bill,
>
>      In our DwC-MIxS mapping activity, we noted a practice to support the IPT
>      to generate "picklists" (for drop-down menus etc) by adding extensions
>      to IRIs.
>
>      This was suggested as a means to link the values to keys in
>      terminology-focused fields.
>
>      You can see the link to the "picklists" in the tracker:
>      https://github.com/tdwg/gbwg/tree/main/dwc-mixs/dwc#vocabularies
>
>      An example is available in [1] and looks like:
>      dc:URI='https://w3id.org/gensc/terms/MIXS:0000005/contigs'
>
>      I'm not quite sure about this and would like your input. To me, it seems
>      like a very strange way to modify an identifier *issued by another
>      standards group* in order to help a tool generate dropdown menu.
>
>      It essential creates a false impression that there's something
>      standardised on the other end of that IRI that may or may not be the case.
>
>      Best,
>
>      Pier Luigi
>
>      [1]
>      https://github.com/tdwg/gbwg/blob/main/dwc-mixs/dwc/vocabulary/contam_screen_input.xml
>
>
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>
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