Welcome

[Gregor Hagedorn]

Dear Colleagues

I welcome all the new members of the list! Currently 96 people have
subscribed, that is considerably more than I expected. However, only
few people from the NEXUS community have subscribed.

As it should be, the discussion is already in full flow. If those
people who have signed up late want to catch up, please can go to the
web archive (http://usobi.org/archives/tdwg-sdd.html).

Perhaps we should try to add some more structure (Kevin already made
some suggestions), but in any case just keep posting everything you
think relevant.

Regarding the general purpose of this list and the manager (Mauro's
question), I post the welcome message below. Most of you have already
received this, but some early subscribers did not or received an
earlier version.

Separate postings with minutes and a provisional outline will follow.

----------------------------------------

 TDWG-SDD, Discussion List on the Structure of Descriptive Data

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TDWG is the Taxonomic Databases Working Group. The mission of TDWG
can be found at http://www.tdwg.org/. The subgroup "Structure of
Descriptive Data" was started 1998 at the TDWG meeting in Reading. At
the TDWG meeting in Harvard in Oct 1999 it was agreed that the
subgroup should attempt to analyze the requirements for a new standard
for descriptive data. The metaformat for the standard will probably be
based on XML or related formats. It is hoped that this standard
will reach universal recognition to become at some point a successor
to existing standards like DELTA, NEXUS, or XDF.

The purpose of this discussion list is to foster communication and
collaboration among those involved in the creation of a new standard.
The new standard should be carefully drafted and agreed upon by
consensus.

The discussion list provides an email- and www-accessible archive
(available at http://usobi.org/archives/tdwg-sdd.html) so that the
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If you have any suggestion or additions please send them to me!


----------------------------------------------------------
Inst. for Plant Virology, Microbiology, and Biosafety
Federal Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry (BBA)
Gregor Hagedorn                 Net: G.Hagedorn at bba.de
Koenigin-Luise-Str. 19          Tel: +49-30-8304-2220
14195 Berlin, Germany           Fax: +49-30-8304-2203

Often wrong but never in doubt!