[tdwg-content] [tdwg-tag] DwC change review: geo terms

Sat Sep 10 00:18:34 CEST 2011

Thanks, Flip, for the update.  That page didn't have any links to candidate
standards, working drafts, RDFS/OWL schemas, or other documents that would
explain the current approach.  Is the development of these proposals open to
the public?  I'd love to take a look at it.

Thanks,
Matt

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 2:01 PM, Phillip C. Dibner <pcd at ecosystem.com> wrote:

> Yes, there are semantic efforts underway at OGC.  Some of them are reaching
> a degree of maturity, e.g. GeoSPARQ, an extension of the SPARQL query
> language ( http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/groups/geosparqlswg ).
>  Other, more recent efforts are building upon the base classes defined by
> GeoSPARQL.
>
> Flip
>
> On Sep 9, 2011, at 2:17 PM, Hilmar Lapp wrote:
>
> > (Sorry if you receive this twice - John asked to repost here.)
> >
> > Where is adopting these terms now going to put us with respect to OGC
> standards, which, I think, will ultimately be more authoritative than an
> informal W3C vocabulary.
> >
> > I don't have enough insight into OGC standards for vocabularies for
> describing geolocations, but I have also learned earlier this year from Flip
> Dibner (copied here) that there are efforts underway within OGC to create
> RDF vocabularies (presumably corresponding to OGC's XML standards?).
> >
> >       -hilmar
> >
> > On Sep 6, 2011, at 6:33 PM, Javier de la Torre wrote:
> >
> >> Hi John,
> >>
> >> As you mention from previous discussion I would still adopt option
> number 1 as I believe there is enough tools out there to handle
> transformations. The current situation I think is much worst on the consumer
> part and I think is time to think more on data use than on data
> mobilization.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >>
> >> Javier.
> >>
> >> On 07/09/2011, at 00:00, John Wieczorek <tuco at berkeley.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Perhaps my message was too long for easy digestion and action, as I've
> >>> received no responses. I will take the initiative to initiate option
> >>> 3. No further action from the TAG on this at this point. Be prepared
> >>> though, VOTES by the TAG on publicly resolved issues are forthcoming
> >>> very soon.
> >>>
> >>> On Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 9:34 AM, John Wieczorek <tuco at berkeley.edu>
> wrote:
> >>>> Hi TAGers,
> >>>>
> >>>> I am deep in the review process for the proposed changes to Darwin
> >>>> Core, trying to do due diligence. Some of the change requests are
> >>>> challenging to summarize to determine if there is consensus, in spite
> >>>> of, or because of the discussions. One of the requests on which I’d
> >>>> like some TAG help before proposing a solution is the request for the
> >>>> inclusion of the terms from the geo: namespace
> >>>> (xmlns:geo="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#").
> >>>>
> >>>> Support in tdwg-content for this request comes from multiple
> >>>> independent sources. There has been a long history of discussion
> >>>> (http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-tag/2010-August/000050.html),
> >>>> beginning in anticipation of the 2010 TDWG BioBlitz. The proposal has
> >>>> gone through the minimum 30-day public review and discussion on the
> >>>> forum tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org:
> >>>>
> >>>> http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/2011-July/002581.html
> >>>>
> >>>> There seems to be general support for the additions, however, after
> >>>> reviewing the discussions and the references. I have the following
> >>>> observations/concerns:
> >>>>
> >>>> 1) The discussions presented geo:lat and geo:lng as W3C standards.
> >>>> This is not actually the case. These terms were created by the W3C
> >>>> Semantic Web Interest Group in 2003. The documentation for these terms
> >>>> (http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/) states:
> >>>>
> >>>> "This document was created as an informal collaboration within W3C's
> >>>> Semantic Web Interest Group. This work is not currently on the W3C
> >>>> recommendation track for standardization, and has not been subject to
> >>>> the associated review process, quality assurance, etc. If there is
> >>>> interest amongst the W3C membership in standards work on a
> >>>> location/mapping RDF vocabulary, this current work may inform any more
> >>>> formal efforts to follow."
> >>>>
> >>>> These terms do seem to have widespread usage in the semantic web.
> >>>> Should we be concerned that they are not part of a standard?
> >>>>
> >>>> 2) geo:lat and geo:lng are not semantically equivalent to the existing
> >>>> Darwin Core terms decimalLatitude and decimalLongitude, which have
> >>>> been a part of the Darwin Core since it 2003 (or before, if we ignore
> >>>> the missing Datum term in earlier versions). The addition of the geo:
> >>>> terms as a third set of geolocation terms for Darwin Core raised
> >>>> concerns about confusion. I share this concern. An option would be to
> >>>> adopt these terms and deprecate dwc:decimalLatitude, dwc:Longitude,
> >>>> and dwc:geodeticDatum. Data that would have occupied these terms would
> >>>> go instead to dwc:verbatimLatitude dwc:verbatimLongitude, and
> >>>> dwc:verbatimSRS. I see a couple of problems with this. First, most of
> >>>> the time the data in the decimal coordinate fields are not the
> >>>> verbatim originals, so this would be a misuse of the Darwin Core
> >>>> terms. Second, this change would make it more difficult for data
> >>>> consumer’s to use existing georeferences. Here’s how. Right now the
> >>>> verbatim fields are meant to hold the original coordinate information,
> >>>> which means they have a wide variety of content - everything from UTMs
> >>>> to custom-encoded coordinates, in any conceivable format. Meanwhile,
> >>>> the data in the decimal coordinates fields can be much more readily
> >>>> transformed into the desired standardized spatial reference system
> >>>> afforded by the geo: terms, because the values are at least
> >>>> standardized on decimal degrees and only a datum transformation has to
> >>>> be done on them.
> >>>>
> >>>> Do we abandon the dwc: terms decimalLatitude, decimalLongitude, and
> >>>> geodeticDatum? Do we abandon them now? Do we build the simplest
> >>>> possible tools necessary for anyone to do the transformations so that
> >>>> these terms are no longer needed? If so, do we wait until those tools
> >>>> exist?
> >>>>
> >>>> 3) Additional concern was expressed that the term geo:alt should also
> >>>> be added. No one has made a formal request for this. However, if the
> >>>> other geo: terms were adopted, it might be silly not to adopt this one
> >>>> as well. Doing so would raise a host of issues similar to those raised
> >>>> for lat and lng.
> >>>>
> >>>> I don’t have a good solution. The best short-term one, in my opinion,
> >>>> is to leave Darwin Core as it is, and to recommend that if
> >>>> applications (or aggregators) want to share “cleansed” point-based
> >>>> georeferences, that they do so with the geo: tags, the values for
> >>>> which they derive through transformations to WGS84 of the DwC decimal
> >>>> coordinates and geodeticDatum.
> >>>>
> >>>> Options:
> >>>>
> >>>> 1) Accept the proposal, adding geo:lat, geo:lng, and geo:alt to the
> >>>> list of recommended terms for DwC.
> >>>>
> >>>> 2) Reject the proposal pending further directed research into a
> >>>> comprehensive solution that considers all geospatial terms in Darwin
> >>>> Core (including footprintWKT, for example).
> >>>>
> >>>> 3) Reject the proposal for now, reopening the public discussion with
> >>>> these concerns.
> >>>>
> >>>> Others?
> >>>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> tdwg-tag mailing list
> >>> tdwg-tag at lists.tdwg.org
> >>> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-tag
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> tdwg-tag mailing list
> >> tdwg-tag at lists.tdwg.org
> >> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-tag
> >
> > --
> > ===========================================================
> > : Hilmar Lapp  -:- Durham, NC -:- informatics.nescent.org :
> > ===========================================================
> >
> >
> >
>
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