[tdwg-content] Proposed changes to Darwin Core
Anne Thessen
annethessen at gmail.com
Wed Jul 23 14:56:13 CEST 2014
Hello all
I agree with Rob. I've actually been doing a lot of thinking about this
sort of thing (2nd point). I am definitely "in" for any attempt to
organize meetings and funding.
anne
On 7/23/2014 8:51 AM, Robert Guralnick wrote:
>
> Hi everyone --- Excuse the brevity, but I am headed out for an annual
> vacation and will attempt (and likely fail) to ignore email for the
> next week. However, the topics raised by Joel and Steve are important
> and I do have some quick comments, separated by topic (one on term
> issues and one on governance).
>
> 1) To my surprise, I am no longer in favor of a DwC:Organism addition
> and attendant other changes (if I ever was in favor). I think this
> reflects a shift in my thinking -- I have come to see the Darwin Core
> as really about biocollections and material samples or observations,
> making the specification of "individuals" or "organisms" less a
> compelling need. I feel that "individual/organism" is actually
> fraught with a fair amount of peril, when knowledge modeled. What we
> really deal with are samples --- the individual/organism is there
> ephemerally within the context of the collecting event, and sometimes
> not even then (road kill). I just can't see why we need it at this point.
>
> 2) Steve has a very good point about TAG and decision making. The
> larger question is "what to do". Here is a thought. A few of us have
> agreed to weekly (virtual) meetings about BCO and DwC integration
> (John Wieczorek, John Deck, Ramona Walls, myself and a couple others)
> --- we haven't always come through but setting aside the time is
> important and useful. Why not reconstitute the TAG or at least a
> subgroup and bring BCO/DwC kinds of activities together more firmly.
> We could open those meetings more broadly to deal with continuing
> issues with DwC, while also keeping our eye on BCO and its growth. I
> also see a real opportunity here (and I am not the only one) for
> funding this kind of work, in the context of NSF's RCN (Research
> Coordination Network) framework. We clearly have the need and such
> funding could allow us the chance to meet more regularly than once a
> year. If there is interest, I am willing to consider the work needed
> to make this happen.
>
> Best, Rob
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 6:10 AM, Steve Baskauf
> <steve.baskauf at vanderbilt.edu <mailto:steve.baskauf at vanderbilt.edu>>
> wrote:
>
> Thanks for bringing these issues up, Joel.
>
> To clarify the situation, the changes that have been proposed
> should be
> handled in accordance with the Darwin Core term change policy [1]. If
> I'm interpreting that policy correctly, the changes would fall in
> sections 3.3 or 3.4. The proposed changes that redefine existing
> terms
> (like dwc:Occurrence) would be "Semantic changes in Darwin Core terms"
> (section 3.3) and the changes that create new terms (like
> dwc:LivingSpecimen) would be "Addition of Darwin Core term
> declarations
> to exisiting Darwin Core namespaces (section 3.4). The exact
> procedure
> in both sections is a bit murky because it presupposes a functioning
> Technical Architecture Group (TAG) that judges the merit of the
> proposal
> and (at least in the case of 3.4) calls for a request for comments
> (RFC). Historically, there has not been a functioning TAG, so John
> Wiecorek (shepherd of Darwin Core) has traditionally made the call
> for a
> 30 day RFC on tdwg-content. He hasn't done that yet, to my knowledge.
> I don't think that the Term Change Policy actually requires action by
> the Executive, but I think that in actuality it has made the final
> call
> since there hasn't been any TAG to do the job.
>
> I have to say that I'm puzzled by the lack of motion on this proposal.
> The usual reason for failure of proposed changes is "lack of
> consensus". However, in this case, there seemed (to me) to be
> widespread support for these changes at the Documenting Darwin Core
> workshop at the TDWG meeting in November. In the discussions held in
> December by the ad hoc group (whose purpose was to hammer out the
> actual
> proposed definitions), there was a shocking degree of consensus about
> everything except for the name of the one class (organism/individual).
> So I don't understand why the proposed changes haven't gone to public
> comment months ago.
>
> The DwC RDF Guide [3] (which Joel mentioned) has similarly languished
> for a year now, having already undergone numerous revisions and having
> been endorsed by the task group that created it. The only reason I
> haven't pushed harder on moving it forward is that it would need to be
> revised if the proposed DwC class changes were adopted. So lack of
> progress on the proposed term changes is holding up progress on
> that as
> well.
>
> The real problem here is that the TDWG standards maintenance
> process is
> broken. We need a clear and usable system that covers all of the TDWG
> technical standard vocabularies (i.e. DwC, Audubon Core, and any
> future
> ones). This was discussed in detail in several sessions at the last
> TDWG meeting with some concrete proposals put on the table [4]. It was
> my impression that this issue was very high on the agenda of the
> Executive. However, we are now nine month past that meeting and I
> haven't seen any visible signs that there has been any progress on
> this
> front. Is TDWG actually a standards organization or not? I'm not
> sure
> anymore.
>
> Steve
>
> [1] http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/namespace/index.htm#classesofchanges
> [2] doesn't currently exist in the dwc: namespace; it's in the
> dwctype:
> namespace, which we have proposed to deprecate
> [3] https://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/wiki/DwcRdf
> [4] http://www.gbif.org/resources/2246 plus several in-person meetings
> at TDWG
>
> joel sachs wrote:
> > Hi John,
> >
> > On Tue, 22 Jul 2014, John Wieczorek wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Joel,
> >> Is this meant to call everyone's attention to the issues?
> >
> > Yes, that is the purpose of this email. My understaning of the
> process
> > for changing the standard is that proposals are entered into the
> Issue
> > Tracker, followed by a 30 day period of public comment, followed by
> > the editor bringing the proposals to the executive for ratification.
> > So, technically, tdwg-content does not need to be notified prior to
> > ratification. (Is that correct?) Regardless, as much as I want
> to see
> > our proposals ratified, I don't want it to happen under the
> radar, and
> > so thought it made sense to inform the list.
> >
> >> To elicit further
> >> commentary? Or to make a specific proposal for action?
> >>
> >> I suspect it is to put forward your positions on issue 205. If
> that is
> >> correct, I propose bringing those positions here for discussion.
> >
> > I don't mind airing my positions on Issue 205, but would prefer
> not to
> > lead off with that. My questions and suggestions regarding the
> > proposed dwc:Organism class are not as important as our proposal to
> > deprecate the dwctype namespace, and to remove the phrase "The
> > category of information pertaining to" from the definitions of
> the dwc
> > classes.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Joel.
> >
> >
> >
> >> Cheers,
> >>
> >> John
> >>
> >>
> >> On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 5:16 PM, joel sachs
> <jsachs at csee.umbc.edu <mailto:jsachs at csee.umbc.edu>>
> >> wrote:
> >> Hi Everyone,
> >>
> >> I'd like to direct everyone's attention to issues 204 -
> 226 in
> >> the Darwin Core issue tracker [1]. These issues describe
> >> proposed changes to the Darwin Core standard, and were
> entered
> >> back in January in follow up to the Documenting Darwin Core
> >> workshop held at TDWG 2013. These proposals reflect what the
> >> organizers of that workshop believe to be the consensus
> that was
> >> reached during the workshop's four sessions in Florence.
> >>
> >> The background for this is that, for some time, a number of
> >> TDWGers have been working towards an applicability
> statement to
> >> provide guidance on expressing Darwin Core data using RDF. In
> >> the course of this work, it became apparent that the
> semantics
> >> of Darwin Core itself needed a slight re-think, in order
> to be
> >> usable on the semantic web. The goal was to be
> >> backward-compatible, i.e. to introduce and re-define
> terms in a
> >> way that does not affect the meaning of existing Darwin Core
> >> spreadsheet data, but which provides the semantic grounding
> >> necessary for meaningful RDF. I think this goal has, for the
> >> most part, been realized. If you have examples to the
> contrary,
> >> please share them.
> >>
> >> Steve Baskauf provides a good overview of the proposals
> in Issue
> >> 204. Of all of them, only Issue 205 (the introduction of
> a class
> >> to represent the taxonomically homogenous units that are
> >> described in Darwin Core occurrence data) was contentious,
> >> primarily because we disagreed on a good name for the class.
> >> ("We" refers to the ad-hoc group that worked on
> translating the
> >> notes from the workshop into concrete proposals - John
> >> Wieczorek, James Macklin, Markus Döring, Rich Pyle, Tim
> >> Robertson, Bob Morris, Hilmar Lapp, Steve Baskauf, Gregor
> >> Hagedorn, and myself.) I've mentioned my own concerns as a
> >> comment on that issue.
> >>
> >> There is one proposal that had the support of the group, but
> >> that is not yet entered into the Issue Tracker - the
> deprecation
> >> of dwc:basisOfRecord. The motivation for this proposal is
> that
> >> dwc:basisOfRecord is widely misunderstood and inconsistently
> >> used, coupled with the fact that GBIF currently uses
> >> basisOfRecord with the semantics of the (to be proposed)
> >> dwc:hasEvidence term. However, we have held back on proposing
> >> "hasEvidence", as there remain some unresolved issues
> regarding
> >> how it would be used. This will likely be left as future
> work,
> >> perhaps to be tackled at TDWG 2014.
> >>
> >> Many thanks to all who participated in the workshop, and
> to all
> >> who take the time to review its outcomes.
> >>
> >> Joel.
> >>
> >> 1. https://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/list ["ID" ->
> >> "Sort Down" to see in order]
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> tdwg-content mailing list
> >> tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org <mailto:tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org>
> >> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
> --
> Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer
> Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences
>
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--
Anne E. Thessen, Ph.D.
The Data Detektiv, Owner and Founder
Ronin Institute, Research Scholar
443.225.9185
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