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. <div>
<br></div><div>Thanks,</div><div>Matt<br><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 2:01 PM, Phillip C. Dibner <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:pcd@ecosystem.com">pcd@ecosystem.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">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 ( <a href="http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/groups/geosparqlswg" target="_blank">http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/groups/geosparqlswg</a> ). Other, more recent efforts are building upon the base classes defined by GeoSPARQL.<br>
<br>
Flip<br>
<div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
On Sep 9, 2011, at 2:17 PM, Hilmar Lapp wrote:<br>
<br>
> (Sorry if you receive this twice - John asked to repost here.)<br>
><br>
> 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.<br>
><br>
> 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?).<br>
><br>
> -hilmar<br>
><br>
> On Sep 6, 2011, at 6:33 PM, Javier de la Torre wrote:<br>
><br>
>> Hi John,<br>
>><br>
>> 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.<br>
>><br>
>> Best,<br>
>><br>
>> Javier.<br>
>><br>
>> On 07/09/2011, at 00:00, John Wieczorek <<a href="mailto:tuco@berkeley.edu">tuco@berkeley.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>>> Perhaps my message was too long for easy digestion and action, as I've<br>
>>> received no responses. I will take the initiative to initiate option<br>
>>> 3. No further action from the TAG on this at this point. Be prepared<br>
>>> though, VOTES by the TAG on publicly resolved issues are forthcoming<br>
>>> very soon.<br>
>>><br>
>>> On Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 9:34 AM, John Wieczorek <<a href="mailto:tuco@berkeley.edu">tuco@berkeley.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
>>>> Hi TAGers,<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> I am deep in the review process for the proposed changes to Darwin<br>
>>>> Core, trying to do due diligence. Some of the change requests are<br>
>>>> challenging to summarize to determine if there is consensus, in spite<br>
>>>> of, or because of the discussions. One of the requests on which I’d<br>
>>>> like some TAG help before proposing a solution is the request for the<br>
>>>> inclusion of the terms from the geo: namespace<br>
>>>> (xmlns:geo="<a href="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#" target="_blank">http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#</a>").<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Support in tdwg-content for this request comes from multiple<br>
>>>> independent sources. There has been a long history of discussion<br>
>>>> (<a href="http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-tag/2010-August/000050.html" target="_blank">http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-tag/2010-August/000050.html</a>),<br>
>>>> beginning in anticipation of the 2010 TDWG BioBlitz. The proposal has<br>
>>>> gone through the minimum 30-day public review and discussion on the<br>
>>>> forum <a href="mailto:tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org</a>:<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> <a href="http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/2011-July/002581.html" target="_blank">http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/2011-July/002581.html</a><br>
>>>><br>
>>>> There seems to be general support for the additions, however, after<br>
>>>> reviewing the discussions and the references. I have the following<br>
>>>> observations/concerns:<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> 1) The discussions presented geo:lat and geo:lng as W3C standards.<br>
>>>> This is not actually the case. These terms were created by the W3C<br>
>>>> Semantic Web Interest Group in 2003. The documentation for these terms<br>
>>>> (<a href="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/" target="_blank">http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/</a>) states:<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> "This document was created as an informal collaboration within W3C's<br>
>>>> Semantic Web Interest Group. This work is not currently on the W3C<br>
>>>> recommendation track for standardization, and has not been subject to<br>
>>>> the associated review process, quality assurance, etc. If there is<br>
>>>> interest amongst the W3C membership in standards work on a<br>
>>>> location/mapping RDF vocabulary, this current work may inform any more<br>
>>>> formal efforts to follow."<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> These terms do seem to have widespread usage in the semantic web.<br>
>>>> Should we be concerned that they are not part of a standard?<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> 2) geo:lat and geo:lng are not semantically equivalent to the existing<br>
>>>> Darwin Core terms decimalLatitude and decimalLongitude, which have<br>
>>>> been a part of the Darwin Core since it 2003 (or before, if we ignore<br>
>>>> the missing Datum term in earlier versions). The addition of the geo:<br>
>>>> terms as a third set of geolocation terms for Darwin Core raised<br>
>>>> concerns about confusion. I share this concern. An option would be to<br>
>>>> adopt these terms and deprecate dwc:decimalLatitude, dwc:Longitude,<br>
>>>> and dwc:geodeticDatum. Data that would have occupied these terms would<br>
>>>> go instead to dwc:verbatimLatitude dwc:verbatimLongitude, and<br>
>>>> dwc:verbatimSRS. I see a couple of problems with this. First, most of<br>
>>>> the time the data in the decimal coordinate fields are not the<br>
>>>> verbatim originals, so this would be a misuse of the Darwin Core<br>
>>>> terms. Second, this change would make it more difficult for data<br>
>>>> consumer’s to use existing georeferences. Here’s how. Right now the<br>
>>>> verbatim fields are meant to hold the original coordinate information,<br>
>>>> which means they have a wide variety of content - everything from UTMs<br>
>>>> to custom-encoded coordinates, in any conceivable format. Meanwhile,<br>
>>>> the data in the decimal coordinates fields can be much more readily<br>
>>>> transformed into the desired standardized spatial reference system<br>
>>>> afforded by the geo: terms, because the values are at least<br>
>>>> standardized on decimal degrees and only a datum transformation has to<br>
>>>> be done on them.<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Do we abandon the dwc: terms decimalLatitude, decimalLongitude, and<br>
>>>> geodeticDatum? Do we abandon them now? Do we build the simplest<br>
>>>> possible tools necessary for anyone to do the transformations so that<br>
>>>> these terms are no longer needed? If so, do we wait until those tools<br>
>>>> exist?<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> 3) Additional concern was expressed that the term geo:alt should also<br>
>>>> be added. No one has made a formal request for this. However, if the<br>
>>>> other geo: terms were adopted, it might be silly not to adopt this one<br>
>>>> as well. Doing so would raise a host of issues similar to those raised<br>
>>>> for lat and lng.<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> I don’t have a good solution. The best short-term one, in my opinion,<br>
>>>> is to leave Darwin Core as it is, and to recommend that if<br>
>>>> applications (or aggregators) want to share “cleansed” point-based<br>
>>>> georeferences, that they do so with the geo: tags, the values for<br>
>>>> which they derive through transformations to WGS84 of the DwC decimal<br>
>>>> coordinates and geodeticDatum.<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Options:<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> 1) Accept the proposal, adding geo:lat, geo:lng, and geo:alt to the<br>
>>>> list of recommended terms for DwC.<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> 2) Reject the proposal pending further directed research into a<br>
>>>> comprehensive solution that considers all geospatial terms in Darwin<br>
>>>> Core (including footprintWKT, for example).<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> 3) Reject the proposal for now, reopening the public discussion with<br>
>>>> these concerns.<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Others?<br>
>>>><br>
>>> _______________________________________________<br>
>>> tdwg-tag mailing list<br>
>>> <a href="mailto:tdwg-tag@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-tag@lists.tdwg.org</a><br>
>>> <a href="http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-tag" target="_blank">http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-tag</a><br>
>> _______________________________________________<br>
>> tdwg-tag mailing list<br>
>> <a href="mailto:tdwg-tag@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-tag@lists.tdwg.org</a><br>
>> <a href="http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-tag" target="_blank">http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-tag</a><br>
><br>
> --<br>
> ===========================================================<br>
> : Hilmar Lapp -:- Durham, NC -:- <a href="http://informatics.nescent.org" target="_blank">informatics.nescent.org</a> :<br>
> ===========================================================<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
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