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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Back to basics …<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Anyone new to biodiversity informatics (in general) and TDWG
(in particular) might be expected, as a first step, to seek a broad
understanding of the scope of the knowledge domain which is of interest to the
community they’ve just joined. Next, they’re likely to want
to gain an understanding of each of the main concepts and to discover how those
concepts relate to one other. Delving yet deeper, curiosity will lead
them to seek details about features used by the community to characterise each
of those main concepts. So, gradually, it is anticipated that newcomers
will gain an understanding of the meaning associated by their fellow community
members with elements (concepts, features, relationships) within the knowledge
domain. (Those elements are, after all, the chief subjects of discourse
amongst community members.)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>This fantastic voyage of discovery, these first steps into
Aladdin’s Cave, ought to be made easy for any newcomer. Instead,
TDWG presents a dizzying array of perspectives on disparate subsets of elements
within the knowledge domain, often with only cryptic, tenuous links binding
them together. ‘Horses-for-courses’-drivers clearly exist for
these subsets, but where is the common community understanding of where each
element fits into the broader, shared knowledge domain which is TDWG’s
scope?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I fully support any initiative which more effectively leads
newcomers (and not-so-newcomers) to that place: that place where I would hope
to find, in plain expressions devoid of techno-speak, a description of each real
world element (concept, feature, relationship), together with a simple
representation (a label?) by which the TDWG community prefers each to be
referred; that place which evolves, but endures, independently of technological
fashions and particular implementations; that place I can visit to paint a
picture in my mind’s eye of TDWG’s own Aladdin’s Cave.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Lynette Woodburn</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Atlas of Living <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region></span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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