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Hilmar,<br>
I've been in class all afternoon so I haven't had time to look
carefully at your edits yet. But I wanted to make one comment about
what you said in your second paragraph. It is part of the nature of a
task group that it have a limited lifespan: the amount of time that it
takes to complete the task which it has been assigned. After that, the
job of maintaining the standard which the task group creates reverts to
the interest group which chartered it (I am paraphrasing here from my
understanding of <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tdwg.org/about-tdwg/process/">http://www.tdwg.org/about-tdwg/process/</a>). So if the
RDF group is actually a Task Group chartered by the TAG, then after its
task is completed, it will fall to the TAG to maintain the product that
it creates.<br>
<br>
The concerns that you raise below include some of the reasons why we
had initially suggested that the group be an Interest Group rather than
a Task Group. An interest group does not have a defined lifespan - it
exists as long as the interest exists. Unlike a Task Group, it does
not have to produce a defined product which
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tdwg.org/about-tdwg/process/">http://www.tdwg.org/about-tdwg/process/</a> implies (but does not
explicitly state) would be a standard of one of the flavors described
in <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tdwg.org/standards/status-and-categories/">http://www.tdwg.org/standards/status-and-categories/</a> (Technical
Specification, Applicability Statement, Best Current Practice, or Data
Standard). <br>
<br>
The reason why we are currently proposing that the group be a Task
Group is primarily because several members of the TAG felt that was the
most appropriate thing. I think that I agree with them. However, I am
still uneasy about several aspects of chartering the group as a Task
Group, namely:<br>
1. I don't really understand exactly who the TAG is (i.e. specifically,
who are the particular people to whom the RDF TG would be accountable?).<br>
2. What precisely is the task whose completion will signal the end of
the life of the Task Group? We have put some benchmarks in the
charter, but none of them include the creation of a standard of any of
the forms I listed above. Is that OK for a Task Group? I don't know.<br>
<br>
I certainly don't want to put a damper on the forward progress of the
group by asking these questions, because I'm excited about the prospect
of getting the group off the ground and because the TDWG meeting is
only weeks away. But at the moment we are engaging in a discussion
within the chartering group and I think it would be appropriate for
some of the TAG members to weigh in on these concerns. If it turns out
that there isn't really any answer to the question "who exactly is the
TAG?" and "what is our task?" then maybe chartering an Interest Group
would be more appropriate than a Task Group.<br>
<br>
Steve<br>
<br>
Hilmar Lapp wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:86E51E18-85E6-4986-A3FA-FFC203D39D3F@nescent.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Joel -
I've made a number of edits. These are in part to put the motivation
into a larger beyond-TDWG context, and in part to make it a little
more future-proof. The charter in places read (to me) more like a
workshop agenda than a charter, thus preempting decisions that the TG
participants might (want to) make to a degree that I wasn't fully
comfortable with. I've tried to make it take a step back.
I also removed the sentence about handing off to the TAG after one
year - while that may be what the participants indeed decide to do
after one year, it's not what I'd want ingrained in the charter, and
also a one-off mindset isn't necessarily what I'd like to start with.
More to the point, if the TG (or whatever its successor(s)) doesn't
maintain those documents, I'm afraid nobody will, and there is plenty
of empirical evidence around the TDWG site to support that.
-hilmar
On Sep 19, 2011, at 3:46 PM, joel sachs wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Greetings everyone,
After some back and forth amongst Steve Baskauf, myself, Greg
Whitbread,
and the executive, we've decided to move forward with an RDF/OWL task
group, convened under the TAG. Our task will be to deliver a document
comprising
i. use cases and competency questions;
ii. well documented examples of addressing those use cases via rdf and
sparql; and
iii. discussion of advantages and disadvantages of the approaches
illustrated by the examples.
Our draft charter is at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/wiki/CharterOfTG">http://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/wiki/CharterOfTG</a>
and we welcome comments, suggestions, and better ideas. One area where
we're still open is the question of whether or not our deliverable
should
be an official Best Current Practice document [1]. The charter
reflects
our current feeling that it should not. After we deliver our "book
of use
cases and examples", options would include being re-chartered by the
TAG
to produce a best practices document, spinning off as a "Semantic Web
Interest Group", or disbanding (either in triumph or despair).
When we were planning to convene as an Interest Group, several of you
accepted our invitation to serve as core members, and we hope that
convening as a Task Group does not change your willingness to do so.
If
you would like to be a core member of the group, and we haven't yet
contacted you, there's a good chance that we will. But don't wait!
Feel
free to volunteer for core membership. (And recall that you don't
have to
be a "core member to" contribute.)
In regards timeline, I'd like to incorporate any feedback we
receive, and
submit the charter to the executive at the end of this week, in
hopes of
being chartered by New Orleans.
Many thanks!
Joel.
1. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tdwg.org/standards/status-and-categories/">http://www.tdwg.org/standards/status-and-categories/</a>
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer
Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences
postal mail address:
VU Station B 351634
Nashville, TN 37235-1634, U.S.A.
delivery address:
2125 Stevenson Center
1161 21st Ave., S.
Nashville, TN 37235
office: 2128 Stevenson Center
phone: (615) 343-4582, fax: (615) 343-6707
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu">http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu</a>
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