Can I propose that we note but set aside the Taxonomic Hierarchy thread for the moment. In the challenge cases, Challenge 7 will begin to address this issue (in this challenge we will attempt to represent descriptions from a nested set of descriptions e.g. family (genus (species (specimens)))). When this comes up, we will need to address both hierarchy as a way of handling inheritance, and also alternate hierarchies (differing taxonomic opinions). But surely we need to work out how to represent a single description before we tackle a nested set.
Concerning Steve's exemplar drawn from a DELTA butterfly treatment: I've added a few challenges to the challenge cases (number 9 in the attached) specifically designed to address representation of DELTA datasets in the new standard. Personally, I don't think we should start with a DELTA data set as our first challenge, for several reasons:
1. We have agreed several times that it's important not to be canalized by DELTA or any other existing representation, but to keep the existing representations in mind while working. Starting with XDELTA seems to me to increase the risk of canalization 2. Of all the descriptions in the world, 99.9999999% of them are not in DELTA. Probably 99.999% of them are textual (natural language) descriptions. Surely this should form the basis of our first challenge, methinks. 3. Related to 2 above, many (though by no means all) DELTA datasets are already abstractions from the source (a set of natural language descriptions). We should start with the source.
This time I've attached the attachment. Sometime soon we'll put this up on the web instead of flying it around as an attachment.
Cheers - k