We are now almost 20 days into the minimum 30-day review period for the 40 changes to Darwin Core proposed on 2021-05-01 (see https://github.com/tdwg/dwc/milestone/14). If this public review is new to you, please refer to https://github.com/tdwg/dwc/wiki/Darwin-Core-Maintenance-Frequently-Asked-Questions.

Of the 40 proposals, one (biome - https://github.com/tdwg/dwc/issues/38) will certainly be deferred to a Task Group for further development. There is currently consensus on 34 of the proposals, and each of these will be recommended for ratification if no indication of dissent arises through the rest of the review period. The status of two proposals (identificationQualifier - https://github.com/tdwg/dwc/issues/244, and the nameUsageIDs - https://github.com/tdwg/dwc/issues/105) is unclear until verification that consensus has been reached. The remaining four proposals (recordedByID - https://github.com/tdwg/dwc/issues/102, occurrenceStatus - https://github.com/tdwg/dwc/issues/339 and its controlled vocabulary - https://github.com/tdwg/dwc/issues/342, and verbatimLabel - https://github.com/tdwg/dwc/issues/32) are controversial. If no evidence of consensus can be reached by the 30-day minimum review period, the controversial proposals will be deferred for later consideration. If it appears that consensus can be reached on any of the controversial proposals, the review period will be extended for an additional 30 days from the time apparent consensus is established (everyone participating in the discussion expresses their satisfaction with the proposed solution). During any extension, all proposals will remain open for commentary. The current status of proposals to date is shown in the table below.

Thank you on behalf of the Darwin Core Maintenance Group