you are right, in part. Although the SDD activity is undertaken by taxonomists, it extends beyond the core of taxonomy and nomenclature to delineation and description of the objects themselves (taxa mostly, to a lesser extent specimens).

This is the part I'm having trouble understanding. What is being "Described" are characters....correct? While it is true that researchers have traditionally used character descriptions as a "short-hand" attempt to delineate taxonomic concepts; the bottom line is that characters are intrinsically part of actual living, breathing (respirating) physical beings -- not the concepts (represented by names) that are intended to circumscribe a set of individual organisms deemed to belong to a common taxon. When a taxonomist describes a character in the context of a taxon concept, what is really being asserted is that the character as described is shared by the primary type specimen of the name used to represent the concept, as well as the primary type specimens of any/all names deemed to be synonymous, as well as a wide swath of other individual organisms, a tiny fraction of which have been collected and curated in Museums; the vast majority of which live out their lives in their natural environment. In my mind, characters belong to individual organisms -- to associate them directly with taxon concepts (by way of the implied existence of individual organisms that share the character) is merely a short-hand convenience.

Maybe this is getting off track, but my basic point is that if "SDD" is to be qualified in any way, I think it should be qualified in terms of general biology, or biological objects; not necessarily taxonomy.

we we may be getting into the philosophical realm here...

Dear God, no!.... :-)

Our Rainforest Key project actually scored recorded individual specimens for each taxon... most DELTA and LUCID implementations amalgamate and abstract this to the level of taxon or taxon concept and score at this level...

of course, SDD should ideally handle both approaches...

I agree...but in my optimized view of the data management world, I'd like to see characters linked with taxa via implied (if not real) specimens, even if no specific physical specimen can be cited. But if this is getting too philosophical for the issue at hand, I'll gladly step back to my previous status of quiet observer, so as not to clutter the list with tangential issues.

...

Ultimately, this is about a Standard for Structured Data to Describe Biological Objects -- isn't it?

I think that is what we are talking about... you could leave out 'structured data' too and it will still make sense...

SDBO? (Standard for Description of Biological Objects)

DBOML? (Description of Biological Objects Markup Language)

BODML? (Biological Object Description Markup Language)

None very sexy, though...

Aloha, Rich