Kevin thanks for starting up this list again. Since I joined its been deathly quiet! It makes sense to me to step back from structure initially. I missed the discussions that occured before the silence and wonder if we can go one step further back. Is there somewhere a clear definition of purpose? - who will use this, - to store what types of information and - for what kinds of description (for identification as with DELTA) for cladistics, for publishing to other audiences - to do what (for exchanging data between different databases, as a public format upon which independent applications will run). I'd appreciate it if someone could point me at a summary of your previous deliberations on this. many thanks and best wishes Bob Allkin, Centro Nordestino de Informações sobre Plantas SIDT/PNE, Dep. Botânica, CCB, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brazil CEP 50.670-420 Home Page : http://www.cnip.org.br