A couple of points.

With regard to footnote 1.

1 Attribution and sources for an item datum overides that for a character or taxon, which override that for the treatment as a whole. Attribution for characters and taxa are equivalent and additive.

Don't we also need to say that item data attribution at the specimen level may override that for a character or taxon as a whole? Otherwise, the system has no way of dealing with misidentifications, particularly if some but not all parts have been associated with the wrong ID, as might be frequently encountered in fossils, or when dealing with taxa whose character state definitions are later found applicable for only a specific size range (ie differentially break down at small sizes). Specimen or parts level data/attributions also would presumably be additive, even if potentially contradictory (subject to differences of opinion), would they not?

Statement:

One file will comprise one treatment, the basic unit of which is one or more characters describing one or more taxa or individuals.

If we are to presume nested levels of groupings of descriptor elements, then we need to be able to clearly distinguish data values that are regarded as referring to "individual units" (specimen, species, higher level taxon) at one level, but are "collective" when evaluated at a different level. Not only with the "collation rules" be different for different levels, but may be different depending on whether a given feature (possibly "same feature but defined differently") is regarded as a data item refering to a specific "individual unit", or as a "collective unit". That is, the data item is a representation of data that might apply to a collection, rather than a measurable value that may have a scope no larger than a specific measure of a specific specimen. Perhaps some treatments might include "collections of collections" that would imply a mixing of both situations.

Seems to me we need a means of distinguishing between collective representations and "unit values" (for lack of a better word), if for no other reason than to be able to track which data items apply to particular "features of general interest" (eg. leaves, roots, head, foot, etc) and which taxa are involved (higher-level taxon, species, individuals, parts of individuals). Its not clear to me how the current DDST can be used to associate "basic units" that might be reasonably differentially defined at different "levels of composition" by different investigators. Perhaps we need some general means to assign the "scope" over which the definitions of "unit" apply.

Kevin Thiele wrote:

Dear List'eners

attached find DDST Specifications.htm. See if this works.

Cheers - k

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