...

The intention (at least from where I sit) is to incorporate (optional) character lists later - again, once idrefs are implemented.

Our intention exactly. But not *too much* later, given how important interoperability with the large amount of list based data there is. In fact, it will be the next thing we work on. I don't think that a start (including translations back and forth from lists to trees) will be very difficult.

This is encouraging...

The important thing for the SDD group to focus on is how the character list will be specified by SDD, not on the character lists themselves... I really do not want to go there again...

I think Bob's suggestion the we consider ourselves to be working towards a big R Recommendation rather than a 'Standard' is a healthy and non threatening way of bringing more people on board in this exercise.

Can someone remind me... what does SDD stand for?

jim