Hi Rich,
"Any data object reprsenting an occurrence of a NameString as it appears, or, interpreted as explicit by the data provider, within some form of static documentation."
Fine by me!
May be obvious, intead of explict, for clarity. Explicit is clearer than obviuos, but it may be too restrictive. Usability of data strongly depends on data provider's good will. For wider concept coverage, we shoudn't enforce/require/assume too much to potential providers.
Similarly, we are generally thinking in terms of one "kind" of GUID for Documentation instances.
As ISBN, DOI etc. are expected: they are an abstraction of physical printed matters, just like a taxon conceps is an abstraction of physical specimens in front of a taxonomist.
Therefore, I think there should be only one "kind" of GUID for taxon objects as well -- and the only one that I know of that can broadly accomodate all sorts of subtypes is the generic "NameUsage" instance.
Taxon data object or taxon physical object? If you mean taxon data object, NameUsage (sensu Rich/James, not sensu Jessie) is the most general kind. "Name as concept" principle behind TCS assures that a data object representing a name usage convays at least one concept. It does not exclude subtypes of the kind.
If the question of "How many 'kinds' [domains] of taxon GUIDs should there be?" is beyond the scope of this discussion, then frankly I'm not clear on what sorts of topics fall *within* the scope of this discussion (other than the trusty LSID vs. DOI vs. whatever debate).
It if four (or five) in our system. Publication-ish, Author/Agent-ish, NameString-ish, TaxonCocnept-ish (and Specimen/Observation-ish if it shouldn't be treated as a taxon cocnept containing only one specimen/event: they are singleton taxon cocnept. Note that here I use formal concept, i.e. a pair of intent and extent, rather than Roger seems using only intent). It is only explaining an implementation of taxon concept oriented database. I need to read previous discussions for its implecation in this context.
Cheers, JMS