No conflating here Roger. If we want this small scale map to be useful, i.e. used within the domain at any scale, it really has to be useable. This generally means drafting from domain requirements. Just the must haves perhaps but informed at least by a common understanding of what constitutes a major road. Ironically we find that enough detail for data exchange usually requires the larger scale map. Smaller scales being more suited to point to point communications.
I don't really care which way we go on this. It makes sense initially to work back from your existing lsid ontologies which are already being implemented (here at least) and use the more accessible interface to gather feedback and provide a platform for evolution within a broader TDWG context. This is not what we have done in the past.
greg
This is *NOT* what I am interested in building. A good analogy is that of a map. What I am interested in doing is building the a map for the major highways with enough detail in it to enable *machines* (not humans) to do sensible stuff with the data so as to facilitates our understanding of biodiversity. There should only be enough detail in the map to make data exchange work. It may be worthwhile building a big, detailed ontology/map of the biodiversity domain for human consumption and this should inform the machine readable map but I think there is a big danger of conflating (great word) the two. This is what we have done in the past. Anyone want to volunteer to run a wiki that describes the biodiversity informatics domain? This would be a great resource. All the best, Roger
For two reasons:
- It gets us precisely nowhere.
On 14 May 2009, at 04:30, lynette.woodburn@csiro.au wrote:
Back to basics …
Anyone new to biodiversity informatics (in general) and TDWG (in particular) might be expected, as a first step, to seek a broad understanding of the scope of the knowledge domain which is of interest to the community they’ve just joined. Next, they’re likely to want to gain an understanding of each of the main concepts and to discover how those concepts relate to one other. Delving yet deeper, curiosity will lead them to seek details about features used by the community to characterise each of those main concepts. So, gradually, it is anticipated that newcomers will gain an understanding of the meaning associated by their fellow community members with elements (concepts, features, relationships) within the knowledge domain. (Those elements are, after all, the chief subjects of discourse amongst community members.)
This fantastic voyage of discovery, these first steps into Aladdin’s Cave, ought to be made easy for any newcomer. Instead, TDWG presents a dizzying array of perspectives on disparate subsets of elements within the knowledge domain, often with only cryptic, tenuous links binding them together. ‘Horses-for-courses’-drivers clearly exist for these subsets, but where is the common community understanding of where each element fits into the broader, shared knowledge domain which is TDWG’s scope?
I fully support any initiative which more effectively leads newcomers (and not-so-newcomers) to that place: that place where I would hope to find, in plain expressions devoid of techno-speak, a description of each real world element (concept, feature, relationship), together with a simple representation (a label?) by which the TDWG community prefers each to be referred; that place which evolves, but endures, independently of technological fashions and particular implementations; that place I can visit to paint a picture in my mind’s eye of TDWG’s own Aladdin’s Cave.
Lynette Woodburn Atlas of Living Australia
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Roger Hyam Roger@BiodiversityCollectionsIndex.org http://www.BiodiversityCollectionsIndex.org
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