Hi Stan,
This is more about the decision process than the group itself. It is also in reference to using the DarwinCore for the semantic web.
Roger Hyam and others have stated that we need some set of use cases and test data that people can try.
I think the merits and potential problems of various approaches will be much clearer when there is a set of use cases and a test data set.
In other words, people should demonstrate and support their arguments with real examples.
The alternative is an unending series of debates.
As I said before, the DarwinCore is fine for what is is being used for.
What I am not seeing are real examples of it being used successfully on the semantic web.
Good examples would include demonstrations of useful SPARQL queries on a DarwinCore data set.
The proof will be in the pudding, either it will work fine and do everything people expect or it will not.
The motivation could that those arguments that are not supported by examples lack credibility.
Respectfully,
- Pete
On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 4:24 PM, Blum, Stan SBlum@calacademy.org wrote:
On 11/15/10 11:19 AM, "Peter DeVries" pete.devries@gmail.com wrote: [ ... ]
So in addition to failing to work within the standards of the larger informatics community TDWG*, is failing to demonstrate that it has a working, useful standard.
[...]
DarwinCore is not the only thing TDWG has done, but the DarwinCore is explicitly based on Dublin Core, both in content and in the DCMI approach to maintenance. More over, every TDWG effort in the last decade has been based on some kind of widely used internet standard (XML schema, for example). Are those not part of the larger informatics community?
The second part of the statement is a very narrow opinion. GBIF provides access to more than 200 million organism occurrence records gathered from hundreds of providers, all using TDWG standards. Not working, not useful? Only if your definition of useful includes the qualifier “with semantic web technologies.” Yes, within the semantic web domain, we don’t have anything useful or working.
I think the point of this discussion is to determine what demonstrations and supporting specifications would be appropriate and feasible in the near term. Then we need motivation for a herd of cats.
-Stan
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