[tdwg-content] Clarifying the nature of TDWG Standards document categories, was Re: A radical proposal for Darwin Core

[joel sachs]

On Mon, 1 Jul 2013, Steve Baskauf wrote:

<snip>

> To illustrate this with Darwin Core, the single normative (Type 1) RDF document 
> is http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/source/browse/trunk/rdf/dwctermshistory.rdf

</snip>

Steve,

Are you sure that that document is *the* normative Darwin Core? Consider:

i. It is not included in the Download from the Darwin Core Cover Page, 
http://www.tdwg.org/standards/450/
(I admit that this is weak evidence, since every document that is included 
in the download is outdated. So whatever the normative standard is, it's 
not included in the Download from the Darwin Core Cover Page - strange 
but true.)

ii. It does not define any Darwin Core terms. For example, the document 
defines
http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/dwctype/PreservedSpecimen-2008-11-19
and
http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/dwctype/PreservedSpecimen-2011-10-16
but not
http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/dwctype/PreservedSpecimen


I always assumed that the normative standard was defined by
http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/rdf/dwcterms.rdf 
and http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/rdf/dwctype.rdf,
and (perhaps)
http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/ and http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/dwctype/


Could someone please clarify?

Many thanks,
Joel.