search

tdwg / vocab

Vocabulary Maintenance Specification Task Group + SDS + VMS
11 stars 6 forks source link

Criterion for assessing the need for a change to a vocabulary #13

Closed baskaufs closed 8 years ago

baskaufs commented 9 years ago

The Darwin Core Namespace Policy says that term changes and addition should be based on "public demand and consensus". There is no official criterion for assessing "public demand". However, John Wieczorek @tucotuco has articulated on several occasions an unofficial criterion that at least two independent agents must indicate a need for the change/addition. That is, it is not enough that a single person or team see a need for the change/addition. Should this criterion be specifically mentioned in the Vocabulary Maintenance Specification?

The Namespace Policy is not clear about who decides when a proposal should go to public comment. It says that the TAG "will conduct" a 30 day comment period. Does that mean that every proposal merits a public comment period? If not, who decides? The Namespace Policy implies that it is the TAG. In practice, John Wieczorek has initiated public comment for Darwin Core, but in at least one case (the class change proposal), public comment was initiated by Joel Sachs.

The Namespace Policy says that if consensus is reached after a 30 day comment, the proposal should be sent to the Executive for a decision. "Consensus" is a subjective thing but I think in most cases it has been clear whether there was a consensus on most proposals. However, it is not clear who makes the decision that there is consensus. The TAG is implied, but in reality, the TAG has not functioned to the point of actually doing this and the decision for DwC has fallen on John Wieczorek.

baskaufs commented 9 years ago

Blocked on Issue #8

baskaufs commented 8 years ago

Remove block by Issue #8, which is now closed.

baskaufs commented 8 years ago

The draft Vocabulary Maintenance Specification https://github.com/tdwg/vocab/blob/master/maintenance-specification.md includes an explicit description of the series of events that lead up to the adoption of various sorts of changes to a vocabulary (Section 3) and places the responsibility for managing that process on an Interest Group that is charged with the job (Section 2).

It also is explicit about the requirement that at least two independent groups must express a need for the change (the "demand" requirement; Section 3.3.1).