[VOTE] restructure date-time value descriptions

[Matt Jones]

After our long discussions about date-time values, and Tim's excellent 
treatises on that subject and units, I think we are coalescing on the 
idea that date-time values are most appropriately modeled as ordinal 
values (the deeper underlying issues with measurementScale 
notwithstanding).  Date-time values are ordered, but we seem to agree 
that one cannot do arithmetic calculations on them without parsing them 
and converting them to an interval scale such as "seconds since 1970".

I have modified the eml-attribute.xsd file (yes, again!) to reflect this 
emerging concensus.  You can see it in cvs at:
 
http://cvs.ecoinformatics.org/cvs/cvsweb.cgi/~checkout~/eml/eml-attribute.xsd?rev=1.93&content-type=text/plain

Using this new schema, a date-time attribute is described in eml like 
this (taken from the eml-sample.xml file):

       <attribute id="att.2">
         <attributeName>year</attributeName>
         <attributeLabel>year</attributeLabel>
         <attributeDefinition>The year the data was collected
         </attributeDefinition>
         <storageType>gYear</storageType>
         <measurementScale>
           <ordinal>
             <dateTimeDomain id="dd.2">
               <formatString>YYYY</formatString>
               <minimum>1944</minimum>
             </dateTimeDomain>
           </ordinal>
         </measurementScale>
       </attribute>

I would like to ask for a vote to determine this issue once and for all 
so we can release EML, especially as we were scheduled to release the 
final version of EML tomorrow!  So, here it is:

VOTE: The final release of EML should include the changes to 
representation of date-time values that were made in revision 1.93 of 
the eml-attribute.xsd file.  This includes moving date-time value 
descriptions to the ordinal measurementScale, and moving the format 
string into the DateTimeDomain description.

You should vote one of the following before the end of business Wednesday:
    Approve: I understand and agree with the date-time change proposal
    Neutral: I am neutral, or don't have a solution to propose
Disapprove: I block this from occurring, and have a solution to propose

If you vote Neutral or Disapprove, it would be great to get comments 
from you as to why (e.g., if you vote neutral just because you haven't 
been following the discussion, it would be good to know that), and 
proposed alternatives.

Project member      Vote
---------------     ---------
Tim Bergsma
Chad Berkley
David Blankman
Matthew Brooke
James Brunt
Scott Chapal
Corinna Gries
Daniel Higgins
Matthew Jones       approve
Chris Jones
Peter McCartney
Ken Ramsey
Mark Schildhauer

Thanks,
Matt

-- 
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Matt Jones                                    jones at nceas.ucsb.edu
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/    Fax: 425-920-2439   Ph: 907-789-0496
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)

Interested in ecological informatics? http://www.ecoinformatics.org
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