[SEEK-Taxon] Re: LC/TCS - How many schemas?

[Jerry Cooper]

In response to Roger's question I have three specific questions for
those who have been working on LC.

1) do you think that LC now identifies a significant proportion of
nomenclatural elements and relationships across all codes?
2) have you agreed a boundary for including names that lie outside the
code, but which have a 'nomenclatural' linkage to names considered
within the codes?
3) is it true to say that most current LC debate is about packaging and
not content?

It seems to me that if the answer to these three questions is 'yes', or
even 'nearly', then we have sufficient scope and quality assurance. I
also believe, that in this group at least, we all understand the
significant issues around taxon concepts well enough to move forward
from the current rhetoric.

Jerry



>>> Roger Hyam <roger at hyam.net> 3/03/2005 2:25:58 a.m. >>>
Hi everyone on the cc list!

I have thought long and hard about this and followed the debate with 
interest. There seem to be quite a few people who are very close to 
agreement on most things.

 From the point of view of an implementor I have a rather simple and 
possibly naive question:

-------------------------------------------------------
As regards nomenclature do we need to model everything (i.e. all 
possible nomenclatural constructs) in the schema?

If YES - When do we know we have finished designing it?

If NO -  What can we leave out or relegate to a simple notes field?
-------------------------------------------------------

There are 4 variables in any software project

1) Scope - what does the thing do.
2) Resources - how many people, machines etc.
3) Timescale - when do you want it by.
4) Quality - does it do what it says in the scope correctly.

In our case Resources are limited as not all experts can spend all
their 
time on it. Timescale should be urgent as the things we are trying to 
record have a growing tendency to become extinct. Quality should always

be 100%. The only thing we can manage here (as is usual in such 
projects) is Scope. Hence the above question.

If we could take a decision as to whether we will model everything then

we can start working on how we know when we have finished or what we 
will leave out.

I hope you will excuse my rather blunt approach.

Roger

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