[CF-metadata] proposed rules for changes to CF conventions

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 08:02:02 +0100

Dear all

I am pleased to say that we have reached agreement on the rules for making
changes to the CF conventions. All the members of the conventions committee
have voted Yes to the rules, in some cases after discussion and revision. It
has been more than three weeks since any further substantial changes were
suggested. Thanks to all who contributed to the discussion. Below is the final
version, which will be put on the CF website. Of course, if it is should turn
out in coming months that these rules of procedure don't work properly, we
can revise them. However, I think that with these rules we are now in a much
better position, because we have decided how to make decisions! This means we
should be able to tackle several outstanding issues which have been discussed
on the email list over past months and years, but subsequently drifted into
limbo because we had no procedure for reaching a conclusion.

Best wishes

Jonathan


New proposals are to be made on trac using the template, including verbatim
changes proposed to the text of standard document and the conformance
document.

A member of the conventions committee, or another suitably qualified person,
volunteers to moderate the discussion. If no-one volunteers, the chairman of
the committee will ask someone to do it.

The discussion takes place on trac and all may participate.

The moderator periodically summarises discussion on trac, keeps it moving
forward and tries to achieve a consensus. It is expected that everyone with an
interest will contribute to the discussion and to achieving a consensus during
this stage. During the discussion, if an objection is raised, answered and not
reasserted, the moderator will assume the objection has been dropped. However,
since consensus is the best outcome, it will be helpful if anyone who
expresses an objection explicitly withdraws it on changing their mind or
deciding to accept the majority view.

It will be helpful if a test netCDF file is provided as early as possible
during the discussion. However, several variants of the proposal may be
discussed, and the proposer may not be able to provide test netCDF files for
all of them.

When three weeks have passed with no contributions being made, the moderator
should attempt to move toward a decision on the proposal by summarising the
discussion outcome and indicating the outcome as consensus, near consensus, or
not near consensus (see below) on making the proposed change. Since several
versions of the proposal might have been discussed, the summary should make
clear which one, if any, would be adopted. The moderator will then invite
further comment on the proposal, as summarised. If futher comments are made
i.e. the discussion restarts, this step is repeated.

Once the summary has been made, if the test netCDF file does not yet exist, it
must be created (unless the summary suggests the proposal should be rejected).
When three weeks have passed with no contributions following a summary, and
providing a test file exists (if appropriate), a decision is reached in one of
the following ways:

Consensus: Accept the proposal if there is no outstanding objection, and at
least three contributors have expressed support for it, including at least two
members of the conventions committee. If the moderator personally expresses
support, he or she can be counted among the supporters.

Near consensus: If the conditions for consensus are not met but the
moderator's summary is that consensus has nearly been achieved, accept the
proposal if all, or all but one, of the conventions committee vote in favour
of it. The moderator will call for votes and all members should vote.

Not near consensus: No change to standard.

The trac ticket is then closed by the moderator stating the outcome.

If the change is accepted, the standard document should be updated, the CF
convention version number incremented, and the conformance document updated.

The author of the proposal should be added to the list of contributing authors
of the CF convention.

At this point, the change is shown in the CF documents as provisional, but it
will not be revoked unless subsequent testing shows it to be flawed. In rare
circumstances, unforeseen issues may arise during testing that could lead the
standards committee to decide by unanimous opinion to revoke the provisional
change.

Provisional status lasts until at least two applications have successfully
interpreted the data in the test or some other netCDF file following the new
convention. The Unidata libcf and the NCAS CF checker would be sufficient to
meet this requirement. If other applications are to be used, the conventions
committee must be satisfied that they are suitable.

Once the testing is successful, the CF documents should again be updated to
remove the provisional status, and the version number incremented again. If
the testing is not successful, the change is revoked.

All versions of the standard and conformance document should be kept available
online, with their trac tickets and a history of changes.
Received on Thu Aug 02 2007 - 01:02:02 BST