Hello John:
I subscribe to all of the issues that you mention in your mail and they are
the reason I and the GHRSST-PP team are having the discussion with CF and it
has been a good one. But it has taken a while to get this far in a sort of
hit and miss approach (which has its benefits for sure). However, it seems
to me that, since there _is_ such a growing dependence on CF, resources
should be found to support the folk who are working beyond the dayjob.
Clearly if there are a lot of frustrated people out there as you say,
something should be done about it. From my perspective such a situation is
one of success (people care and take the time to moan) and stay with the
process. Resources to man a simple secretariat to keep tabs on the list
would be a good start and help to the group I imagine.
However, my experience is that this is harder to do that one might first
expect as the community involved are often reluctant to pass over the baton
to others. This is true of Wikepedia articles just as it is for large
science programs. Transitioning from R&D to the next stage is challenging.
all the best and take care
Craig
2008/4/12 John Graybeal <graybeal at mbari.org>:
> There have been a lot of emails lately, from varying sources, expressing
> frustration with the CF standard names process (and/or Jonathan), and
> implicitly wondering whether the cost is worth the value.
>
> As someone who at times criticizes CF, I'd like to add my voice on its
> behalf. Jonathan should not always have to be the defender of the faith, or
> the process. Although he does so quite well, as in this case.
>
> There have always been a large number of diverse communities using
> vocabularies (whether they actually had a managed list of terms and
> definitions, or not). Even within institutions or communities, finding
> common vocabularies can be difficult or impossible. Agreement on a single
> vocabulary is not always possible, and in these cases, the community always
> has the option of mapping its vocabulary terms to those in CF.
>
> Why use CF standard names at all? Because they serve as a common language
> for translating, or more accurately sharing, many useful concepts. Why does
> the CF vocabulary community have such 'endless' debates about terms? Because
> this is necessary to let CF continue to be the best possible common language
> for its users, who come from many communities. It is never easy to come to
> agreements that are robust and widely endorsed.
>
> For those who think CF is not meeting their needs for exchanging data,
> there are certainly other vocabularies out there, and options for mapping
> them to CF terms. For those who think it isn't a very good vocabulary, I
> encourage you to compare it to other wide-ranging vocabularies for
> scientific parameters -- having done so in a few narrow domains, I claim it
> is noticeably better than almost anything else out there. For those who are
> frustrated with the process, please take some time to consider the
> alternatives, and propose improvements if you think they are warranted.
>
> But most of all, please appreciate the value and interoperability obtained
> by the high number of users of CF standard names, and compare it to the
> relatively low costs incurred by the managers (financial), the contributors
> (time), and the people adding terms (time and frustration). The fact that a
> lot of users are taking on the work of getting their terms into CF will
> hopefully be seen as a sign of its success, and of the importance of adding
> resources for its continued development.
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
> At 11:04 AM +0100 4/12/08, Jonathan Gregory wrote:
> >Dear Craig
> >
> >Yes, I've already said that I agree that your list
> >
> >> surface_temperature (already defined)
> >> sea_water_temperature (for temperatures at depth)
> >> sea_surface_skin_temperature
> >> sea_surface_subskin_temperature
> >> sea_surface_foundation_temperature
> >
> >is in the end the best solution we can agree on, although it comes full
> circle,
> >as you said.
> >
> >I am sorry that I subsequently confused this or it got lost by reusing
> this
> >example in the wider debate on what standard names are for, because it's
> a
> >good example. The discussion is important but does not solve any
> immediate
> >problem, so we should go with what you have proposed.
> >
> >I am going to make further comments now, but that doesn't mean I am
> arguing
> >against the above!
> >
> >You are quite right that to serve the community better CF should make its
> >decisions faster. This is a long-standing problem, which partly comes
> from the
> >fact that despite its growing importance, and the fact that it is used by
> many
> >projects (like yours) to which large resources are committed, CF itself
> still
> >has very little dedicated staff effort. It is a common resource which
> benefits
> >many institutions but is paid for by hardly anyone. (That's an even wider
> issue
> >than standard names in general, so doesn't really belong in this thread!)
> >
> >I tried to explain in an earlier posting why I think standard names are
> partly
> >definitions, and why that means they are not just "names". It is because
> the
> >community the data serves is often broader than the one which produces
> the
> >data. What is understood in a smaller community is often not so clear to
> a
> >larger community. That doesn't imply any disrespect to the authority or
> the
> >expertise of the smaller community. I understand that people may feel
> indignant
> >if they think someone else is claiming to describe their data better than
> they
> >can themselves, but that is not the intention. When I have questioned
> standard
> >name proposals, the question is often, "What does that mean?", and then I
> have
> >often made suggestions that the standard name adopted should have
> elements of
> >the *answer* to the question, so that other users will not have to ask.
> They
> >can just look at the metadata and know what the data is. As a data
> analyst, I
> >think this is very important. I don't want to have to spend a lot of time
> >hunting down definitions and documentation to decide which of the
> quantities in
> >a dataset is the one I want to use. I hope that seems reasonable to you.
> >
> >Thank you for persisting with CF.
> >
> >Best wishes
> >
> >Jonathan
>
>
> --
> ----------
> John Graybeal <mailto:graybeal at mbari.org> -- 831-775-1956
> Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
> Marine Metadata Initiative: http://marinemetadata.org || Shore Side
> Data System: http://www.mbari.org/ssds
>
--
Dr Craig Donlon
Director of the International GODAE SST Pilot Project Office
Met Office Hadley Centre,
Fitzroy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1392 886622 Mob:07920 235750
Fax:+44 (0)1392 885681
Skype ID:crazit
SkypeIn: +44 0141 416 0882
E-mail: craig.donlon at gmail.com
http://www.ghrsst-pp.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/pipermail/cf-metadata/attachments/20080412/03622d05/attachment-0002.html>
Received on Sat Apr 12 2008 - 14:55:37 BST
