Dear Jonathan,
Yes, I will try to stick it out but I'll have to wait till I have some
more time! I'm glad the question of funding is being addressed and
this at least gives me hope that there might be less burden on all of
us in future. I wonder if the "CF day" at GO-ESSP (or part of it)
could be devoted to thrashing out ideas for funding sources and
agreeing a skeleton proposal? My opinion is that this is more
important than questions of governance etc.
I agree, it is not obvious who should support CF, despite the large
number of beneficiaries. How about a NERC Knowledge Exchange
proposal? The KE Guide for Applicants cites the following example of
a proposal that is in scope for this call:
"Special data management: substantial amounts of data are generated
from research and often published in ways that are not easily
available or meaningful to potential users. Funds are available to
support work to convert the data into a form that can be readily
used."
This isn't exactly what we're after - we're developing the standards
rather than converting the data, but I think there is potential here
for a case if we can frame it correctly and get users on board.
Best wishes,
Jon
On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 11:26 AM, Jonathan Gregory
<j.m.gregory at reading.ac.uk> wrote:
> Dear Jon
>
> I am sorry you are frustrated. I sympathise with your frustrations. We should
> indeed make the website clearer about the instructions.
>
> Your bottom line is correct:
>
>> This all comes down
>> to a lack of time on everybody's part. Is it not time to consider
>> applying for funds to employ more people to be dedicated to CF? I
>> would have thought that the community would strongly support this.
>
> We (the conventions committee and a few others) are pursuing this. I think it
> is essential for the future development of CF that we employ people whose job
> is to work on it. I agree that it should be obvious, but in practice, who in
> "the community" will pay for it? A great many organisations benefit from what
> has been done voluntarily to define CF, but very few of them are likely to be
> eager to support it. They would want to know why it is their responsibility in
> particular to do so, and not someone else's. How would you make a case to NCEO
> or the Met Office, for instance, that they should fund a member of staff to
> work on CF for the benefit of the world?
>
> A change cannot be agreed without detailed text being proposed, because there
> is no-one who has time to work out the detailed text in response to a proposal.
> The original document authors you refer to, such as me, are not employed to
> work on CF, any more than you are. We all have other full-time jobs. There are
> no "developers" behind the scenes to do it for us. It does indeed take hours of
> our time. Many other people have likewise contributed hours of their time to
> developing proposals on trac and the email list. Of course, we all recognise
> that it is a severe problem that none of us has enough time for it.
>
> There is another reason, though, I think, which is that the devil is often in
> the detail. Once something has been agreed in principle, agreeing exactly how
> to do it still requires discussion. Even if we did have people to work on it,
> I think the details would still be debated and decided in public.
>
> Your participation is of course welcome. I do hope you will stick it out!
>
> Best wishes
>
> Jonathan
> _______________________________________________
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> CF-metadata at cgd.ucar.edu
> http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
>
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Jon Blower Tel: +44 118 378 5213 (direct line)
Technical Director Tel: +44 118 378 8741 (ESSC)
Reading e-Science Centre Fax: +44 118 378 6413
ESSC Email: jdb at mail.nerc-essc.ac.uk
University of Reading
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Reading RG6 6AL, UK
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Received on Fri Jun 27 2008 - 05:12:32 BST
