Re: Raising some points of concern

Hi Don

I think what we propose to do is to take into consideration the state of the
art in existing vocabularies and practices currently in use, in different
countries and by different communities of users,  and attempt to move
towards  a global standard.

Disaster Management is surely a term in use, and I respect that it is your
preference,
but we have no evidence that it is a standard term adopted universally. The
fact that some of us have used that term until now, is by itself not a good
reason enough for all of us
to base future developments on it without careful evaluation

My personal, informal survey so far has resulted in only you, and now
Gavins, expressing a preference for it, while everybody else seemed to agree
it may not be 'ideal' and that we should seek alternatives.

Its important to take into account what was there before, but it is also
important to be able to move forward, otherwise progress can never be
achieved. Conflicting choice of vocabulary  is the first obstacle to
overcome when creating an ontology, and it's something we'll have to work
on.

Perhaps, a sound methodology would start with a survey all the organisations
that use DM as opposed to, say. EM, and see where we stand with facts in
hand, and then weighting the arguments in favor or against the one or the
other. If this is contentious, I suggest we start with this analysis, then
we can make a more informed, less personal choice

But also please be aware that we cannot have 'lost focus' yet, in the sense
that we are just
exchanig informal views and not yet elaborated our methodology, in fact we
are still waiting to formalize a plan, afaik, and decide how to best go
about things

Whatever way you feel, I hope there will be room for everybody to contribute
their expertise, even if sometimes consesus means leaving our own personal
preferences behind..

Watch this space, and look forward to your constructive support and expert
input along the way

cheers

Paola


On 6/23/07, Don Cameron <rural.life@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> As an early participant in this process and seemingly one of the few
> actual
> domain representatives here, I feel it appropriate to support Gavins
> concerns. The reason I have not contributed lately is I am likewise
> disillusioned and feel this initiative has lost direction and focus -
> particularly with respect to the originally stated objectives/deliverables
> (repeated below for clarity).
>
> 1 - A current state-of-the-art of vocabularies used in the crisis/
> disaster/emergency/resilience sector.
> 2 - Towards an interoperability framework for the crisis/disaster/
> emergency/resilience sector
>
> It would appear the very well defined, accepted and adopted vocabularies
> of
> our domain are now deemed insufficient for some members of this group, who
> instead seemingly prefer to invent terms of reference - i.e. Why do you
> wish
> to rename the globally accepted term "Disaster Management" to something
> else? Also: "we need to review terms one by one, and adopt them as
> proposed
> by existing resources, or amend them for w3 adoption" -and- "since the
> ontology is meant to enable a very different type of emergency response
> than
> has been practiced previously". With all due respect, this group has
> nowhere
> near the expertise, authority, or credibility to 'review or amend' the
> language of the disaster management domain or to advise on best practice
> emergency response. Who here has managed a large scale disaster response
> effort? It is unreasonable to expect the disaster management community to
> accept recommendations unless we at least appear to acknowledge the
> expertise within the domain.
>
> My hope is ego's will be put aside and this process will produce the
> stated
> deliverables - however I am not confident this will occur - nonetheless
> offer support if we can manage to refocus efforts.
>
> Rgds, Don Cameron
>
>
>
>
>
>


-- 



Paola Di Maio *****
School of Information Technology
Mae Fah Luang University
Chiang Rai - Thailand
*********************************************