Re: Best Practice 4 (Document Metadata) - I agree to suppress it

>
> When I said that the Document Metadata BP was redundant with the
> Document Vocabularies BP, I was considering the BP definition and not
> the real intention of the BP.
>
> If we consider the meaning that "BP4 is about documenting what
> metadata terms (being reused or ad-hoc) are you finally using", then
> Document Metadata is not redundant with Document Vocabularies BP.
>

Yes, that's at least my interpretation of what the BP should be.


In this case, it should be more clear what is the real meaning of
> "documenting". If documenting means to "provide a document that
> describe the metadata", then I think that BP on human vs. machine
> readable metadata covers this requirement. On the other hand, if
> documenting metadata concerns to maintain a documentation for
> metadata, then maybe we should have a different BP. In this case,
> there will be three BP:
>

As I said in a different thread, I am also pretty unsure about the
appropriateness of the human vs. machine BP. In brief I think this should
be better separated into BPX provide machine readable metadata (the
term-value pairs); BPY provide (human-readable) metadata documentation
and BPZ provide self-documented metadata (machine readable documentation
associated with the format, eg. RDFs or XMLs)

I don't see the difference between "provide a document that describe the
metadata" and "maintain a documentation for metadata" either.

1. Document metadata BP: data publishers SHOULD maintain a
> documentation of the metadata that describe your data. This BP
> concerns something that has to be done by the data consumer, but this
> action doesn't have a direct impact on data consumers. There is
> another BP (Provide metadata) to say that this documentation should be
> provided to data consumers. This BP should be more general than the
> Document Vocabularies BP. The metadata documentation should just tell
> the vocabularies that are used, instead of providing a complete
> documentation for vocabularies.
>

Don't understand why you say that documenting metadata is a data consumer
responsibility.
Also the only. I insist. We shouldn't say that metadata are also
vocabularies (although there are vocabularies for metadata). That will be
quite confusing for most of the people in a global (non-LD aware) audience.
When I want to reuse some data I'm looking for both, the metadata
documentation (useful to search and filter) and the data model
documentation (useful to be able to make things with that data)


> 2. Provide  metadata for both human and machines BP: data publishers
> SHOULD document metadata in such a way that both humans and machines
> can read. This BP complements the previous one because it says how
> metadata should be documented.
>

I think this BP is quite confusing because it has been done using reverse
engineering. First we want to use the content negotiation mechanism as best
practice and after we see how to express that in the BP title without
saying content negotiation. IMO we should thing about the requirements
first and forget about possible implementations until after. The
requirements I see here are:

- Provide machine readable metadata
- Provide documentation for your metadata
- Provide self-documented metadata

More on this below.


> 3. Provide metadata BP: data publishers SHOULD provide metadata
> documentation to data consumers. When you have the documentation, give
> it to the data consumers.
>
> Does it make sense for you?
>

My proposal is:

BP1 on metadata availability (just provide whatever metadata)
BP2 on machine readable metadata (term-value pairs)
BP3 on documenting what metadata terms you are using (human readable terms
options, possible values, ranges and the like)
BP4 on self-documented metadata (metadata with associated machine readable
schema)
BP5 on reusing generic standard metadata terms when possible (i.e. dc, foaf
and the like)


Best,
 CI.



> Cheers,
> Bernadette
>
>
> 2015-01-20 21:51 GMT-03:00 Laufer <laufer@globo.com>:
> > Hi, Carlos,
> >
> >> BP4 is about documenting what metadata terms are you finally using
> >
> > Terms are parts of a vocabulary.
> >
> > And we will have a whole section about vocabularies.
> >
> > Metadata is documenting data. Then, metadata should be documented. These
> > documents about metadata are metadata of metadata. We should take care
> about
> > an infinite chain.
> >
> > If we talk about documents for machines, we are talking about
> vocabularies.
> > And section 7.
> > 4 will take care of this.
> >
> > If we are talking about humans, metadata is the documentation. Have a
> > documentation about metadata is mandatory. If metadata does not have a
> > documentation, it does not have a meaning. For example, If one says that
> the
> > dataset has a GNU license, how this can be understood by a human if GNU
> is
> > not documented? The meaning is the documentation and must exist if
> someone
> > decides to refer to it.
> >
> > In respect to code lists, (maybe this is not the formal definition) I
> think
> > they are a kind of type, or even a kind of vocabulary. Again, I think
> > section 7.4 is a better candidate to talk about this.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Laufer
> >
> >
> >
> > Em terça-feira, 20 de janeiro de 2015, Carlos Iglesias
> > <contact@carlosiglesias.es> escreveu:
> >
> >> Hello everyone,
> >>
> >> Here goes my view on this:
> >>
> >> - I tend to disagree on (former) BP4 being derived from BP1+2+3
> >>
> >> BP1 is on metadata availability (provide metadata)
> >> BP2 is on human vs. machine readable metadata (how to present metadata)
> >> BP3 is reusing generic standard metadata terms when possible (i.e. dc,
> >> foaf and the like)
> >> BP4 is about documenting what metadata terms (being reused or ad-hoc)
> are
> >> you finally using
> >>
> >> I don't see overlap between any of the above.
> >>
> >> - WRT BP11 Document vocabularies
> >>
> >> I don't see any overlap with (fomer) BP4 either as:
> >>
> >> BP4 is about documenting what metadata terms are you finally using
> >> BP11 is about documenting your data (not metadata) models (or
> >> "vocabularies") in the case you are developing new ones.
> >>
> >> - Finally WRT Annette's comments I think there is a missing point here:
> >> BPXX Document your data
> >>
> >> This is about the "data codebooks" that should be accompanying our data
> as
> >> additional documentation but unfortunately are rarely available making
> >> working with 3rd party data a pain. This "codebooks" usually document
> all
> >> the information that Annette is refereeing to in her message and more.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >>  CI.
> >>
> >> On 20 January 2015 at 21:00, Annette Greiner <amgreiner@lbl.gov> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Here are a few things that come to mind as needing to be documented in
> >>> metadata.
> >>> Units, for any measure that is not unitless.
> >>> For responses to a survey question, the question itself and how it was
> >>> coded. (This is where code lists come in.)
> >>> Meaning of nulls, zeroes, NA, etc.
> >>> language, locale (we have this one covered elsewhere, but probably it
> >>> should be included under the more general BP.)
> >>>
> >>> I think the metadata information right now is a little bit redundant.
> >>> Documenting metadata is really the same as providing metadata. When we
> have
> >>> generalized the BP about documenting, it will be even more like the one
> >>> about providing metadata. In both cases, we are talking about using
> good
> >>> metadata to describe the data and making it available to data
> consumers.
> >>> -Annette
> >>> --
> >>> Annette Greiner
> >>> NERSC Data and Analytics Services
> >>> Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
> >>> 510-495-2935
> >>>
> >>> On Jan 20, 2015, at 5:16 AM, Bernadette Farias Lóscio <bfl@cin.ufpe.br
> >
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> >
> >>> > The Document metadata BP should be rewritten to become more general,
> >>> > i.e., not just vocabularies should be documented. In this case, what
> >>> > else should be documented when talking about metadata?
> >>> >
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> ---
> >>
> >> Carlos Iglesias.
> >> Internet & Web Consultant.
> >> +34 687 917 759
> >> contact@carlosiglesias.es
> >> @carlosiglesias
> >> http://es.linkedin.com/in/carlosiglesiasmoro/en
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > .  .  .  .. .  .
> > .        .   . ..
> > .     ..       .
>
>
>
> --
> Bernadette Farias Lóscio
> Centro de Informática
> Universidade Federal de Pernambuco - UFPE, Brazil
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>



-- 
---

Carlos Iglesias.
Internet & Web Consultant.
+34 687 917 759
contact@carlosiglesias.es
@carlosiglesias
http://es.linkedin.com/in/carlosiglesiasmoro/en