provenance working group issues (more around process but some technical

Greetings,
I am trying to catch up both from talking to my team members as well as 
some of the group and from going through emails.
I am confused on a few issues and I believe I am not alone.
It would help me and I expect others to get some issues clarified.

Q1: What is the process for proposing major changes? and then what is 
the process for commenting on the proposal - either in terms of raising 
official issues or in asking  clarification questions or voicing concerns?

It appears that some  subgroups are formulating proposals for major 
changes to the model, proposing significant updates, and then some of 
those updates look like they may be integrated into a working draft 
before the working group has discussed the new proposal and reached 
consensus.

One route that has worked well for me either in other w3c groups or in 
other similar efforts has been for a proposal to be described in a 
standalone message or document with that proposal identifying the issue 
it was trying to address and then also identifying the ramifications of 
the proposed change so that other interested parties could read that 
document, discuss it, and make an informed decision about it before it 
was incorporated into a working draft.

Q2: If I have fallen behind and I want to catch-up on the current status 
of the model and ontology,  what is the definitive source?

It looks to me like the working drafts are moving targets in that some 
proposals are being integrated into them that have not been agreed upon.
I am not sure how to determine which portions of the drafts are agreed 
upon and which are pending discussion
and I am further not sure when the group is expected to hold off on 
raising issues against a topic while solutions are being worked out.
If the Prov-dm model is it, which portions of it are agreed on and which 
are in flux?  (perhaps status markings would help here).

There is the related issue of how and when to proceed with the PROV-O 
encoding.  At least some of us look to that to help get clarity on what 
is meant by the terms  but I am not sure how to know what parts of that 
are in sync with the current model.

Perhaps a different way of asking this question is
Q3: What has the group agreed to since the last public draft?

and an observation and then a question.
Observation - it looks like many well intentioned people have been 
making suggestions that address part of the model.  Many of those 
suggestions have been incorporated (with consensus).   I am not sure 
though who to go to as someone who really has the entire picture in 
their heads.
My default might be Luc but i think in reality a co-chair is too busy 
with the co-chair role to really do a thorough job of reviewing the 
entire model for consistency and coherence.

Q4:  Is there a point person who is  responsible for ensuring the model 
takes a consistent approach?  and a related question, is someone keeping 
a set of examples  current?

On a more detailed level, it seems that wasAssociatedWith is 
controversial with at least some subset of the group.
Q5:  Is there one place to get a description of what problems this 
proposal is aiming to fix?  and a summary of the discussion around this 
issue?

sorry to raise so many questions.
thanks for your work on the group and for any insight that can be provided.
If these questions are too many for any one to answer, perhaps if 
someone thinks they have an answer to one of the 5 questions, they can 
just tag it and answer that question.

Deborah

Received on Thursday, 15 December 2011 14:44:38 UTC