RE: FW: ACTION-209: Cochrane to ask ed and kerry as chairs to reach out to spatial, but not geospatial people to help us with the bp. (Spatial Data on the Web Working Group)

Hi all,

Is it a question of extending or narrowing the scope? Currently, we state in the BP introduction:

“Location information, or spatial data, is often a common thread running through such data; describing how things are positioned relative to the Earth in terms of coordinates and/or topology.

Within this document our focus is the somewhat broader concern of spatial data; data that describes anything with spatial extent (i.e. size, shape or position) whether or not it is positioned relative to the Earth.”

I would rather not decide to narrow the scope to just geospatial data just yet. We have at least one non-geo spatial use case in the UCR document (maybe more – Frans?). We could at least reach out to the people who supplied those use cases as well as reaching out in a more general sense by publishing new BP drafts and having communication around it. If there is no sufficient response we can always narrow the scope later…

Linda

Van: Ed Parsons [mailto:eparsons@google.com]
Verzonden: dinsdag 18 oktober 2016 04:55
Aan: Byron Cochrane; kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au; SDW WG Public List
Onderwerp: Re: FW: ACTION-209: Cochrane to ask ed and kerry as chairs to reach out to spatial, but not geospatial people to help us with the bp. (Spatial Data on the Web Working Group)

Excellent, Adding this thread to the email list for more commnets..

Ed


On Tue, 18 Oct 2016 at 10:40 Byron Cochrane <bcochrane@linz.govt.nz<mailto:bcochrane@linz.govt.nz>> wrote:
Sure, I was thinking the same.

From: Ed Parsons [mailto:eparsons@google.com<mailto:eparsons@google.com>]
Sent: Tuesday, 18 October 2016 3:40 p.m.

To: Byron Cochrane; kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au<mailto:kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: FW: ACTION-209: Cochrane to ask ed and kerry as chairs to reach out to spatial, but not geospatial people to help us with the bp. (Spatial Data on the Web Working Group)

Hello Byron,


Would you be OK for us to continue this discussion via the email list - to bring some more views in... I'm not sure we can explicitly extend the scope of the BP doc too much at this point.

Ed


On Tue, 18 Oct 2016 at 10:22 Byron Cochrane <bcochrane@linz.govt.nz<mailto:bcochrane@linz.govt.nz>> wrote:
Hi Ed,

Reaching out beyond geo sounds like a whole new programme to me!  First it involves discovering and deciding just who these communities are.  Then devising methods of inclusion.  I fear it could set back our work considerably.  That is why I feel more comfortable if we explicitly focus on geo for this doc.  Other section could be added latter by people with the proper background.

I guess my view on what is SDI diverges a bit from yours.  First off I see it maturing and merging with broader modern web technologies for sharing data.  While I like the GeoNovum diagram that shows SDI as a tier separate from the broader web as a separate tier with semantic bridges in between, I only like it as a snapshot in time.  sDI’s (I prefer small ‘s’) are not static in design and as they mature take on board much of emerging technology such as REST and semantic tech.   Spatial, like statistics, is a way of understanding the world and analysing data.  But, particularly for geo, there are certain issues that arise for which there are standard ways of resolving  that the broader web community need understand, at least to a limited extent, if they are to avoid needless pitfalls that can discredit their work.  That is what I see this document to be all about.

Actually, Action-209 seemed a little silly as worded, but maybe the point is to just get to a point where we can officially decide what to do about non-geo spatial data in the BP.

Cheers,
Byron

From: Ed Parsons [mailto:eparsons@google.com<mailto:eparsons@google.com>]
Sent: Tuesday, 18 October 2016 2:19 p.m.
To: Byron Cochrane; kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au<mailto:kerry.taylor@anu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: FW: ACTION-209: Cochrane to ask ed and kerry as chairs to reach out to spatial, but not geospatial people to help us with the bp. (Spatial Data on the Web Working Group)

Hello Byron,

Thanks for your comments

This is a challenge I recognise and agree with although my emphasis might be slightly different - I would say that the intended audience are publishers who are not experts in spatial data, drawing a clear distinction with the current predominantly legacy SDI approaches.

The extent to which we can actively reach out to this communities and take their input is of course restricted by their presence or not as part of the process. For the past 2 years or so we have operated in public on a very open and non spatial platform that is the W3C process, to the consternation of some within the OGC !  Despite this you are right there has been very limited interest from people outside the geospatial community... History is written by the people who turn up I'm afraid, and is this respect by those who submit comments.. hopefully the upcoming second working draft publication of the BP document will elicit some more no geo feedback.

Do you have any thoughts as to ways to reach out beyond Geo ?

Ed


On Tue, 18 Oct 2016 at 07:15 Byron Cochrane <bcochrane@linz.govt.nz<mailto:bcochrane@linz.govt.nz>> wrote:
Hi Ed, Kerry,

At the last SDWBP meeting we had a follow up conversation (from the TPAC discussions) about how to support non-geo centric viewpoints of spatial data into the SDWBP when we have so few of these people participating.  This point was made by Jeremy, "a way to deal with this is to reach out and ask for help, and make clear that if no-one does, it will not end up in the BP."  The reference was to those items in the Use Case that are not Geospatial in nature.  In my recollection, there was only the cellular geometry use case that fit this description (were there others?).  My task was to contact you to ask for outreach to those who contributed the non-geo use cases to seek support for incorporating these into the BP.

Of course, as we discussed at TPAC, there are many more fields out there that use spatial data but not geospatial that we have not reached out to yet.  The suggestion at TPAC was that we could add support for these fields in future work and not address it now.  This sounds sensible to me - particularly if no others step up to support the other use cases currently cited.

In my mind, even if we find support for the non-geo UC, this leaves a bit of confusion over the scope of our current BP doc.   It has been stated many times that we are trying to address how to share any spatial data on the web and not just geospatial and that the document needs to reflect that.  Yet the team that we have in place is entirely geo as are all the examples.  Just how much overlap there is between the various fields that share spatial data over the web is difficult to determine with the team we have.  Likewise the utility to publishers of a single document that addresses all spatial data domains is unknown.  (Would people publishing cellular geometry data think to look at a document like this or would they assume it was geospatial as that is the common use of the term?)

IMHO the best way to resolve this and make this document easier to complete with the expertise on hand is to think of this current SDWBP as the first of a series.  This edition would be a "part 1 - Geospatial".  Further parts for other spatial data could follow.  Just a suggestion for consideration...

Cheers,
Byron

-----Original Message-----
From: Spatial Data on the Web Working Group Issue Tracker [mailto:sysbot+tracker@w3.org<mailto:sysbot%2Btracker@w3.org>]
Sent: Thursday, 13 October 2016 3:56 a.m.
To: Byron Cochrane
Subject: ACTION-209: Cochrane to ask ed and kerry as chairs to reach out to spatial, but not geospatial people to help us with the bp. (Spatial Data on the Web Working Group)

ACTION-209: Cochrane to ask ed and kerry as chairs to reach out to spatial, but not geospatial people to help us with the bp. (Spatial Data on the Web Working Group)

http://www.w3.org/2015/spatial/track/actions/209


On: Byron Cochrane
Due: 2016-10-19

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Ed Parsons FRGS
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Ed Parsons FRGS
Geospatial Technologist, Google

Google Voice +44 (0)20 7881 4501<tel:%2B44%20%280%2920%207881%204501>
www.edparsons.com<http://www.edparsons.com/> @edparsons
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Ed Parsons FRGS
Geospatial Technologist, Google

Google Voice +44 (0)20 7881 4501<tel:%2B44%20%280%2920%207881%204501>
www.edparsons.com<http://www.edparsons.com/> @edparsons