Re: [Fwd: Re: identifier to use]

Thanks for your comments, Eric.

On Aug 26, 2007, at 3:51 PM, Eric Neumann wrote:
> In an attempt to modulate the tone a bit, it's clear that with such  
> a large and complex group of people and communities, many who had  
> not been part of earlier OMG/I3C discussions are not aware of all  
> the details of what had been discussed, proposed, and recommended.  
> Having been a LSR-OMG chair many years ago, I know what it takes to  
> put RFPs through DTC, PTC, and AB mechanisms at OMG. A lot of  
> careful technical forethought and agreeing has to go in to it...
>
> At the same time, many groups in biological data and identifier  
> discussions are still getting up to speed what is meant by web  
> uniqueness and resolution within the W3C world. It's always easier  
> to respond to messages than to review the massive amount of  
> technical papers on the subject (I think simple tech/usage  
> summaries are often lacking). But this seems to lead to a lot of  
> earlier email discussions coming up again and again, i.e., info  
> equilibration. As well as the side effect of evoking emotions when  
> not intended...
I would be interested in reviewing earlier email. Can you tell me  
(us) the location of relevant archives, other than those for public- 
semweb-lifesci? I have searched in vain for LSID archives a few  
times, and it would be interesting to read the deliberations that led  
to, say, the rejection of the handle system. Also if you have a list  
of technical papers to review, or a strategy for finding the right  
ones, I would appreciate hearing about it. We have a few papers  
listed on the wiki (including I think the ones Sean gave last summer  
for LSID), but I would certainly expect that there are more that are  
pertinent.
> My guess is all sides here can provide an 80-90% technical solution  
> to the main set of data issues raised. That is not the main point  
> of our discussions though. In going forwards we need to also think  
> about learning from past attempts (successes and partial  
> successes), what factors help things "catch on" more quickly and  
> are easy to implement/adopt, and where do data providers and  
> consumers (including the non-informatics people) want to be in 2-5  
> years? I think we will be capturing most of these shortly, and I  
> look forwards to lots of useable contributions.
This is a good idea. I would love to hear accounts of identifier  
schemes "in the wild". I think I understand LSIDs and handles in the  
abstract, but don't have a good sense of which particular aspects of  
the various schemes are really used to good effect in running  
applications and other artifacts.

Of course, requirements are not always comparaible. A lot of the  
trouble we're having is that we're looking at terms for use in  
knowledge representation, a use case not anticipated by most  
identifier schemes.

Jonathan