Re: Requirement for 3W interop standard (new proposed schema attached)

How about serving/served as the distinction between those providing the aid and those receiving it?  That's about as operational as one can get and does not make assumptions about the formal/informal nature of these relationships nor the entities involved nor what constitutes a "need".  One can neutrally say that a group of nurses is "serving" a group of hurricane refugees that are being "served" without having to judge why or whether those are the right people to serve right now nor make assumptions about whether the nurses belong there or should go serve somewhere else.

--- On Mon, 8/11/08, Chamindra de Silva <chamindra@opensource.lk> wrote:
> In Sahana we have these two as separate modules.

I think that's unwise in the long term.  Think about how one might integrate them over a few releases.
 
> 1) "Who is doing What Where" is the traditional
> 3W application called the Organization Registry.
>
> 2) "Who _needs_ What Where" is a bulletin board
> of people requesting aid on
> behalf of a victim group in the field called the (Aid)
> Request Management System. It also track pledges of aid.

Normalizing the terminology, "who _does_ what where" is actually fusing (or confusing) "who _should_do_ what where" and "who _has_done_ what where".  Eliminating the verb "to be" might be a priority in any ontology as it confuses the three operational realities of past-to-present records of events with future-to-present plans or normative task assignments with pure present maps.  Mixing data items across these three very separate ontological domains (memory, visions or plans, sensory experience) may be the surest way to fail at any exercise of complex data management.  What we perceive is not what has happened is not what we intend or plan to do.

The main reaseon to integrate _does_ and _needs_ though is that most of those who need help are doing at least some small thing to help themselves.  I outlined this issue adequately in my previous post just now.

> The prior operates at a high level of services provided
> (e.g. medical,
> sanitation, food, water) by a responder group across the
> affected area,
> whilst the later works with units of aid needed
> specifically by a victim group (e.g. 100 Tents)

This suggests that it's intent or mandate that you really mean, not "_is_doing_" but rather "_accepts_responsibility_for_" the outcomes.  Which differs from "_should_do_" in that the oversight and responsibility might not actually be in the organization delivering the actual service.  Local doctors, for instance, may be overseen by an NGO like the Red Cross and they may take over the work when the Red Cross moves on.  In that case, who is "doing" the work actually is more fragile than who accepts responsibility for it, and perhaps the two should be recorded separately.

> I would prefer we stick to the traditional sense of the 3W 
> (i.e. option 1)
> to keep things simple for now and to help us can quickly
> get through the
> full cycle up to an interop standard recommendation. We can

Interop standards really do depend on consistent terminology.  At least get the verbs and tenses of the verbs exactly right as fast as possible.

Command and control can only be achieved by consistent verb phrases and some very rigorous tests which appear in natural language as adjectives or past tense verbs ("identified", "standard", "delivered").  It's very hard to get there through the eye of the verb "to be".  Impossible according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korzybski  (famous for "the map is not the territory").

> always improve
> that standard and build it up incrementally from there,
> though I completely understand that everything is very closely related.

Some things can be fixed later, some not.  Not recognizing the separate orders of abstraction nor the ability of entities to take on multiple roles tend to be very hard errors to fix in any ontology later on.

Craig

> On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 9:08 PM, Nigel Snoad
> <nigelsno@microsoft.com> wrote:
> 
> >  Paola,
> >
> >
> >
> > In the F2F in Washington DC we scoped the 3W/4W as
> described by Gavin. I
> > completely agree that there must be a
> "needs" layer that is centered around
> > the affected population (I detest the phrasing
> "victim" and can't too
> > strongly suggest we never use it except for law
> enforcement/human rights
> > contexts) as well as the current "response"
> layer. Thankfully, finally, the
> > humanitarian clusters are starting to talk about this
> in their data models,
> > and definitely affected populations must included in
> the incubator's data
> > model from the start.
> >
> >
> >
> > So – we have a semantic confusion about how we
> should scope "who". One is
> > organizational, and one is affected populations. In
> the 3W context for
> > historical reasons it's the organization/group
> providing assistance/services
> > (of course this usually includes the affected
> population themselves,
> > something usually ignored in the UN context). Usefully
> - from a data
> > perspective responding organizations "need"
> assistance as well – goods,
> > staff and services – to continue their work, and
> they, like affected
> > populations, provide capabilities. I like the thought
> of a symmetric
> > integrated model along these lines.
> >
> >
> >
> > So - I's no news to all of us that the scope of a
> solution/application
> > affects which components of a data model are used. The
> 3W/4W focuses on
> > "response".
> >
> >
> >
> > My suggestion is that when discussing the 3W/4W use
> case we confine the
> > "who" to organization providing services,
> but in the data models that come
> > out  we ensure that the *who* are subclassed/flagged
> into both a "*needs*"
> > component including affected groups and organizations
> requiring/recieving
> > *support/supplies/services*, and a
> "*response"* component that includes *
> > capabilities* and
> *activities/outcomes/assistance/services* provided.
> >
> >
> >
> > Nigel
> >
> >
> >
> > *From:* public-xg-eiif-request@w3.org [mailto:
> > public-xg-eiif-request@w3.org] *On Behalf Of
> *paola.dimaio@gmail.com
> > *Sent:* Sunday, August 10, 2008 8:38 AM
> > *To:* Gavin Treadgold
> > *Cc:* public-xg-eiif
> > *Subject:* Re: Requirement for 3W interop standard
> (new proposed schema
> > attached)
> >
> >
> >
> > Gavin
> >
> >
> > My understanding is the 3W is 'just' a
> directory application, hence the
> > schema is designed around providing directory
> services.
> >
> >
> > May I ask what is that assumption based on?
> > Did we as a group discuss/agree on such a constraint?
> >  Is there any more useful purpose for which we need a
> 3W metaset?
> > Is the schema for a service directory part of our
> mission ?
> >
> >
> > assuming 'directory' is accetaptable
> description for everybody, it should
> > be designed
> > to be flexible to accommodate for all stakeholder 
> requirements, so we
> > definetely gotta talk
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Paola Di Maio
> > School of IT
> > www.mfu.ac.th
> > *********************************************
> >

Received on Thursday, 14 August 2008 22:02:22 UTC