Re: Closing rdfms-difference-between-ID-and-about (was: RDFCore WG minutes for the telecon 2001-10-12)

Brian McBride wrote:

>

snip

> 
> Now that we have some concrete documents to work with, I'd like to 
> suggest that we take a slightly different approach to issue resolution.
> 
> It seems like we waste time and energy word smithing resolutions for the 
> issues list, when, as folks have been pointing out, what really matters 
> are the words in the spec and the test cases.
> 
> When we come to a decision on an issue, how about we agree test cases 
> and general statement of  intent, and action the document editor to 
> update the spec to reflect the test cases and intent.  Once we have the 
> spec wording, we can check that text for precision and accuracy.
> 


I think this is along the right lines, and addressing the right issue. 
However, during the process of coming to a decision on an issue, 
hundreds of words have often been written in emails discussing things, 
and by the time the issue is decided, those words either ought to 
describe the resolution of the issue fairly precisely, or could easily 
serve as the source for such a description.  It would be nice if, at the 
point where the discussants believe they've reached consensus, they 
could produce suggested text to go in the spec (now that we have specs 
for them to go in) that they agree describes what they want to see 
there, rather than the editor having to develop all the text, and then 
the participants wordsmithing it (which is, I'm afraid, what "checking 
that text for precision and accuracy" may boil down to in practice).

What I'm concerned about is our going through lengthy discussions on an 
issue (including to some extent trying to get words right), not 
capturing the details of the resolution of that issue in text that we 
can really use, and that people are happy with, but only a general 
intent, having the editor go off and write text to reflect that intent, 
and then having wordsmithing discussions on the results of the editor's 
efforts, often (I suspect) repeating those that have already taken 
place.  Or, to put it another way, I think a lot of wordsmithing 
effectively happens during the original discussions, and I'd like to see 
if we couldn't capture more of those words the first time, rather than 
(what I'm afraid of) having two sets of wordsmithing, separated by a 
general agreement.


--Frank


-- 
Frank Manola                   The MITRE Corporation
202 Burlington Road, MS A345   Bedford, MA 01730-1420
mailto:fmanola@mitre.org       voice: 781-271-8147   FAX: 781-271-875

Received on Tuesday, 16 October 2001 18:55:38 UTC