[Esip-documentation] Minutes / handling of ACDD guidance

Fri Feb 27 15:46:19 EST 2015

I understand the appeal of adding "guidance", but, as I said, I think
the "guidance" will be viewed as de facto amendments to the standard,
even though it won't have been voted upon or as scrutinized as the
actual standard. People will pay attention to the guidance.  Isn't
that the point of it?

But maybe my view is the minority.

In any case, please don't start adding guidance because you personally
think it is a good idea and harmless.
This is a significant change to ACDD governance. Please at least put
it to a vote of the group at the next teleconference.  Ideally, it
should be a Doodle poll that is up for a few weeks to allow the whole
group to vote on it.

On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 12:28 PM, John Graybeal via Esip-documentation
<esip-documentation at lists.esipfed.org> wrote:
> Yes, I was suggesting guidance for 1.3, as that is what people are asking for guidance on.
>
> I never said 'changes' and I didn't mean changes, so I think that's a red herring. The guidance can't override what is in the spec. Nor can it require anything.
>
> And IMHO we provide guidance anyway, we just do it in a series of lengthy discussions that don't get summarized anywhere, and therefore are essentially useless to the next person with a question.
>
> John
>
>
> On Feb 27, 2015, at 12:05, Bob Simons - NOAA Federal via Esip-documentation <esip-documentation at lists.esipfed.org> wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure if you are suggesting "guidance" icons and guidance text
>> for ACDD 1.3.  If so, I think it is a very bad idea. It sounds
>> reasonable, but I think it will effectively become a source of
>> unofficial, frequently changing, not voted upon, de facto changes to
>> the ACDD 1.3 standard.  If we're going to make changes (such as the
>> currently suggested changes to geospatial_lat/lon_resolution), then
>> let's start a changes list for a proposed ACDD 1.4.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 11:54 AM, John Graybeal via Esip-documentation
>> <esip-documentation at lists.esipfed.org> wrote:
>>> I'm not sure what it means to say "the ACDD documentation would be amended",
>>> or whether that's a final decision. But I have a proposal intended to
>>> address this question, and avoid other process debates peeking their heads
>>> up....
>>>
>>> As this thread every so often gets questions about the meaning/application
>>> of ACDD, indicating the specification is being actively used (yay) and not
>>> every answer is self-explanatory (shocking :->).  I propose we create a an
>>> ACDD guidance page, which could briefly explain best practices and
>>> understandings as they are derived in the emails.
>>>
>>> In the present example, the page could include the facts that:
>>> * the lat/lon/vertical resolution variables only should be used if there is
>>> a grid of observations in that axis
>>> * tools typically construe a value without units to be the same units as the
>>> units given by geospatial_lat/lon/vertical_units
>>> * values following the form "number units" should use UDUNITS-compatible
>>> units if they are to be understood by tools,
>>> and possibly, depending on how the conversation unfolds,
>>> * lat/lon resolutions should only be given for georectified grids (list of
>>> acceptable georectified units would be helpful here).
>>>
>>> (If the idea that resolution attributes should not include units takes hold,
>>> that would require an update to the spec. We don't seem to be heading that
>>> direction though.)
>>>
>>> Perhaps we could even agree that a small help icon in the main document's
>>> attributes table could be added whenever a guidance topic is added, without
>>> changing the ACDD specification version.
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Feb 26, 2015, at 11:37, Ted Habermann via Esip-documentation
>>> <esip-documentation at lists.esipfed.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> These are the minutes for today's meeting. I will get them on the
>>> Wiki/commons ASAP...
>>>
>>> Ted
>>>
>>> Documentation Cluster Minutes - February 2015
>>>
>>> The Documentation cluster meeting was delayed a week then held two hours
>>> early (sorry about the confusion caused by Ted).
>>> Nevertheless, we had an interesting discussion.
>>>
>>> 1. Resolution and units
>>> There was a long email thread yesterday started by Aaron Sweeny about how
>>> horizontal resolutions were described in netCDF and in the ACDD
>>> documentation. There was confusion caused by the recommendation that
>>> resolution strings in ACDD have the form “number units”. The current
>>> transform translates this into invalid ISO because the ISO value includes
>>> the entire string and it is expected to be a numeric value (needs to be
>>> checked). There is also a situation in an NODC template where, for point
>>> data, the resolution is recommended to be the string “point”. This also
>>> causes problems related to the type of the result in ISO.
>>>
>>> It was decided that the ACDD documentation would be amended to include that
>>> fact that, if the resolution is given without units, it is assumed to be the
>>> same as the unit given by geospatial_lat/lon_units.
>>>
>>> 2. A way forward
>>>
>>> Aaron is also interested in how Sea Data Net attributes can be translated
>>> from netCDF to ISO. The only recommendation for a way forward involved
>>> branching the ncISO xsl (in gitHub at
>>> https://github.com/Unidata/threddsIso/tree/master/src/main/resources/xsl/nciso)
>>> to include those attributes as input. This branch could then be described on
>>> the ACDD pages in the ESIP wiki. The SeaDataNet metadata page is at
>>> http://www.seadatanet.org/Standards-Software/Metadata-formats.
>>>
>>> 3. Metadata Recommendations and Dialects
>>>
>>> Ted reported briefly on the work he has been doing with tools for comparing
>>> metadata recommendations and dialects. Early versions of these tools are at:
>>>
>>> http://ec2-54-149-127-50.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com:443/drTool/
>>>
>>> http://ec2-54-149-127-50.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com:443/recTool/ and
>>>
>>> http://ec2-54-149-127-50.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com:443/dialectTool/
>>>
>>> Maybe next month we will have more time for a complete description of this
>>> work...
>>>
>>> 4. Linked Data Dataset Description
>>>
>>> Ted reported on some recent metadata developments in the W3C Health Care and
>>> Life Sciences Working Group. This group is working on a profile for dataset
>>> descriptions that brings together many commonly used linked data namespaces.
>>> The Editors Working Draft of this profile is at
>>> http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/hcls/notes/hcls-dataset/. Ted is working on
>>> crosswalks from that profile to metadata dialects that are commonly used in
>>> the Earth sciences.
>>>
>>> <SignatureSm.png>
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Bob Simons
>> IT Specialist
>> Environmental Research Division
>> NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center
>> 99 Pacific St., Suite 255A      (New!)
>> Monterey, CA 93940               (New!)
>> Phone: (831)333-9878            (New!)
>> Fax:   (831)648-8440
>> Email: bob.simons at noaa.gov
>>
>> The contents of this message are mine personally and
>> do not necessarily reflect any position of the
>> Government or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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-- 
Sincerely,

Bob Simons
IT Specialist
Environmental Research Division
NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center
99 Pacific St., Suite 255A      (New!)
Monterey, CA 93940               (New!)
Phone: (831)333-9878            (New!)
Fax:   (831)648-8440
Email: bob.simons at noaa.gov

The contents of this message are mine personally and
do not necessarily reflect any position of the
Government or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
<>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <><