Mistakes in registry

[Ray Plante]

Hi J-Christophe,

> I have remarked that in the registry there are some mistakes. For 
> example, sometimes the "?" is missed when the serviceURL has not ARGS 
> and sometimes the "&" is missed too when ARGS are indicated.

> What do you think about a validation service ? 

You've definitely touched on an real problem right now in the VO.  At the 
moment, addressing the quality of registry information is a top issues in 
the NVO at the moment, and we're plugging away at it.  Just to give you a 
quick summary of how things are going:

  *  this last year, the IVOA Registry WG adopted a mechanism that allows 
     registries to rate the compliance level and quality of a registry 
     records.  This is to be coupled with a practive of feeding this 
     information back to publishers so that they can be corrected.  

  *  the NVO has been under going the arduous, manual process of reviewing 
     the records, correcting mistakes where we can or contacting 
     publishers where it is not appropriate.  

  *  We've been developing validators.  The first completed one for 
     Conesearch services (beta) can be found at 

        http://nvo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/VO/services/csvalidate.html

     This validator has been run on all know ConeSearch services; the 
     results can be viewed at:

        http://nvo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/VO/services/csinventory/summary.html

     A SIA validator is nearing completion; this will be followed by a 
     registry service validator.  

Your feedback on any particular records would be very helpful.  You should 
contact either the contact person listed in the record, or the 
contact for the registry that you received the record from.
 
> Of course, I can check myself if the serviceURL is valid and add the '?' 
> or '&' missing in my program. But I consider that if we have a norm 
> describing well syntax, it is pitty to not use it and to have spent so 
> time to build a norm which is not respected.

Many clients and services have had to resort to fixing these URLs on the 
fly.  

> So, I think it is very easy to check some fields like serviceURL. The 
> other ones, I don't know because I miss some documentation. For example, 
> I don't know where the different values of ResourceType fields are 
> defined ? if it is possible to add others ones or not by a user ? I 
> don't know what is the difference between SIAP, SIAP/ARCHIVE and 
> SimpleImageAccess ?

Sounds like you are using the STScI registry.  If you use the interactive 
web interface, you will see things like SIAP and SIAP/ARCHIVE.  This is 
some what of a historical artifact and not part of the standard interface, 
as it were.  SIAP simply labels a SimpleImageAccess service; SIAP/ARCHIVE 
refers to a a SimpleImageAccess service whose ImageServiceType metadatum 
is set to "Pointed" (I believe).  It's probably not documented, and we 
should probably take it out.  

The definitions of all the *core* concepts described in the resource 
record are defined in the standard document, Resource Metadata for the VO
(http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/PR/ResMetadata/RM-20051115.html).  Another 
document that is specificly defines the ResourceType is in the works; 
however, documentation for all of the (emerging) standard 
schemas--including definitions of the terms--can be found inside the 
schema files, all of which are available at 
http://www.ivoa.net/xml/.  Metadata that are specific to services like SIA 
can/should be found in the service's respective standard document (e.g. 
http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/WD/SIA/sia-20040524.html).  

hope this helps,
Ray