Alternative proposal

[Robert Hanisch]

I _think_ things are going in a reasonable direction, but if I agree with
Tony there must be something wrong.  ;-)

I think we need the current level of resource metadata, as defined in the RM
document.  Anita was in accord with this.  This is core, and is sufficient
for discovery, location, and access.  This is what it was intended to do.

Tony said that a registry of core metadata would be of " little use to
scientists or applications."  Perhaps we are talking about different cores,
but based on what we have now, I most vehemently disagree.  When we have
properly populated, well curated resource metadata we have a tremendous
asset for astronomers and applications, and we have already built a number
of useful applications based on this.

Anita, what I meant when I said that "the simple stuff is not done well or
completely" is that resource providers don't do a very good job of entering
metadata.  They have poor tools (our fault), astronomer-unfriendly
documentation (our fault), and are well-intentioned (usually) and lazy (not
our fault).  As a result, relevant resources are not always found, and
irrelevant resources show up (e.g., something claims to be a SIAP service
but it is not).  I came across many many situations like this during an
intense period of testing ~2 months ago.  Our resource metadata is in poor
shape.  Resource and service providers, I found, were eager to fix things
once they were aware of the problems.  But reviewing and testing all of this
is very labor intensive.

Anita, you also suggested that astronomers will search for data by UCD.  I
do not believe it.  If I showed an astronomer down the hall the UCD
dictionary and said use these terms to look for data, they would toss me out
of the office at superluminal speeds.  Hell, _I_ am not going to use UCDs as
search criteria, and I pretty much understand them.  UCDs are for programs
to figure out what quantities might be comparable.  Emphasis on the "might",
since we know that assigning UCDs is a highly imperfect science and, if our
experience with resource metadata is relevant, and I think it is, they will
often be wrong or missing completely.  UCDs are a wonderful aid to
interoperability, but they are no magic bullet.

It _will_ be an interesting meeting in Beijing!

Bob