SV and Thesaurus - decide

[Alasdair Allan]

Doug Tody wrote:
> Andrea Preite Martinez wrote:
>> - YES, we can go on discussing/commenting/editing it, with the  
>> ultimate goal
>> to define an IVOA SV standard.
>
> We should continue this.  The most important thing at this point
> is content, not format.  Experimentation re SKOS/OWL/RDF etc. can
> proceed in parallel and should be prototyped.  If necessary, it will
> be possible to restructure the vocabulary later for better integration
> with whatever technology proves a better match for our applications.

Fundamentally disagree, the most important thing is syntax and  
format. Let people build the content ad-hoc in a folksonomy style.  
Then formalise this later if you really have to, perhaps adopt a  
small sub-set officially. You can't build, from scratch, a list of  
words that describes everything everyone is doing at the moment, let  
alone in the future. It is fundamentally not possible to build a  
canonical and final list of "stuff" in a subject like ours, which  
deals with broad topics and changes on a fairly rapid time scale.  
Subjects that have done this face more bounded problem sets.

If you're going to go and build a framework where we can fit our own  
words and collaboratively create and manage a vocabulary to annotate  
and categorize our content then I vote YES. If what is being voted on  
here is going off and building a big list of words, I vote NO.

Al.