New issue?: vocabulary maintenance

[Rob Seaman]

On Feb 6, 2008, at 4:29 AM, Alasdair Gray wrote:

> The big problem with the IAU-93 is that there are no definitions for  
> the terms. This is another reason we need to get the IVOAT, or at  
> least an early version of it, ready for use. However, there will  
> ultimately be the need for mappings between pairs of vocabularies as  
> it may not always be possible to express these by going through a  
> central vocabulary.

It is ultimately the IAU who has responsibility for defining  
astronomical terms (e.g., the recent fuss over the meaning of the word  
"planet").  Alternately, one can pick a random paper from the  
literature and find that each author may define or redefine terms as  
needed:  "For the purposes of this paper, a galaxy is deemed to be a  
fuzzy pink banana."

If we're not very careful here we're likely to get individual or  
collective astronomers either A) angry, or worse yet, B) amused at the  
temerity of their pet programmers to assume the responsibility for  
defining terms.

Tread lightly.

Rob