[Even list/ event ] stabilizing the name of a data set containing lists of events

[Markus Demleitner]

Dear Stéphane,

On Mon, Jul 24, 2023 at 05:02:12PM +0200, Stéphane Erard wrote:
> If I remember correctly, the EPNCore definitions were adapted from
> VOevents at the time of writing.

I hadn't noticed this before, but yes, the "event" in "VOEvent" is at
best loosely connected with the "event" in the event lists common in
astropatricle physics.  Well, we're doing (semi-) formal semantics to
try and get a grip on these ambiguities by selecting concepts, giving
them some (hopefully intuitive) label and then defining them as
precisely as we can (in a few words).

> - I think event_list is ambiguous —in my opinion, this refers to

Well, it's up to us to disambiguate it -- our

  http://www.ivoa.net/rdf/product-type#event-list

preferably should be what sufficiently many people think is an "event
list", but in the end it is what we define it to be.

Given that there is a fairly large community that calls sequences of
possibly incomplete (time, direction,energy) tuples of detected
particules "event list", I'd say that's the terminology we should
adopt unless it is *seriously* misleading in one or more other
communities.  So... is there conflicting usage of something like
"event list" in the solar system community?  If not, I'd say we can
risk claming the term for some slight generalisation of the concept
the astroparticle folks give us.

> => I would reserve "event" for the actual event, and call
> observations of this event something like event_observation, with
> an ID potentially connecting them to the event (which allows
> finding all identified observations of the event easily).

Let's delay the discussion of what an "event" would be within
product-type (or even beyond) to when someone wants to store either
VOEvents (for which I'd like Mathieu's suggestion of event-alert) or
(time,direction,energy) tuples or still something else in Obscore --
or wants to distribute that kind of thing in Datalink.  I think it's
a lot easier to discuss this when there's an actual use case.

So... if this manages to mollify Stéphane's concerns (does it?) and
nobody else protests, I'd go ahead and change

  http://www.ivoa.net/rdf/product-type#event

to

  identifier: event-list
  Label: Event List
  Description: A collection of observed events, such as incoming
    high-energy particles. A row in an event list is typically
    characterised by spatial, spectral, and time information.

Comments?

         -- Markus