New UCDs for VOEvent please

[Rob Seaman]

On Apr 27, 2005, at 9:16 AM, Matthew Graham wrote:

> One alternative, though I do not know how practically viable it would 
> be at present, is to use the astronomy ontology that Ed Shaya at 
> University of Maryland is developing and presented a poster about at 
> last year's ADASS.

I didn't want to muddy the waters by bringing up the "O" word.  Google 
"Shaya astronomy ontology" for lots of hits on this.  My visceral 
reaction to discussions over the last couple of years as well as the 
last couple of days is similar.  A noble effort - so large and grand 
that pragmatic functioning systems can't possibly rely on the results 
in any strong sense.  I also have a deep skepticism that practicing 
astronomers will embrace the results.  Noble nonetheless and worthy of 
the best efforts that the VO can spare.

On the other hand, VOEvent will amount to nothing if it is not 
rigorously pragmatic.  I don't think that "pragmatic" and "ontology" 
are incompatible - and VOEvent provides a great test case for 
demonstrating this.  We need to describe only certain astronomical 
processes/objects - the ones with a time varying nature.  Our list 
should be biased by an artful sense of where the productive science 
lies - start with shadings of GRBs, SNs, solar system objects - and 
some variations on grab bag categories of "other" or "none of the 
above" or even "all of the above".  Establish a process for adding to 
the list.  And don't get too torqued up about "technical correctness".

Rob Seaman
NOAO