VOEvent draft specification 0.3

[Andrew Becker]

Hi all - Regarding 2 of your points

> -- Is it reasonable to have a single "importance" number (section 3.6) between 0 and 1 
> that expresses "something" about the importance of the event?
> 
...
> -- Existing systems characterize events by their astrophysics, for example the IAU 
> telegram uses this list: Comets, Supernovae, Novae, Outbursts Of Unusual Variable Stars, 
> Features On Planetary Surfaces. How can we (should we?) settle on an event description 
> like this?

Its likely that future surveys will have completely automated
classification systems for their variability, and that at any given
point in time the understanding of an event might be represented like

%10 optical transient
%80 supernova
%10 kbo

which will be refined with each subsequent observation.  Whatever
schema we use should support this.  I would argue that each subscriber
would then determine their own figure of merit (0 through 1) from this
information.

Andy