GRBs retractions - Param or value?

[Paul Price]

Hi Petr.

	As an outsider not overly familiar with VOEvent etc, I would like to
offer the observation that you seem to be in violent agreement over the
need to provide additional data that is strongly dependent upon the type
of the alert (e.g., GRB vs OGLE vs CRs), and even the individual
provider of that type of alert (e.g., IPN vs HETE vs Swift).  What you
differ over is how the tags that contain that information is
documented.  You seem to favour documenting the tags in a formal XML
schema, while the current standard leans toward individual providers
providing their own documentation, with the fields subject to change
without much in the way of notice (much in the way the GCN currently
operates).  Everyone agrees that the parameters in use must be
documented, but the disagreement is over who is responsible for that.
	While I would ordinarily favour quite strict documentation (i.e., a
schema, as you propose) to save me re-writing my clients, I think the
necessary formal processes involved would discourage potential event
providers from adopting the standard.  Furthermore, formal documentation
is not friendly to the sort of rapid change that takes place in the
transient science community as new providers and new discoveries come
along (e.g., the GCN notices today look little like they did only three
years ago, pre-Swift).  If I can add a new flag to a GRB notice saying
"potential high redshift event" on the basis of some instrumental
signature, then I would not want to have to go through a formal change
proceedure, comments, counter-comments, etc, before people can start
using it and get science out of it --- GRB missions don't run forever.

Cheers,

Paul.
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