Dear Ken,
Can you expand on the distinction between "quality" and "status"? I understand that they are different in principle, but, in order to support this new standard name I think we need a clear objective statement of how we would want to distinguish between them in CF. The conventions section on flags (3.5) mixes the two up (http://cfconventions.org/cf-conventions/cf-conventions.html#flags ), so some re-wording of the document would also be needed, regards, Martin ________________________________ From: CF-metadata <cf-metadata-boun...@cgd.ucar.edu> on behalf of Kehoe, Kenneth E. <kke...@ou.edu> Sent: 19 July 2019 06:42 To: cf-metadata@cgd.ucar.edu Subject: [CF-metadata] New standard_name of quality_flag for corresponding quality control variables Dear CF, I am proposing a new standard name of "quality_flag" to indicate a variable is purely a quality control variable. A quality control variable would use flag_values or flag_masks along with flag_meanings to allow declaring levels of quality or results from quality indicating tests of the data variable. This variable be a subset of the more general "status_flag" standard name. Currently the definition of "status_flag" is: - A variable with the standard name of status_flag contains an indication of quality or other status of another data variable. The linkage between the data variable and the variable with the standard_name of status_flag is achieved using the ancillary_variables attribute. This definition includes a variable used to define the state or other status information of a variable and can not be distinguished by standard name alone from a state of the instrument, processing decision, source information, needed metadata about the data variable or other ancillary variable type. Since there is no other way to define a purely quality control variable, the use of "status_flag" is too general for strictly quality control variables. By having a method to define a variable as strictly quality control the results of quality control tests can be applied to the data with a software tool based on requests by the user. This would not affect current datasets that do use "status_flag" nor require a change to the definition outside of the indication that "quality_flag" standard name is available and a better use for pure quality control variables. Proposed addition: quality_flag = A variable with the standard name of quality_flag contains an indication of quality information of another data variable. The linkage between the data variable and the variable or variables with the standard_name of quality_flag is achieved using the ancillary_variables attribute. Proposed change: status_flag = A variable with the standard name of status_flag contains an indication of status of another data variable. The linkage between the data variable and the variable with the standard_name of status_flag is achieved using the ancillary_variables attribute. For data quality information use quality_flag. Thanks, Ken -- Kenneth E. Kehoe Research Associate - University of Oklahoma Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies ARM Climate Research Facility - Data Quality Office e-mail: kke...@ou.edu<mailto:kke...@ou.edu> | Office: 303-497-4754 _______________________________________________ CF-metadata mailing list CF-metadata@cgd.ucar.edu http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
