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#99: Taxon Names and Identifiers -----------------------------+---------------------------------------------- Reporter: lowry | Owner: [email protected] Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: high | Milestone: Component: cf-conventions | Version: Resolution: | Keywords: -----------------------------+---------------------------------------------- Comment (by graybeal): A few suggestions on this, which I love to see proposed. The use of the term 'label' with respect to standard names is a bit confusing, since 'label' is something I'd expect the long name to do. An example: "using a generic Standard Name for the data variable plus co- ordinate variables to carry the label text. The data variable is labelled using Standard Names of the form 'property_of_taxon_in_medium'." The terms used in the body of the standard when speaking of the standard name are always either 'identify' or 'describe', which is more appropriate for a standard name. I had to reread Jonathan's suggestion, and I think it amounts to this: "Both taxon name and taxon identifier are required, to maximize understanding and interoperability. They may be obtained, as a corresponding pair, from either WORMS or ITIS." First, are we sure we want to specify these are the only two acceptable sources, just because they are the two most prominent/recognizable/acceptable sources at this time? Since the identifier effectively identifies the source, I'm inclined to accept any source the user deems acceptable, perhaps strongly recommending these two. But your judgment works for me here. I'm OK with requiring both name and ID. I'm a little confused by Jonathan's last paragraph, particularly "missing data can be given for any taxon which doesn't have an identifier". If they are in ITIS or WORMS, they have an identifier. If they aren't -- and this is partly why I suggested not constraining to ITIS and WORMS -- they need to have an identifier from _somewhere_, or they aren't really a taxon. I was rather hoping the identifier could be a URL, or at least a URN, but it appears ITIS doesn't provide such a thing. (!?!) In any case, the suggested handling of a missing ID made me wonder if we are talking about two possible usage scenarios. (1) The user variable being described is simply a number (number_concentration, for example), with many measurements being taken, and they all have the same taxon info. (2) There are 3 variables being described; the measurement number, and one or two variables that describe the taxon for that particular measurement number. In this case the additional variables' values define the meaning of the primary variable, which could be different for each 'row'. Are we proposing this solution for case (1), case (2), or both? Regarding the conformance of the name to the ID, I think we should stipulate that one of these two values is authoritative, and the other is informative. Since the ID is truly what uniquely specifies the taxon in the database, I think it should be considered authoritative; the other is explanatory text. The name for that ID may even change over time (if those DBs work as I believe them to), wacky as that seems; but I don't think this represents an intolerable conflict. Finally, in the original proposal ' "Taxon" means an organism named in the taxon_name and taxon_identifier variables.' appears twice. -- Ticket URL: <https://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/trac/ticket/99#comment:2> CF Metadata <http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/> CF Metadata This message came from the CF Trac system. To unsubscribe, without unsubscribing to the regular cf-metadata list, send a message to "[email protected]" with "unsubscribe cf-metadata" in the body of your message.
