Discussion page: Errata in IVOA standards

There is a need to set up the possibility to have errata for IVOA standards. This would require an amendment to the IVOA Document Standard http://www.ivoa.net/documents/DocStd/20100413/. This page is set up as an action decided at the TCG telecon held 17 December 2013 to gather TCG comments on the initial proposed amendment text, as a first step towards a modification of the Document Standard.

Deadline for TCG comments: 31 January 2014

Here is the proposed addition:

Add a section 1.6, "Errata", with the content:

As necessary, a Recommendation can be accompanied by an Errata page in the IVOA document repository. Errata pages are versioned, i.e., REC-1.0 and REC-1.1 will have different sets of Errata.

Errata may not be used to change the normative content of a Recommendation. They are intended both to allow corrections of non-normative material (examples, typographics, clarifications), and raise attention to specific issues with a recommendation together with a recommendataion to its resolution. Examples for the second type of Erratum include contradictions with other Recommendations, internal contradictions, or severe obstacles to implementation that have not been identified during the standardization process.

Errata can be proposed to the chair or vice-chair of the Technical Coodination Group (TCG), who circulates the proposed Erratum on the TCG mailing list. Every member of the TCG may veto the treatment of a piece of text as an Erratum on grounds that it introduces normative changes; if no veto has been brought up within two weeks, the Erratum is published in the IVOA document repository alongside the Recommendation.

At every session, the Executive Committee reviews the Errata accrued since the last session. The Executive Committee can withdraw an Erratum with single majority. Such Errata will be marked as withdrawn in the document repository, possibly with a reference to a superseding Erratum.

Please enter your comments below

While not on the TCG proper, I was already involved with this discussion so I hope my comments can be taken into account.

I am uncomfortable defining a voting rule of simple majority, or anything other than consensus, since the Exec has always worked by consensus rather than some specific type of majority vote. Let's please not introduce that for something so simple as Errata.

Rather than "Every member of the TCG may veto..." I'd suggest "Any member of the TCG may veto...".

I also think that the Document Coordinator should be consulted, as the suggestion that "the Erratum is published in the IVOA document repository alongside the Recommendation" may be non-trivial to implement, especially if the current system is eventually replaced with something more automated. Overall this is my main concern about Errata, that is, that they do not get overlooked.

-- BobHanisch, 18 December 2013