Note: This is a proposal by
MarkusDemleitner for how to manage vocabulary evolution in the IVOA at this point.
(please attach your VEP and put the link into this enumeration)
(None so far)
Vocabulary Enhancement Requests (VEPs)
We propose to manage vocabulary evolution in the IVOA through Vocabulary Enhancement Requests. These are small, version controllable, plain text files; the current version of a VEP is maintained on this page, currently in an attachment.
A VEP is semistructured; in a header, it should first give the vocabulary URL and a contact address for the author, as in
Vocabulary: http://www.ivoa.net/rdf/datalink/core
Author: msdemlei@ari.uni-heidelberg.de
This is followed by one or more blocks. These can be proposals for new terms, given with a human-readable label, a description, and a rationale for the addition. For instance:
New Term: isMetadataFor (child of auxiliary)
Label: Metadata
Description: additional documentation for this dataset (e.g.,
observatory logs, provenance information)
Rationale: This would annotate material such as observation logs,
scanned envelopes of plates, or possibly logs of pipeline runs. The
term is a bit different from other datalink terms, but it is taken from
the DataCite relationships, and I feel re-using these terms whenever
possible makes it easier to re-use datalink annotations later.
Alternatively, changes to an existing term can be proposed, including changing its parent:
Changed term: proc
Label: Processing
Description: reference to a server-side processing service
Rationale: The old description ("server-side data processing result")
just doesn't quite match what this is.
No process for the deletion of terms is proposed at this point.
A VEP may be replaced during discussions.