wiki-archive/twiki/data/SDD/NameForStandard.txt

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When the SDD group was initiated it was defined as a task group to explore the structure of descriptive data and come up with a proposal for a new standard to cast data currently held in DELTA and related formats into an xml standard. The TDWG subgroup name does not necessarily has to be the name of the standard.

We had repeated very active discussions that produced a colorful range of candidates, However, no decision was taken yet, partly because in Lisbon I am responsible for putting it as a last point on the agenda, thinking it would revitalize us at the end. As the wiser of us may have expected, the opposite happened, we were all to exhausted after 6 full days of discussions and let the topic drop.

Since this document is already very long, I have created a second topic NameForStandardWikiDiscussions. Please read this for reference, and put your comments into the new topic.

<h3>Summary of discussion 2002:</h3>

Agreeing on a preliminary name at the next meeting is not critical, but it would simplify the discussion and eliminate the ambiguous "the new SDD standard" phrase. This document should be considered an initial brainstorm. Please send your additions, comments, and criticism.

<h4>Terms considered to cover the scope of the standard:</h4>
<ul class="compact">
<li>Biodiversity</li>
<li>Characterization</li>  
<li>Comparative data</li>
<li>Describe</li>
<li>Descriptions</li>
<li>Descriptors</li>
<li>Diversity</li>
</ul>

<h4>Modifiers considered to cover the scope of the standard:</h4>
<ul class="compact">
<li>Structured</li>
<li>Extensible</li>
<li>Open</li>  
<li>Markup</li>  
<li>Language</li>  
<li>XML</li>  
<li>Biological</li>
</ul>

<h4>Terms considered to be misleading:</h4>
<ul class="compact">
<li>Taxonomy: Descriptive data are only part of species descriptions. The new standard should not cover nomenclatural elements, synonymy, specimen collection information, etc.</li>
<li>Morphology: The new standard should be well usable for physiological, biochemical, behavioural, etc. characterizations, as well as for molecular data (possibly necessitating new data types)</li>
<li>Identification: Identification in a wider sense does include data not used directly in an interactive identification key, e.&nbsp;g. natural language descriptions or resources used for verification of identifications. It excludes, however, analysis applications, esp. phylogenetic analysis. A similar argument applies to the term "Diagnosis".</li>
<li>"DELTA" should not be used directly. It is, however, possible to use a derived name, like xDelta (which has already been used, see Leigh Dodds work). Personally I prefer a new name to avoid the term "taxonomy" in "DEscriptive Language for TAxonomy".</li>
</ul>

<h4>"Brainstorm" of possible names for the new standard:</h4>
<ul class="compact">
  <li>COMPL: Comparative data language. 
  <ul class="compact"><li>Could be pronounced "compel", although that has the implication "to force" someone/something</li></ul></li>
  <li>CDL: Comparative data language</li>
  <li>CML: Characterization meta language</li>
  <li>XDL: eXtensible descriptive language</li>
  <li>XDD: eXtensible diversity descriptions</li>
  <li>DDX: Descriptive data interchange</li>
  <li>D3L: Descriptive data definition language</li>
  <li>D3X: Descriptive diversity data interchange</li>
  <li>DML: Descriptive markup language
  <ul class="compact"><li>True "markup" of existing free-form text ("natural language descriptions") is part of the applications of the standard, but only a subset. However, xml itself uses markup in a loose sense, including fully structured data.</li></ul></li>
  <li>XDescribe</li>
  <li>ODL: Open descriptive language / Open descriptor language </li>
  <li>ODD: Open descriptive data</li>
</ul>


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<h3>New Discussion in 2003 on email list</h3>

<ul class="compact">
<li>Nicholas Lander: What a pity <b><nop>TaXML</b> has been bagged by the Tax Inspectors :-(</li>
<li>Guillaume Rousse: Better avoid taxonomic word alone, as this standard address descriptive data only. Something such as <b>TDML</b>, or <b><nop>TaxDescML</b>, for Taxonomic Description Markup Language, would be better IMHO.</li>
<li>Chuck Miller, Missouri Botanical Garden: How about <b>BIODDS</b> - BIOlogical Descriptive Data Standard?
  <ul class="compact">
  <li>Jim Croft: or <b>BDDS</b>... but the data is probably a given in this day and age so we could get away
with BDS... but most people would probably refer to it as the 'BD standard' so we could
shorten it further to BD... and if we do the job properly and at the right level there is no reason why
it needs to be restricted to biology, so it could be the D standard...  or D  or  Descriptive Ontology  Integrating Taxonomy: "<b>DO IT</b>"  Got it!  ... <b>D</b>escriptive <b>E</b>nvironment for <b>L</b>arge <b>T</b>axonomic <b>A</b>rrays... now, where did I put those pills...</li>
  <li>Guillaume Rousse: Biological Descriptive isn't very adequate here. Are we supposed to describe populations ? genomes ? cells ? Just because bioinformatics usually means molecular biology only shouldn't lead us to the same kind of attitude.</li>
  <li>Stan Blum: Actually, I liked Jim's "D", or even better still, DELTA.  Didn't Mauro Calvalcanti and others try to establish "Open-DELTA"?  This one could be <b>xDELTA</b> (!).  I do like the fact that it would honor one of the pioneers in this field.  Don't Dallwitz's papers go back to 1980?  In chip-years that's a long time!</li>
<li>Leigh Dodds: I don't make any particular claims to the name though, so (re-)use it as you see fit.</li>
  <li>Mauro J. Cavalcanti: It is actually "Free DELTA" - as DELTA, the format, has since the beginning been conceived as an open standard for data exchange. See the GNU Project at www.gnu.org for clarifications of the terms "free" and "open" software.</li>
  <li>Nicholas Lander: Similarly, we could honour Richard Pankhurst with <b><nop>PanXML</b>, which should cover most things we might use it for.</li>
  </ul></li>

<li>Stan Blum: <b><nop>ExBDI.SDD</b> (pronounced "Ex eS Dee Dee" or "ExcessDD" = exchange structure for descriptive data (not implying that the standard is excessive  ;-)
  <ul class="compact">
  <li>Bob Morris: Best yet, but <b>XBDI.SDD</b> has the same pronounciation and evokes XML</li>
  <li>Liz Kolster: >I give a second on Stan's suggestion, <nop>ExBDI.SDD!</li>  
  </ul></li>
<li>Guillaume Rousse: All domain-specific XML standard are kind of fooML: <nop>MathML, <nop>GeoML. So i'd suggest to keep it that way.
  <ul class="compact">
  <li>Jim Croft: If the product that we are creating is serious and encompasses all of its domain and I hope it is, I would agree with this fully... So what is it to be?  <b><nop>BioML</b>?</li>
  <li>"James" Ytow: <nop>BioML is preoccupied, although there in no strict registration mechanism except its flavour in namespace: http://xml.coverpages.org/bioml.html</li>
  </ul></li>
  
<li>Jim Croft: is <b><nop>DescML</b> taken?
  <ul class="compact">
  <li>"James" Ytow: Not yet according to an oracle of google.</li>
  </ul></li>
  
<li>Chuck Miller: How many XML schemas are currently in work within TDWG (Collections, SDD, Economic Botany, Geography, Spatial Data) and GBIF (DADI, ECAT, and DIGIT)? Is there a way to unify them under some more universal schemaML naming approach?  This seems like a unique moment in time to start a precedent.<br />
The GBIF Biodiversity Data Architecture document is replete with models of interfaces and web services that will all require new XML schemas to be created--each needing a name. GBIF also intends to add schemas for taxa, literature, gazeteers, indexes, providers, etc.<br />
Is there a way to be more universal in naming these schemas? The simple names like <b>BioML, <nop>TaxML</b>, etc. have already been used and are probably too general anyway. (<nop>OmniML?)<br />
One approach could be to concatentate dipthongs or something to create a schema of ML names.  For example, <b><nop>BioDescML, <nop>BioTaxML, <nop>BioLitML</b>.  Or <b><nop>BioDML, <nop>BioTML, <nop>BioLML</b>.  Or <b><nop>GBIFDescML</b>.  Or <b>TDWGDescML</b>.</li>

<li>Karen Medina: <b>BODDS</b> - Biological Ontological Descriptive Data Standard. It sounds kinda sexy when you say BODDS outloud. Or very juvenile. Or both.
  <ul class="compact">
  <li>Peter Stevens: There is a plant ontology consortium (POC) that is involved in trying to rationalise terminology used by Arabidopsis, Zea and Oryza people, and by extension (I hope) more gererally in fl. pl. (see <a href="http://www.plantontology.org/">http://www.plantontology.org/</a>)</li>
  <li>Richard Pyle: Partial to this one...</li>
  </ul></li>


<li><b>DBOML</b> (Description of Biological Objects Markup Language)<br />
<b>BODML</b> (Biological Object Description Markup Language)<br />
<b>SDBO</b> (Standard for Description of Biological Objects)
  <ul class="compact">
  <li>Jim Croft: Perhaps just <b>DBO</b> = Description of Biological Objects?</li>
  <li>Richard Pyle: Partial to this one...</li>
  </ul></li>
  
<li>Chuck Miller: <b><nop>BiODML</b> Biological Object Description Markup Language.<br />
We could then have Biological Object Taxonomy Markup Language - <nop>BiOTML and Biological Object Collection Markup Language - <nop>BiOCML (now either Darwin Core/DiGIR or ABCD?).  <ul class="compact">
  <li>Gregor Hagedorn: Bio instead of <nop>BiO, leaving out the uppercase O for object?</li>
  </ul></li>
  
<li>Julian Humphries: My 2 cents is that "descriptive" doesn't need to be part of the resulting
name, at least not part of the acronym or codon that is used for the
resulting standard. Most folks want biology to be part of the name.<br />
How about <b>XBio</b>? ... could be "XML for Biology".  <nop>XBio is easy to pronounce, somewhat distinctive,
contemporary sounding and short.<ul class="compact">
  <li>Julian: P.S. <b>XTax</b> is also pretty interesting as a acronym, nice pairing of x's and also easy to say and remember.</li> 
  <li>Gregor: <b>XSpec</b> for the specimen collections? These may make a nice set of paired standards names for TDWG standards. Sadly XBio is rather an umbrella name than appropriate for SDD itself.</li>
  </ul></li>
  
<li>Gregor Hagedorn: The workgroup name "Structure of descriptive data" was originally explicitly chosen to describe an analysis process, rather than the proposed standard. However, there is already some history of calling our SDD thing <em>"Structured Descriptive Data (SDD)"</em>. Used e.&nbsp;g. by Kevin Thiele, Bryan Heidorn, Donald Hobern... ! <b>SDD</b> may be an option for a new standard name. However, I like Chucks idea of putting all TDWG/GBIF standards under a common roof.</li> 

<li>Gregor Hagedorn: If we are looking for something more bold and exciting, how about <b>DescriptionML</b>? There is a general name grabbing of most-general and all-encompassing names (like <b><a href="http://xml.coverpages.org/bioml.html">BioML</a></b>, which is really indecent...). Since we think about the generalization from Biological to other collected objects all the time and try to avoid too specifically biological jargon, we actually have some justification following suit and grab <nop>DescriptionML (for which Google returns 1 hit, which interestingly does not contain the term, I even checked the html source...).</li>

</ul>

<h3>Summary list updated by Kevin:</h3>

<p><nop>BioDDS (Chuck Miller) (spinning off to BDDS -> BDS -> BD -> D ->DELTA ->Jim Croft)<br />
<nop>BioDescML (Chuck Miller)<br />
<nop>BiODML (Chuck Miller)<br />
<nop>BioML (Jim Croft) (taken - see xml.coverpages.org/bioml.html)<br />
<nop>BioTaxML (Chuck Miller)<br />
<nop>BiOTML (Chuck Miller)<br />
BODDS (Karen Medina)<br />
CAML (Jim Croft) (taken - see http://www.vision.fhg.de/~veenhuis/CAML/)<br />
<nop>ExBDI.SDD (Stan Blum)<br />
<nop>DescML (Jim Croft)<br />
<nop>DescriptionML (Gregor Hagedorn)<br />
<nop>PanML (Nick Lander, who will undoubtedly pass the port to Richard Pankhurst)<br />
SDD (Structured Descriptive Data - port unclaimed?)<br />
SDBO (Rich Pyle)<br />
SSDDBO (Rich Pyle)<br />
TDML (Guillaume Rousse)<br />
<nop>TaxDescML (Guillaume Rousse)<br />
xDELTA (don't know who to give the port to for this one - maybe Mike Dallwitz)<br />
<nop>XBio (Julian Humphries)<br />
XBDI.SDD (Bob Morris and Stan Blum)<br />
Xtax (Julian Humphries)</p>

Kevin: Got it! - we think that SDD will be pretty general, huh? Then <b>G</b>eneralised <b>O</b>bject
<b>D</b>escription <b>M</b>arkup <b>L</b>anguage - an acronym to die for, surely. --- Eric Zurcher: Just be careful that it doesn't get corrupted to: <b>G</b>eneralised <b>O</b>bject <b>D</b>escriptive <b>DA</b>ta <b>M</b>arkup <b>N</b>otation.

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Version 1 and 2 of this document were originally maintained at http://www.diversitycampus.net/Projects/TDWG-SDD/docs/SDD_I_StdNameChoices.html.

Again, since this document is already very long, please add your comments not here but in the new topic NameForStandardWikiDiscussions.

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Gregor Hagedorn; Vers. 2.1; 21. Nov. 2003