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Main.KevinThiele 25 Sep 2003: we currently have:
 <verbatim>
 <Resources>
  <TaxonNames>
   <TaxonName key="Viola_hederacea">
    <FreeFormDescription>Viola hederacea Labill</FreeFormDescription>
   </TaxonName>
   <TaxonName key="Viola_someothercea">
    <FreeFormDescription>Viola someothercea Labill</FreeFormDescription>
   </TaxonName>
  </TaxonNames>
 </Resources>
 </verbatim>
What's meant by <nop>FreeFormDescription? We need to split the epithet and author in the name e.g.
 <verbatim>
<Resources>
 <Taxa>
  <Taxon key="Viola_hederacea">
   <TaxonName>Viola hederacea</Name>
   <TaxonAuthor>Labill.</TaxonAuthor>
  </Taxon>
  ....etc
 </Taxa>
</Resources>
 </verbatim>
is better?
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Main.BobMorris - 26 Sep 2003: Ah, this arises from our desire to recognize that (a)Resources of all kinds may often have external definitions (e.g. for a <nop>TaxonName, it might be a URI designating an authority for the name) and (b)when elments have a lot of commonality, they should be required to be declared as being of a named datatype. In this case the draft Schema calls for <nop>TaxonName, Specimen, Publication, and maybe others TBD, to be of type <nop>ResourceConnectorType, which is a datatype that provides for two kinds of external reference (details irrelevant for this discussion) and a bit of text meant mainly to be passed on to humans. That's the text enclosed in the tag <nop>FreeFormText. The tag name is chosen to be mnemonic I think.

However, your point is that a <nop>TaxonName deserves more structure--and maybe even should make the <nop>FreeFormText either optional or prohibited, requiring instead more structure to the name. This can be done pretty easily by making a type derived from <nop>ResourceConnectorType in a way that would support your alternative. I'll modify my guerrilla-action Schema to do that and edit this page when done. As you observed below, it remains for bioligists to discuss---perhaps after the Lisbon Taxonomic Names session---exactly what should be the structure of a <nop>TaxonomicName.
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Main.KevinThiele 25 Sep 2003: We will need to conform with TDWG Taxon Names eventually, but they will surely have something like this.
I've used &lt;Taxa&gt; and &lt;Taxon&gt; rather than &lt;TaxonNames&gt; and &lt;TaxonName&gt; because surely we will later add further resources to the taxa, and name is only one part.
 
Having &lt;Taxon&gt; as a child of &lt;Resources&gt; and &lt;Taxon&gt; also as a child of &lt;Descriptions&gt; won't cause problems, will it?
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Main.BobMorris - 26 Sep 2003: No it won't. _But_ the idea here is that a _<nop>TaxonName_ is a resource to be used elsewhere---perhaps in many places---whereas a Taxon is one of the things that can be described. So while it won't make any difference to a parser examining an instance document, it could confuse any discussion that omits the context. This is a general ProblemOfResolvingIdentifiers which in my opinion is  best sidestepped by using two different identifiers in this case. 

BTW, I doubt we do (can?) enforce  in the Descrptions section, that there is at most one Taxon referring to any given <nop>TaxonName (i.e. loosely, only one description of any given Taxon). If that's right, we need a specification of which one counts or discuss whether it's OK.
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Main.KevinThiele 25 Sep 2003: Also, is it sensible for the taxon list to be part of &lt;Resources&gt; but the characters list to be part of &lt;Terminology&gt;. It seems to me that they are pretty equivalent things. Maybe we should have 4 base elements
<verbatim>
   * <Features> - the character list
   * <Taxa> - the taxon list
   * <Descriptions> -the descriptions
   * <Resources> - associated resources e.g. images, references etc.
</verbatim>
That way, &lt;Resources&gt; can be optional but &lt;Taxa&gt; required - clearly, it's important to be able to query a project for its taxon list.
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Main.BobMorris - 26 Sep 2003: Well, that might be OK if Taxa were the only things ever described. But we intend others, such as Specimens.
Now, aside from the "minor" elements like <nop>ProjectDefinition, the current situation is only _three_ things:
<verbatim>
   * <Terminology> - which includes both what you are here calling Features and Taxa
   * <Descriptions>
   * <Resources>
</verbatim>
(Here you mean Taxa you mean <nop>TaxonNames ...)
But Terminology includes much more than just <nop>TaxonNames. Notably it presently includes <nop>ModifierDefinitions and a few other global things involved in the specification of states.
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Main.BobMorris - 26 Sep 2003: Hey wait a minute. Just when I thought that after all these years I'd finally understood the difference between a Taxon and a Taxon name, now you are confusing me again... 

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