[CF-metadata] CF committees and CF governance

[Karl Taylor]

Dear all,

At its last meeting in September, the WGCM (Working Group on Coupled 
Modeling) formally accepted responsibility for promoting the CF 
conventions across WCRP (World Climate Research Programme) programs and 
providing a home for the conventions within the scientific community. I 
have been asked by the WGCM to serve as chair of the Governance Panel 
for the CF conventions, but unfortunately the panel itself has not yet 
been appointed.  Nevertheless, given the current active discussion on 
the CF mail list, showing that interest in the CF conventions is 
continuing to increase, there is a need to activate the "Standard Name" 
and "Conventions" committees proposed by the CF "white paper"
http://home.badc.rl.ac.uk/lawrence/cf/papers/MaintainingAndAdvancingCF.pdf 
The original CF authors have invited a number of people to serve on 
these committees, whom we hope will serve as "acting" members until the 
CF Governance Panel convenes and can formally appoint them. (The 
committees can subsequently propose further members.)

Recently, Jonathan Gregory, Steve Hankin, Bryan Lawrence and I held a
preliminary discussion on how the process of arriving at modifications 
to the CF convention might be improved.  We arrived at the following 
straw man that we felt will help to create a more effective CF 
advancement process.

* New issues will be opened, discussed and resolved through a process 
outlined in a Web (Wiki) template. The template will ensure that 
discussions meet a minimal standard of completeness and that they leave 
behind a readable record of the reasoning used to reach conclusions.

* Every CF issue must have a responsible moderator.  Initially 
individual Conventions Committee members will need to volunteer to be 
moderators and assume responsibility for leading the discussion to a 
consensus-driven conclusion.  The job of the moderator would involve i) 
reading all of the emails on the topic that you are moderating; ii) 
enforcing some simple rules; iii) summarizing conclusions from the email 
discussions on a web page; iv) bringing the discussion to a conclusion 
which reflects the consensus and has minimum dissent. In cases where the 
discussion ends with irreconcilable points of view, the committee 
chairman will decide whether to ask the committee to decide the issue by 
a vote.

Modifications to the standard names table are being facilitated by 
Alison Pamment, the manager of standard names employed by the BADC, who 
has taken on the role of summarising and moderating debates about 
proposals for changes. She aims to make updates to the standard name 
table about once a month, reflecting the conclusions of these debates.

We are hoping to reserve one day of the next GO-ESSP meeting to discuss 
CF and to allow for face-to-face meetings of the two CF committees.  We 
expect the meeting to be held in Paris in early June, but firms dates 
are not yet available.

We would like to encourage everyone with an interest to get involved in 
any of the ongoing discussions as far as time allows. It is important 
for good decision-making and wide acceptance of CF that all proposals 
are throughly debated.

We invite your ideas about the above.

Sincerely yours,

Karl Taylor (with thanks to Jonathan Gregory, Steve Hankin and Bryan 
Lawrence for their substantial input).