[CF-metadata] centralized vs. community-owned name spaces

[Schultz, Martin]

Seth et al.,

    indeed, this sounds like the right concept to follow: let CF define the principle and let the communities organize themselves to fill in one or several tables. Of course, it also raises many questions, but all-in-all I would advocate that this is the way forward. 

    Having said this, I would nevertheless propose that the CF core group (and this discussion list) plays an active role in guiding the principles and reviewing proposed name spaces. Specifically for the atmospheric chemistry discussion my suggestion would be to agree (as soon as possible) on the "syntax definition" of the standard names (I hope that Martina Stockhause has an up-to-date version of her proposal including your helpful comments), i.e. basically the "<physical_quantity>_of_X_in_<medium>_as_<identity>" level of Martina's proposal. The chemistry community could then among themselves agree on the species names (or if not then we will have two or three species lists) and construct (and maintain) the "full-blown tables" according to the general CF rules. 

    What this would require though is some form of registration process for the community which includes a link to a standard repository of names defined and maintained by this community. And of course, the CF site should then have links (and occasional communication) with the registered communities.

    I don't think this is exactly the same as the "common concept" proposal, because the one identifying attribute would still simply be called "standard_name". However, somewhere in the global attribute section the file should contain an identifier of the communities whose name definitions were used. Should this be in the Convention attribute? (example: "CF1.2, ACC1.0") I don't know....

Best regards,

Martin

PS: another question is where the community name discussions would take place. In order to keep things together at least a bit, I would propose to add mailing lists for the registered communities at cgd.ucar.edu (example cf-acc at cgd.ucar.edu) if this is possible.

< Dr. Martin G. Schultz, ICG-2, Forschungszentrum Jülich  >
< D-52425 Jülich, Germany                                 >
< ph: +49 (0)2461 61 2831, fax: +49 (0)2461 61 8131       >
< email: m.schultz at fz-juelich.de                          >
< web: http://www.fz-juelich.de/icg/icg-2/m_schultz       >



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