SUO: Re: Keeping This List Focused
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Jim Schoening wrote:
>
> SUO List Subscribers,
>
> The IEEE SUO WG is chartered to develop a standard.
> This list is the primary forum for that work.
> Some small amount of general ontology discussion
> is fine, but we cannot allow too much of this.
> If such discussions directly relate to actual
> group work, they are certainly permitted.
> We have set up the 'Ontology' list for
> general ontology discussions that don't
> directly relate to the work of the SUO WG.
> This applies to all subscribes; however,
> the more you post, the more careful you
> should be, and the more I will need to
> check for focus.
>
> The IFF editing team has received comments and is preparing
> to start resolving them, so let's give this our focus and
> move general ontology discussions to the Ontology list.
>
> Jim Schoening
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Jim, All,
The IEEE SUO WG is chartered to develop a standard, true.
The IEEE SUO WG is not chartered to develop a standard, any standard.
The presumption of the charter is that it be a good standard, one that
has a chance of being voluntarity adopted by the community of practice.
I believe that most members of this group share or espouse the aim
that the standard we arrive at in the end should be qualified to be
a widely respected and internationally supported ontology standard.
Many members of this group have serious concerns about the process
that will be needed to fulfill this charter or to achieve this goal.
In particular, many members of the group have serious reservations
about the advisability of narrowing our focus in the way that you
are suggesting at this time. The state of consensus in the group
about how to proceed simply does not justify any degree of narrow
exclusivity at this stage. The idea that discussions of ontology
should be marginalized in the way that you recommend strikes me
as just a little bit strange.
You and Adam Pease have gotten into the habit of directing people,
entirely by personal fiat, to leave the discussion for what you
judge or pre-judge to be their lack of focus or their defects
of relevance. I believe that this is highly inappropriate.
If you have specific reasons for your presumed estimations
of relevance then all reasonable people will of course
want to hear them.
For my part, I believe that it would be healthy for us, conducting ourselves
as reflective and critical practitioners are supposed to do, to open up a
discussion of how the heck we go about rationally evaluating qualities
like relevance and suitability to a purpose, anyway. The exercise
would work, not merely to remedy the evident problems in our group
process, but also serve the quality of the prospective standard.
I think that I can speak for many people when I say that, when we voted
for whatever "working documents" that we voted for, that we did so in
the spirit of "not blocking inquiry" on a plurality of many fronts.
I do not sense that many of us anticipated that we would be quite
so quickly punished for the good deeds of our tolerance, nor
quite so fastly chained to these non-blocks of inquiry.
In short, I do not think that the particular brands
of narrow passage that you are presently suggesting
are good ways to arrive at the prospective end that
all of us so earnestly desire, nor any ways at all.
Jon Awbrey
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