Recommendations or best practices instead of standards?

[Hemmleb]

No description provided.

[WayneCrawford]

The initial question was about standards versus guidelines, where Angelo Strollo preferred the stronger of the two. I thought that standards were stronger, and a quick web search seems to back this up:

• Univ Cape Town computer science: "standards are high in authority and limited in application, whereas design guidelines are low in authority and are more general in application"
• Michaelsons:
  • "A standard specifies uniform uses of specific technologies or configurations... A guideline provides general guidance, and additional advice and support for policies, standards or procedures"

As for recommendations or best practices, I think it's true we need to define whether something we write is

• An existing standard (provided for clarity): e.g. channel names
• A proposed standard (FDSN-wide or OBS-specific): e.g. how to specify whether data is drift corrected
• Recommendations (or best practices?): e.g. providing corrected data

There may need to be more levels than this...