Maintenance of the tdwgutility: (formerly dwcattributes:) terms

[baskaufs]

Initially, Darwin Core (DwC) defined four utility properties (abcdEquivalence, organizedInClass, decision, and status) that were used to indicate some useful characteristics of the terms in the DwC vocabulary. The Standards Documentation Specification minted two more terms (the classes Vocabulary and TermList) and coopted the namespace for use across standards (dubbing it tdwgutility: rather than dwcattributes:). In the recent DwC hackathon, we recognized the need for several more properties (layer, required, and repeatable for describing Audubon Core terms, and UseWithIRI as a value for the tdwgutility:organizedInClass property of the Darwin Core IRI dwciri: namespace terms).

Given the utility of these terms across TDWG vocabularies, the participants of the DwC hackathon (embryonic Darwin Core Maintenance Group) removed the dwcattributes: terms from Darwin Core, leaving them effectively homeless. I think that the TAG should take over responsibility for them. I do NOT propose that they be part of any standard. They are utility properties, and therefore should be useful and clearly defined. But it should also be easy to add to the list when the need arises for new terms.

[baskaufs]

This is really an infrastructure-related issue and needs to be associated with other infrastructure issues like who makes things happen when a vocabulary is changed (generate metadata, log the executive decision).