[sc34wg3] CTM: Realistic use cases or toy examples?

[Patrick Durusau]

Steve,

Steve Pepper wrote:
> * Patrick Durusau
> |
> | Wait! Wait!
> | 
> | And everyone was doing so well.
>
> Only on the surface ;-)
>
> | There has been no showing of a lack of respect by Lars or
> | anyone else.
>
> That's your opinion. Please allow me to state mine.
>
> As an editor of CTM I've been trying to work with Lars Heuer for
> over 18 months and it has not been easy. My frustration was
> obvious to you in Kyoto and I actually tendered my resignation,
> but you persuaded me to stay on in the assurance that things
> would change.
>
>   
My assurances were that I was going to try to find ways for the 
committee and its editors to work more effectively together.

I gave no assurances that people could be simply worn down to the point 
that they would give up because it was too tiresome to continue arguing.
> Well, nothing has. Lars is still consistently rejecting almost
> everything proposed by the working group at its face-to-face
> meetings, in particular those in Montreal and Kyoto.
>
>   
Two meetings at which a significant portion of the relevant editors were 
absent and I suspect most of the participants weren't vested in the 
discussion.

I really think it is beyond the pale to simply assume that if someone 
isn't screaming "no no" at the top of their lungs that they agree with you.

Moreover, trying to isolate Lars or saying that he is being 
disrespectful is simply wrong when the real issue is that you can't get 
him to give into your way of wanting the syntax. That is the only issue.

I have seen both proposals and I can't say that either one is 
particularly more "intuitive" than the other.

Therefore it is a *legitimate* question to ask if there is some other 
basis to prefer one over the other.

BEFORE you fire off a hot reply consider that I think you have, do and 
(hopefully) will continue to make significant contributions to both the 
topic maps standard and the paradigm. However, you really need to 
realize that others are trying very hard to also make contributions and 
you should be respectful of those efforts.

Patrick

> That, to my mind, shows lack of respect.
>
> This is not how WG3 has functioned in the past. While editors
> have a certain degree of freedom, our practice in the past has
> been for face-to-face meetings of WG3 to provide direction and
> for editors to comply with this. Lars has not understood this,
> and we have not had the opportunity to "educate him" because he
> hasn't been at the last three meetings.
>
> As I see it, the editors' job now is to implement the decisions
> taken in Kyoto and submit a new draft for ballot and discussion
> in Oslo. If there are major flaws in the Kyoto decisions they
> should be resolved by the editors such that the new draft is as
> faithfully as possible to the intent of the Kyoto meeting. Any
> editors who dislike the Kyoto decisions for what you call
> "aesthetic" reasons (or any other reasons, for that matter)
> should simply bite their tongues and do their jobs - or resign.
> Once the new draft is out, anyone can criticize it as much as
> they like, knowing that it is WG3, meeting face-to-face, and
> ultimately National Bodies, voting in ballots, that decide the
> draft's further fate.
>
> WG3 has existed in its current form since 1999 and God knows
> we've had some lively discussions. But we have been able to make
> progress because up until now editors have always respected the
> collective will of the working group, as expressed at
> face-to-face meetings, even when they disagreed with the
> direction being set.
>
> So, the question is, are all the editors willing to work
> together to produce a new draft on the basis of the Kyoto
> discussion, or aren't they? I am, and I think Dmitry is. What
> about Gabriel and Lars?
>
> Steve
>  
> --
> Conference Chair, Topic Maps 2008
> Oslo, April 2-4 2008
> www.topicmaps.com
>
>
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>
>
>   

-- 
Patrick Durusau
patrick at durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)