Fwd: Proposal: make <category> mandatory

[R. Allen Wyke <emergency-tc@earthlink.net>]

Now that Bob is a member of OASIS and has requested membership to the 
TC, I went ahead took the liberty to forward this from the comment list 
to the TC list for discussion.

Allen

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Bob Wyman" <bob@wyman.us>
> Date: March 28, 2004 5:52:16 PM EST
> To: "'Art Botterell'" <acb@incident.com>, 
> <emergency-comment@lists.oasis-open.org>
> Subject: RE: [emergency-comment] Proposal: make <category> mandatory
> Reply-To: <bob@wyman.us>
>
> Whether or not "category" is mandatory, your comments make it clear
> that the current method of defining the legal values for this element
> is not going to be workable in the future.
>
> It seems to me that while the base CAP specification might define a
> core set of categories, it is likely that new ones will be devised in
> the future. Thus, the logical approach would be to create a registry
> which is managed independently of the CAP text and can thus be updated
> asynchronously. A good model for such a registry would be any of the
> IANA managed registries that support IETF specifications.
>
> Additionally, if the intent is that "category" defines a taxonomy,
> then consideration should be given to expressing that taxonomy using
> the international standard syntax[1] for taxonomies -- i.e. Topic
> Maps[2]. Doing this would enable the use of a broad set of tools with
> CAP.
>
> 		bob wyman
>
> [1] http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34/document/0129.pdf
> [2] http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/index.html
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Art Botterell [mailto:acb@incident.com]
> Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 5:21 PM
> To: emergency-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: [emergency-comment] Proposal: make <category> mandatory
>
>
> Several implementers have reported a desire for a reliable data
> element that offers greater specificity than the free-text <event>
> field offers.  While the current optional enumeration of values for
> <category> is somewhat arbitrary, no better all-hazard taxonomy has
> been identified.
>
> The current optional list appears to be as good a compromise as is
> available between providing an adequate level of specificity and
> requiring originators to struggle with overly subtle distinctions.
> Additional values can be added in the future, of course, if it turns
> out some particular distinction actually needs to be drawn more
> finely.
>
> - Art
>
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