RE: [emergency-comment] Proposal: make <category> mandatory

["Bob Wyman" <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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