Input on Blue Requirements Draft

[Roger.Winters@METROKC.GOV]

Before departing for a week's vacation, I want to share my ongoing concern that much of the terminology we have beeen using (docket, filing, and even court and clerk) is inherently confusing because of multiple meanings in use.

"Docket" is a good example. I have no clear idea of what it might mean except by reference to some prescribed definition ("We shall use 'docketing' to mean X and only X."). There is no "standard" meaning for "docket" or "docketing" in the court filing community (all those associated in any way with submitting documents to courts for the official record). Defining how we mean to use the term doesn't overcome that. The trouble is that most readers will place their own definition of the word into our document even though we stipulate a definition. 

As we progress toward developing a specification, I will work on this problem to the best of my ability. In the meantime, what is important is for us to describe with specificity what we mean such words to stand for. Taking a term with multiple meanings and using it in a vague way will not serve our purposes (not to say that's what we've done).  Anyone, whatever the predominant meaning of "docket" in their own realm (calendar, index information, list of cases, list of documents in cases, the act of data entry, the "do list" for the court or judge, etc.), needs to be able to understand - without continuing to flip back to the Glossary - what Blue is referring to. 

That's my 2-cents. 

Thank you to all who have put such time and energy into building this work product. I believe it is a good foundation on which the specification can now be built.

Roger Winters
Editor