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Contributors/users in ToIP come from many different various backgrounds. Many, if not most, are not Americans. They come from a different, sometimes non-Western cultures. For most of them, American/English is not their native tongue. They also may not have been exposed extensively to Western (American?) culture and (American) languageTheir culture may not be Western; English may not be their native tongue. Yet most ToIP business will probably take place in ways that assume some of that shared context. Apart from this, ToIP community members are expected to contribute different expertise, and focus on different topic domains, e.g. technology, governance, legal, societal, etc., all of which comes with its own jargon. This makes highly precise, mutual understanding hard.
We We should not only acknowledge these facts, but also deeply realize what this means, and the implications this should have. We must expect to see situations of "language confusion", i.e. in which people use words or phrases, the intension (not: intention) of which differs from the interpretation of some listeners/readers. Such language confusion issues can often get resolved fairly easily, sometimes only requiring a good Sometimes a casual glance at a dictionary or glossary . However, in is the solution. In other cases a , deeper understanding of one another is requiredmatters, e.g. in when drafting specifications or contracts, and there . Then we need more than a set of definitions.
This WG aims to provide whatever support may be needed to facilitate helps ToIP community participants to understand one another to the extent (at whatever level of precision ) that they seek/ need.
DanG: My Comments
While I agree with the problem that "Interpretation" of meaning is an pervasive problem in many of our daily lifestyle activities that cross international boundaries, I do not believe this is an achievable problem to solve for the Foundation nor one within our mission. That said, if there are community members desiring to contribute to such an endeavor I for one will not prevent such an activity.
Conversely, the Foundation requires base level of "words" that need to be "defined" in a default language "English". This if often referred to as a Glossary. Since the Foundation is not missioned to prescribe any technology solutions, we will need to have a base Glossary and then each ToIP Interoperability Profile (TIP) will need to extend the base.
If there is community interest in "interpreting" the meaning of these Glossaries, that for me is a separate task which BTW is dependent on the establishment oof something to "interpret".
Therefore, as per originally proposed – I refer to the original proposal as a starting point for a Glossary WG: ToIP Glossary WG proposal
I am convinced we continue to speak about two disparate efforts.
Scope Statement (for the JDF Working Group Charter)
a starting point for a Glossary WG: ToIP Glossary WG proposal
- I am convinced we continue to speak about two disparate efforts.
DanielH: My Comments
Dan Gisolfi You and I are two of the American voices that may not feel the urgency of this effort quite as intensely.
We get to throw out words (or, more difficult, metaphors) from our own culture and they often stick by the willingness of the majority to go along... I speak Spanish fairly well, but if I were trying to do highly technical work in Spanish, I'm certain I would need a specialized glossary, and I'm certain it would feel like slow going to me. My confidence would decrease. Reading and writing would take me longer, and I'd second-guess myself more. I know you get that and have proposed the glossary effort, and you'd like to keep it simple and lightweight. I get it and align with that desire. But I think it's okay to have a deeper agenda too, as long as many of us can stay surface-level and get stuff done fast. I'd feel happiest about an approach that treats English as just another language (calling English a default kind of makes me cringe; I acknowledge the denotation but don't like the connotation). I'd like what we do to be equally capable of generating a glossary in Dutch or Russian or Chinese, for example. My suggestion is to define the success criteria as follows: 1) The group's going to make one or more glossaries, and for people who don't have much more interest than that, getting stuff done in or with the group can feel like simple glossary maintenance; 2) The group's going to approach the underlying data in a way that makes localization and formal terminology work easier, as long as it doesn't get in the way of rapid progress. I think this is quite doable, and it allows the two proposals to be harmonized. If we can't harmonize them, I think both efforts will starve for attention.
Scope Statement (for the JDF Working Group Charter)
We make artifacts and tools for specifying, documenting, learning, and (deeply) understanding the concepts and terms used within ToIP. Key deliverables include one or more glossaries, and the corpus of data behind them. The data will consist of formally modeled concepts, plus their relations and constraints, and will encompass perspectives from technical, governance, business, legal and other realms.
DanielH note:
The copy editor in me may have gotten carried away a bit. (I'm a novelist by hobby, and "less is more" has been drilled into me by professional editors at publishing houses.) Rieks' original paragraph contained more detail than what remains in my version. I tried to stay true to its intent while simplifying as much as I could. I'm preserving the longer form below for comparison, in case we need to add something that I cut too much, or in case we want to go back to that version and start over. Original version: The mission of the proposed C&T WG is to foster efficient and effective cooperation between ToIP members that each have their own backgrounds (socially, linguistically, expertise, etc.), by creating and maintaining artifacts and tools for specifying, documenting, learning, and (deeply) understanding the concepts and associated terms that are used within ToIP, and to eliminate toeliminate terminological confusion where possible. The scope of the WG is the creation and maintenance of a corpus of terms and concepts, from which some basic artefacts will be generated and additional ones as the need arises. Other WG activities will include the creation of conceptual (mental) models, that see on the formal specification of concepts, their relations and constraints, such that they can serve as a solid (mental) basis for dealing with issues in the technical, governance, business, legal and other realms. This WG may also organise Task Forces for specialized activities if deemed appropriate by the majority of the WG members and in line with the overall mission of the ToIP Foundation.
Conveners (add your name if you are interested to become one of the conveners)
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