[tei-council] [Fwd: abuse of <desc>]

[Ciula, Arianna]

Peter Boot wrote:
> Wouldn't it be lot simpler to just widen the definition of <desc>?

I did think about this, but because <desc> is used by (an probably 
originated in?) the documentation module to describe elements in a very 
specific way, I assumed there was the case for a more general 
<description>, but I may be wrong of course.

The
> function of a description does not depend on what is described.

Yes, I agree, but as I said above, it seems to me the the function 
itself is changed here: from a more or less formal description (of a tag 
usage) to the narrative that explains a sequence of events or similar 
(e.g. the description of a wedding party to state that a marriage happened).
> 
> There no need to act right now, but do we need to wait for a proposal from
> the sig?

No we don't, but I didn't want to move the waters too much before 
Christian and Oyvinde had a chance to make their proposal to us.

With the imminent release, we're introducing another location
> where <desc> can be used (in <interpGrp>).

Good point.
What others think?

I would prefer not to rush things, but we definitively need to get back 
in track, so that this sort of discussion can happen at the right time 
and may be in a more structured manner.

Arianna
> 
> Peter
> 
>> Trying again...
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: abuse of <desc>
>> Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:08:10 +0100
>> From: Arianna Ciula <arianna.ciula at kcl.ac.uk>
>> To: TEI Council <tei-council at lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
>> References: <4868E77D.6050705 at oucs.ox.ac.uk>
>>
>> There is actually one mistake (or possibly more than that and therefore
>> something we cannot tackle right now) that has been reported by the
>> following paper at the DH conference in Finland last week:
>> Øyvind Eide and Christian-Emil Ore, 'TEI and cultural heritage
>> ontologies', paper presented at the Digital Humanities conference 2008.
>>
>> If you look at the definition of <desc>:
>> '(description) contains a brief description of the intended usage,
>> purpose, or application of its parent element.'
>>
>> it is evident that to use it to contain a description in a much broader
>> sense than the one above is actually abuse. And we do this especially
>> with elements that use model.labelLike. See for instance the <event
>> type="marriage" when="1859-04-26"> or the first <org> example or the new
>> climate example more evidently than others in the ND chapter.
>>
>> Øyvind and Christian -together with other things- proposed the
>> introduction of a new more generic element called <description>. I I
>> suppose it is wiser to wait for a more formal proposal from them and the
>> SIG ontologies, so we can't deal with this right now, but thought I
>> pointed this out to the rest of the council that wasn't at DH.
>>
>> Arianna
>>
>> Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
>>> I'm proposing to make the release on 4th July (well, maybe 5th), so if
>>> anyone knows of mistakes so far uncorrected, now is the time
>>> to squeak
>>>
>>> --
>>> Sebastian Rahtz
>>> Information Manager, Oxford University Computing Services
>>> 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> tei-council mailing list
>>> tei-council at lists.village.Virginia.EDU
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>> --
>> Dr Arianna Ciula
>> Research Associate
>> Centre for Computing in the Humanities
>> King's College London
>> 2nd Floor
>> 26-29 Drury Lane
>> London WC2B 5RL (UK)
>> Tel: +44 (0)20 78481945
>> http://staff.cch.kcl.ac.uk/~aciula/
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dr Arianna Ciula
>> Research Associate
>> Centre for Computing in the Humanities
>> King's College London
>> 2nd Floor
>> 26-29 Drury Lane
>> London WC2B 5RL (UK)
>> Tel: +44 (0)20 78481945
>> http://staff.cch.kcl.ac.uk/~aciula/
>> _______________________________________________
>> tei-council mailing list
>> tei-council at lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>> http://lists.village.Virginia.EDU/mailman/listinfo/tei-council
>>
>>
> 
> 

-- 
Dr Arianna Ciula
Research Associate
Centre for Computing in the Humanities
King's College London
2nd Floor
26-29 Drury Lane
London WC2B 5RL (UK)
Tel: +44 (0)20 78481945
http://staff.cch.kcl.ac.uk/~aciula/