[tei-council] Feature request 1933198: 'precision' element needed

[Gabriel Bodard]

Proposal:

This FR proposed the creation of a new element, <precision/> for use in 
those cases where the precision of a date or dimension or other 
measurement is more complicated that can be expressed by the simple 
@precision attribute. (This is a direct parallel to the <certainty/> 
element, which handles cases that are too complicated for simple @cert.)

This was first discussed by the group in Galway, and since taken further 
by James C. and myself, and the recommendation is as follows:

(1) Creation of a new element, <precision/> (empty element);

(2) element inherits global attributes and those from att.dimensions 
(@min, @max, @atLeast, @atMost are the essential ones);

(3) Create a new attribute class (“att.qualifier” vel sim.) with the 
attributes @degree, @locus, @target (currently defined ad hoc for 
<certainty/>;

(4) define new attribute @stdDeviation for <precision/>, with datatype 
numeric.

Examples of usage:

(A)
<date xml:id=”d00001” notBefore=”0014” notAfter=”0064”>Within approx 50 
years of the death of Augustus</date>
<precision target=”#d001” locus=”notAfter” degree=”low”/>
<precision target=”#d001” locus=”notBefore” degree=”high”/>

(B)
John Smith (bishop <date xml:id=”d002” from=”1753” 
to=”1795”>1753-c.1795</date>)
<precision target=”#d002” locus=”to” degree=”low”/>

(C)
Each column has a minimum of 10 characters width and a maximum of c.25 
(I know this is clumsy, but people do say this sort of thing):
<measure type=”count” min=”10” max=”25” xml:id=”m001”>10-c.25</measure>
<precision target=”#m001” locus=”max” degree=”low”/>

(The dates are the really compelling use-case for this... partly because 
you used to be able to do something similar in Master with @notBefore, 
@notAfter, and @exact=’both|notAfter|notBefore|none’.)

((Someone more comfortable with statistics than me can probably come up 
with an example using @stdDeviation. Possibly James, who I think 
convinced me when we discussed this.))

Let me know if any questions about this arise--I may be online part of 
Thursday on the train.

Best,

Gabby

-- 
Dr Gabriel BODARD
(Epigrapher & Digital Classicist)

Centre for Computing in the Humanities
King's College London
26-29 Drury Lane
London WC2B 5RL
Email: gabriel.bodard at kcl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 1388
Fax: +44 (0)20 7848 2980

http://www.digitalclassicist.org/
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