[tei-council] genetic proposals: follow up (long!)

Kevin Hawkins kevin.s.hawkins at ultraslavonic.info
Fri Jun 10 23:12:41 EDT 2011



One question here ...

On 6/6/11 8:19 AM, Lou Burnard wrote:
> Following our discussions in Chicago, I sent an email to the working
> group, as proposed, outlining and summarizing the Council's opinions.
> I've just received from Elena a summary of the group's reaction to
> this., based on a conversation she had with them last week.

[. . .]

>   >  >Firstly, the proposal for a new<document>  element.
>   >  >
>   >  >The minutes say "Council recognised and endorsed the use case for a
>   >  >view of the encoded physical object, comprising surfaces, zones,
>   >  >patches, and optionally lines of writing. diploma was suggested as an
>   >  >alternative name. Discussion focussed chiefly on the distinction
>   >  >between the proposed<document>  and the existing<facsimile>
>   >  >elements. Some expressed concern that it would be difficult to explain
>   >  >and justify this distinction; others felt that the two were entirely
>   >  >discrete. It might be possible to regard the existing<facsimile>  as a
>   >  >special case of the proposed<document>  , even though (for example)
>   >  >the<zone>  s identified within a<facsimile>  might be motivated by
>   >  >other factors than those identified within a<document>  . We agreed
>   >  >that it might be useful to find out whether the proposed user
>   >  >community would find it unacceptable to embed the image information
>   >  >currently managed by<facsimile>  within the proposed<document>
>   >  >element."
>   >  >
>   >  >So the question is: do you feel that it would be appropriate to
>   >  >combine the functionality of the existing<facsimile>  with the
>   >  >proposed<document>  ? If we agree on that, then it will be necessary
>   >  >to think up a new name (which is neither "document" nor "facsimile").

Perhaps I've forgotten or missed this part of the discussion in Chicago, 
but I don't see why it follows that we need a new name.  Instead, 
couldn't we simply expand the semantics of the proposed <document> 
element so that <document type="facsimile"> would be the new preferred 
way of doing <facsimile>?  Then <facsimile> could either be deprecated 
for future use or left in the Guidelines as syntactic sugar.

--Kevin


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