Create page(s) and high-level navigation to "how things work"

[baskaufs]

This request comes out of discussion that took place in the 2022-11-07 Technical Architecture Group working session. There are various situations where best practices and standard operating procedures are established, and are precedents recognized. Sometimes these are recorded, but the record is located in some obscure place. In other cases, the practices live inside people's heads. Often these practices are not associated with any particular standard or are applicable across standards.

Currently the TAG is considering several cross-standards best practices recommendations and part of the discussion is where those deliverables should live when they are done. (See meeting notes, item IV.D. and action items IX.). There seemed to be general agreement at the session that they belonged on the TDWG website where they could easily be found rather than stashed in some less visible place on GtHub. It was also agreed that there should be some high level navigation mechanism that would lead people to a landing page that would list such reference documents.

I am wondering if we should have an additional menu in the upper right that is something like "How things work". Maybe not called that exactly, but something that gets across the idea that this is where you go to find out about processes, best practices, conventions, etc. If not it's own high level menu, perhaps a page under "About" called "How things work". I'm not necessarily thinking about this as a page for newcomers, but rather for people who are already involved in TDWG or who want to get involved. I could see things like:

• the details involved in forming a task group, reporting requirements, link to the Review Manager Guidelines and how that process looks to a task group convener
• the governance structures (exec, functional subcommittees, IG, TG) and how they work together, maybe a non-technical summary of the VMS and the Process document or at least telling people that's where to look for details
• conventions that have been established for controlled vocabulary construction, IRI structure conventions, maybe a non-technical summary of the SDS or at least telling people that the SDS is where you look for details
• advice for people who want to create new vocabularies, cross vocabulary best practices established by the TAG, what is the tdwgutility: namespace, how List of Terms documents get generated, what is the rs.tdwg.org GitHub repo and what it is for

There may be other things that I'm not thinking of that would belong here. Maybe we can think about what kinds of questions new task group conveners have had. Obviously it would take some time to put this together, but I would like to plan for something like this in the navigation setup so that at least when the TAG comes up with "advice" there is somewhere logical to put it. I would also be happy to contribute to building some of the pages I described above when I have time.

[peterdesmet]

Sounds like an excellent idea @baskaufs! The new site would not only allow an item in the top nav, but if needed also a dropdown. If we want to stick with single word items, would Process be suitable?

[baskaufs]

That might work. I can't think of a better one-word description at the moment, but maybe someone will come up with something better over time.

[ben-norton]

I think the best practices should go under the heading "Recommendations" or "Best Practices" and the procedures go under "Methods" or "Process". I'm working on the content for the Recommendations page. I think we need at least three to launch the page.

[ben-norton]

I personally like "Mechanics", but that may be a hard sell.

[gkampmeier]

I favor "Process" as it gives a flavor as a noun and verb of how we make things work, but doesn't give the impression that they are set in stone.

[stanblum]

To me, "Mechanics" connotes machinery, technology, deterministic algorithms. There are definitely human elements and judgements in our processes and procedures. So I prefer "Process", too.

[peterdesmet]

I am moving this issue to the main website repo.