Remove current (2005) status

[peterdesmet]

As suggested by @stanblum, this PR removes the status Current (2005) for 4 standards and merges them with Current, joining 6 standards already in that status: https://www.tdwg.org/standards/ The other two statuses draft standards and prior standard remain.

I'd like to get 👍 from @tdwg/tag-team (cc. @baskaufs @tucotuco @chicoreus) before proceeding. If I don't receive any feedback in a week from now, I'll merge this PR.

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These are the 4 standards with the status Current (2005):

• http://www.tdwg.org/standards/abcd
• http://www.tdwg.org/standards/delta
• http://www.tdwg.org/standards/sdd
• http://www.tdwg.org/standards/tcs

Which has the definition:

Standards that TDWG recommends for use and were ratified by membership vote at the TDWG Annual Meeting 2005 in St. Petersburgh. These standards are not in the format of current TDWG standards, nor have they been submitted to both expert and public review, the ratification process adopted at the St Louis annual meeting in 2006.

We'd like to remove the status because:

• In contrast with Current, Draft and Prior (which could be called Deprecated) this status is rather odd to keep around.
• "Current (2005)" implies Current standards. The fact that they didn't go through a specific review process is not part of the definition of "Current", although we could add to the definition:

Standards that TDWG recommends for use. Starting in 2006 standards require expert and public review before they can be ratified and recommended for use.

• Some of these standards (e.g. DELTA) might look odd to have in a status called "Current" (i.e. recommended for use), but the same applies to e.g. the GUID Applicability statements which is already in that status. Merging the two statuses just simplifies things.
• Each standard has a tag with the year it was adopted/ratified, so you can still differentiate between them if you want.

[baskaufs]

Just to clarify: neither the GUID AS, nor any of the Prior Standards are deprecated. This is clarified in Section 4.2.4 of the SDS, which says "At the standard level, deprecation occurs when a standard is assigned to the Retired Standard category." See also the Standards Status and Categories page, which defines Retired Standard as "Standards that have been ratified by TDWG in the past but that are no longer recommended." To my knowledge, no TDWG standard has ever been placed in the Retired Standard category, nor has it ever been made clear what process causes a standard to be placed in that category.

I've heard by the grapevine that the Executive decided to stop recommending the use of LSIDs and that recommendation has disappeared from the TDWG website. However, that's different from a recorded Decision about the status of a standard or part of a standard, which should be recorded in the decision history (a document that should be maintained for all standards, not just DwC).

Given what I've said here, all three of the TDWG standards categories ("Current", "Current (2005)", and "Prior") should be considered as active standards (i.e. recommended for use). If they are NOT recommended for use, then they need to be identified as in the "Retired Standards" category and that decision officially recorded.

It's not clear to me why the "Current" and "Current (2005)" categories should be somehow treated differently from the "Prior" category. Either lump all three of them and explain their different histories over time (as proposed for "Current" and "Current (2005)"), or just leave them as they are.

Also, it would probably be a good idea to put into writing somewhere the process for retiring a standard. Is that something the Executive can do unilaterally? I don't think so. We don't allow deprecation of parts of standards (e.g. specific terms) without invoking the standards process of review, public comment, etc. I don't see why deprecating (i.e. retiring) an entire standard is any different.

[peterdesmet]

Thanks @baskaufs, that makes sense to me. In the light of the SDS, I would then:

• Update the 5 statuses on https://www.tdwg.org/standards/status-and-categories/ to three: Recommended (or is the official term “Current”?), Draft and Recommended, removing Current (2015) and Prior.

• If people feel that standards are included that way that TDWG should no longer recommend, than the process to deprecate them should be initiated.

From a UX perspective, I could manually order the standards from recent to old, rather than alphabetically.

[baskaufs]

I'm a little confused about the three categories. You said "Recommended (or is the official term “Current”?), Draft and Recommended". Recommended is in there twice.

[hlapp]

Just my $0.02 (€0.02). It seems the overall intent is to grandfather TDWG standards ratified before introduction of the formal review and comment process in 2006, as opposed to "un-ratify" them and require them to go through the new process before they can be considered ratified again. Grandfathering pre-2006 ratified standards as "ratified" seems entirely reasonable to me.

There also seems to be confusion between "ratified" and "recommended", and whether status Current should imply the former but not necessarily the latter, the latter but not necessarily the former, or necessarily both. It's unfortunate the definition of statuses doesn't state anything about ratification status.

My suggestion would be to take the TR process of the W3C for guidance.

[stanblum]

Point of clarification here: the standards process before 2006 involved a 60-day review period and voting by the membership. The process adopted in 2006 involves both expert and public review, and then approval by the Executive Committee based feedback from the reviews (do interested people find the standard useful). The category "2005 standard" was created in 2006 only distinguish those standards as having been ratified under a different process. In retrospect, that distinction doesn't seem so important. Moreover, any 2005 Standard (or even any "Prior Standard") that is widely or actively in-use" will need to be revised. We can use that opportunity to bring that standard compliance into current current compliance.

…

On Tue, Nov 20, 2018 at 12:06 PM Hilmar Lapp ***@***.***> wrote: Just my $0.02 (€0.02). It seems the overall intent is to grandfather TDWG standards ratified before introduction of the formal review and comment process in 2006, as opposed to "un-ratify" them and require them to go through the new process before they can be considered ratified again. Grandfathering pre-2006 ratified standards as "ratified" seems entirely reasonable to me. There also seems to be confusion between "ratified" and "recommended", and whether status Current should imply the former but not necessarily the latter, the latter but not necessarily the former, or necessarily both. It's unfortunate the definition of statuses <https://www.tdwg.org/standards/status-and-categories/> doesn't state anything about ratification status. My suggestion would be to take the TR process of the W3C <https://www.w3.org/2018/Process-20180201/#Reports> for guidance. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#111 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJWaDce868d_QKai3LGB_lewn0OUR3wkks5uxGC9gaJpZM4Yo6Qg> .

[peterdesmet]

Following up. Indeed @baskaufs, I made an typo: "Recommended" was in there twice. 😄 So my question is now:

1. Ok categorize the currently listed standards as:

• Recommended: lumping Current, Current (2005), Prior
• Draft

2. Update https://www.tdwg.org/standards/status-and-categories/ to only mention:

• Recommended @stanblum care to write a description?
• Draft
• Retired

[peterdesmet]

This PR is pending review by the TAG.

[peterdesmet]

I am closing this 2018 PR without merging. A discussion about the status/category is ongoing at #478