Re: SV: do we need it?

Quoting Tony Linde <Tony.Linde-at-leicester.ac.uk>:

> will the creation of what is termed a Standard
> Vocabulary for astronomy be seen as an arrogant assumption? Is there some
> IAU (or similar) group we ought to engage with to ensure that this effort is
> welcomed by astronomers?

By astronomers?
The SV - as its smaller brother UCD - is not meant "directly" for astronomers, but to make the VO more inter-operable, exactly as the UCDs.
Btw, in the draft it is clearly said that the SV : "provides the VO with a common set of standard tokens for astronomical objects, processes, events, observations, instruments, and concepts which are likely to be needed within all VO contexts."

Astronomers had and have their astronomical vocabularies. They had the IAU thesaurus, discontinued in '95 (or '97?) for the retirement of the curators.
If you are looking for a Standard Astronomical Vocabulary, please start from there: you'll find also basic relationships as broader, narrower, etc. between terms. If a SAV is what you want to build (but is this within the scope of the IVOA? - genuine question, I'm not sarcastic) just refresh the IAU thesaurus with the terms and concepts that appeared in the last 10 years. Gamma Ray Bursts, to quote one. By the way, the astronomers didn't care much for a Thesaurus, otherwise it wouldn't had be abandoned 10 years ago. What astronomers have today is a list (I should say: a few lists, see my note on Astronomical Keywords) of keywords they use to tag their papers. Far from a SAV!

Since 2005 we are not discussing SAV: we are discussing of how to extend and overcome the limitations in context that are built-in the UCDs. These limitations and the need to overcome them were put forward not by the UCD wg, not by me, but by those who needed to make interoperable not only "quantities" using UCDs, but object types, phenomena, instruments, simulations, etc.

Andrea

Andrea Preite Martinez                 andrea.preitemartinez-at-iasf-roma.inaf.it
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