Talk:Wiki Workspace

Discussion on Interoperability.

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MSchulz: Questions about the Wiki

I think your idea with the wiki pages is great! For exchanging and establishing ideas on standards and tools for the intercomparison work in an interactive way. Thanks a lot for pointing us to this. At this point, in the beginning, it would be really important to choose a representative entry point. Which has some longer life time. which is even not linked too much to an individual organisation. Otherwise a discussion on standards makes no sense. I think also GEMS is not the right thing, since it is a project and by definition will end in some years. So I have some questions ( also to the colleagues):

1. Is ESIP the right federation to keep this? (I have not heard of it before)Isnt that purely American?

2. Wouldn't it be better to have for example an IGAC administrated wiki page? I must admit that I find it nice to just start and may be we can copy everything to another place once we found it.

3. Who will be the administrator and can create new pages for example in your initial set-up?

4. Who can change the general outline of these pages? I think there is always too much meta communication on how to edit and who has edited and when etc on these wiki pages.

5. Is there an administrator at ESIP who would react within a day or two if we had small wishes? Michael Schulz (MichaelSchulz) 13:21, 11 May 2006 (EDT)

___RHusar: RE: Questions about the Wiki

1. This wiki is part of the Earth Science Information Partners Federation, ESIP wiki. We chose ESIP since it is a more neutral place then our DataFed Project wiki. My colleague, Stefan Falke, and I are facilitating the Air Quality Cluster within ESIP and we are using this ESIP wiki extensively. However, since ESIP is an American organization, this is not appropriate as a neutral long-term workspace.

We like the Mediawiki software which is the grand daddy of the wikies incl. Wikipedia. While it's syntax is a bit arcane, it stands out as a rich and extensible and fast-evolving open-source software.

2. IGAC or other international organizations would be much better as neutral and long term hosts for this kind of work. I am sure IGAC would be interested. Last year when I talked to Tim Bates on a similar topic he said that IGAC is interested in this sort of facilitation and he pointed me to Sandro Fuzzi as a further contact.

3. This wiki is fully open for input. Every article page and its associated discussion page can be edited by any participant, not just an administrator. The wiki keeps track and allows recalling all previous versions, accessible through 'History' button. So the issue with the wiki management is which modifications should be restricted to certain users/managers.

4. To change content, click on "create account or log in" in the upper right corner. To edit article and discussion pages click the edit tab. Practice editing in the Sandbox.

5. We the community are the administrators. Most of the time we spend "administering" the wiki consists of organizing content, laying out navigation, transferring e-mails to discussion threads. These "management" activities could and should be distributed among appropriate members of the community.Rhusar 18:12, 15 May 2006 (EDT)

___MSchultz: 'Neutral' Workspace - WMO?

This is a good initiative and I believe the wiki platform might be a suitable way of collecting the relevant information and opinions. I agree with Rudolf that it is of paramount importance to establish such forum on a "neutral" site and ensure its longevity. Could it be that WMO would be a good place to deal with this? At a recent meeting Len Barrie mentioned that he is always looking for "plums that are ripe to pick", meaning that he would like to see WMO assume this kind of facilitating role, trying to set standards etc. Of course, a potential downside of this may be that an excessive bureaucracy could get involved and make life harder for everyone. Therefore, I would suggest a two-fold strategy: (1) tentatively approach WMO (through Len) whether this kind of initiative could be hosted and maintained there in principle, (2) continue the more informal discussions and soliciting of comments on one of the existing wiki pages for the shorter-term period (i.e. the next year or so).

It will also be important to raise the awareness and interest in the modelling community. A good starting point for this could be an IGAC newsletter article quite soon, and an EOS and Eggs article in a few months time. Martin Schultz (MartinSchultz) 16:12, 15 May 2006 (EDT)

_______RHusar: 'Neutral' Workspace - WMO?

Hey, Martin, I would agree that if we have to pick one neutral organization, WMO is the largest, most active and (through Len Barrie) has a strong internal driving force. I wonder though if there is a way to enlist/engage other neutral orgs, to be neutral-neutral .. multi-neutral :)??

... and doing that without (non-linearly) multiplying the weight of the bureaucracy. Yes, probably impossible in the real world but in cyber-space? Who knows? Rhusar 18:18, 16 May 2006 (EDT)

___BLawrence: CF Connection to WMO

We (CF) are already approaching WMO through WGCM (and the WMO metadata team)on behalf of CF. If you haven't already done so, it may be relevant if you were to read the white paper outlining the future plans for CF (under the news at http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cms/eaton/cf-metadata/). We've had some feedback which is also linked from the above page ...

I'd really value some further feedback ... despite my best intentions that white paper hasn't turned from a draft into a plan (although some things have started)... so it's not too late for specific suggestions. In particular, if you're recommending WMO via Len Berry, which WMO group are we actually talking about, and why would that group make sense? BryanLawrence 17:32, 17 May 2006 (EDT)

______MSchultz: Link to Len Barrie

Len Barrie is Chief of the Environment Division in the AREP department of WMO. He has been very active in the definition of Earth Observation systems (GCOS, IGACO, etc.). Furthermore he is member of the IGAC steering committee and in the advisory panel of the GEMS project. If you ask the atmospheric chemistry community, who they relate with WMO, then it is mostly him. Therefore, he is in an ideal position to act as a bridge from the AC community to WMO, and he seems quite willing to play this role. If our initiative of defining CF standards for chemistry models shall be successful, it will be quite important to ensure enough support from within the research community. By linking this to Len Barrie's WMO chair and also the Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution task force, we may have a chance to gain enough momentum there. If this would rest solely at the WGCM I fear that the chemistry community would feel left out and be quite hesitant to join. Martin Schultz (MartinSchultz) 17:34, 17 May 2006 (EDT)

CTextor: Wiki? If so which?

I agree that a discussion on the guidelines for chemistry and aerosol names is needed in order to satisfy the needs of as many people as possible. And this is a good start!

A wiki page for this discussion would be very useful, but we should agree on only one page of the two I am aware of: 1)http://home.badc.rl.ac.uk/lawrence/cf from Bryan Lawrence, or the 2)Talk:Air_Quality/Chemistry_Naming_Conventions Rudulf Husar has set up this wiki page "Air Quality/Chemistry Naming Conventions".

As a first step I will now go through the material I gathered, write up a proposal for a list of new names, which can serve as a basis for these discussions, and send it to the wiki page we agreed on. ChristianeTextor 16:05, 15 May 2006 (EDT)

___RHusar: Comments on Wiki Maintance

Thanks for bringing us up to date on the on the CF naming for Air Chemistry topic. A few comments and a suggestion.

• It appears that the wiki is an agreeable tool to conduct much of the communication, cooperation and coordination for this work group
• However, as Michael Schulz properly notes, such a work-space (1) should be at a 'neutral' web-space and (2) have assurance for longevity.
• We are not in position commit to the long-term physical maintenance of the wiki site. Also, we are definitely not equipped to be managers/editors of a wiki contents.

Nevertheless, our view is that progress along the naming conventions is a necessary step toward broader interoperability, the same way as netCDF is for binary data encoding, an OGC Web Coverage Sevice(WCS) is for universal data queries. Within our own small group, we have 4-5 projects and collaborative activities that could benefit from these CF naming extensions. I am sure that most of us could use these conventions well beyond the current HTAP applications.

• So, we would like to help bootstrapping this effort primarily through our accumulated tools/methods and experience in wiki-aided collaboration.
• One possibility is to start with an experimental wiki site, and then transferring the contents to the neutral long-term site ASAP.
• With the web-based wiki, 'managing' the contents (whatever that means for a wiki) could be transferred immediately to your group.

I am sure there are many viable alternative paths to pursue this, so please consider the above simply as a friendly offer for pooling resources and collaboration. Rhusar 16:08, 15 May 2006 (EDT)

___ MSchulz: ISPRA Meeting, March 2006

For your information, please find attached a report from a small workshop held in Ispra in March on cooperation among tracer intercomparisons. (sorry for double posting). Please note:

1) that indeed participants agreed to make an IGAC article from that workshop, with the idea to announce standards. And I volunteered to put a small article together. I asked already IGAC and the next possibility is some issue in mid/late autumn. If you wish to contribute to the writing please drop me a short notice.

2) that Christiane Textor volunteered to follow-up (if not co-ordinate a first suggestion) the CF naming requirements for aerosol species and reactive gaseous components. We had the feeling that this should happen in this spring to help in some upcoming intercomparison activities, such as HTAP and AeroCom II.

3) Hosting/coordinating the CF info and wiki discussion at PCMDI (of course) or WMO would be excellent. It would be nice if some working web solution would be settled soon. Meanwhile I think Rudolfs wiki is a very good place to get it going for the aerosols and reactive components. Maybe there is more out there, then what we are aware of. Michael Schulz (MichaelSchulz) 16:15, 15 May 2006 (EDT)

___BLawrence: CF Website Prototype

PCMDI are in the process of configuring a new set of CF web pages including discussion for a (and possibly task tracking software) ... so in the very near future we expect the management of CF name changes etc to be more than just this mailing list. (Folks will recall that both PCMDI and BADC are contributing effort to try and get CF rolling forward without relying on the contributions of the original authors).

Hopefully Kyle is reading the list, and can give us an eta for wider use of the prototype he's got going at the moment. I think realistically though, Alison (based in the UK) and Kyle (based on the west coast of the US) will need to have a face-to-face chat about how to manage ongoing CF modifications before we get things working really well, and that's planned for mid-June.

If in the mean-time groups want to use wikis to get ideas sorted, then excellent. BryanLawrence 16:09, 15 May 2006 (EDT)

______KHalliday: CF Website Prototype

Indeed, the new CF website prototype is up and running at this URL: http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cf It only contains a subset of the content in the current website, but it should provide a good opportunity to give feedback about the direction we're heading. In particular, I'd encourage you to look at the message board system (which would replace the cf-metadata mailing list) and the standard names table:

• http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cf/discussion/message-boards/ || http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cf/documents/cf_standard_names/

The website allows members to actively contribute using a Wiki-like content management system. If you're interested in obtaining a username and password to try out the message board and page-editing features, please let me know, and I'll create an account for you.

Another feature that you may find to be quite useful is the "live search" capability. If you type some text into the search box in the upper-right corner (try "air pressure", for example) and wait for a few seconds, several search results should pop up beneath the box. This could be a powerful way to search standard names. We don't yet have an ETA for officially switching to the new website, but your feedback, especially in the early stages, is very valuable! KyleHalliday 16:19, 15 May 2006 (EDT)

CTextor: ESIP Wiki as Temp Location

I will go ahead now and propose standard names for aerosols and chemicals based on the ideas of PRISM, IPCC/ACCENT, RETRO and AEROCOM. I have contacted Peter van Velthoven, the most recent version is online. We will use the wiki page at ESIP for a start Talk:Air_Quality/Chemistry_Naming_Conventions and then later possibly move to a more "official" site. It would be very nice to have a link on the CF web site to the wiki to encourage a wide community to contribute. Is this possible? ChristianeTextor 18:11, 17 May 2006 (EDT)