Forums

Thank you all for your participation in the SBML electronic
vote on this issue. The voting is now closed on this topic.
For reference, the call for votes can be found at this URL:
http://www.sbml.org/forums/index.php?t=tree&goto=2807&rid=5

The complete total number of votes cast was 28; the total
number of *unique* votes was 27.

This particular topic had multiple parts. Here is a summary
of the results for each question:

Question 1) Do you think the 'sboTerm' attribute should be
adopted in SBML L2v2?

Total number of votes for 'yes': 21
Total number of votes for 'no': 4
Total number of votes for 'no preference': 2

Question 2) In which XML namespace should the attribute
'sboTerm' reside?

Total number of votes for the SBML L2v2 namespace: 9
Total number of votes for the SBO namespace: 8
Total number of votes for 'no preference': 10

Question 3) Do you think the Finney-Le Novere scheme should
be part of Level 2 Version 2?

Total number of votes for the SBML L2v2 namespace: 17
Total number of votes for the SBO namespace: 4
Total number of votes for 'no preference': 6

My interpretation of the results is as follows: people are
in favor of adopting sboTerm, and also of making the
Finney-Le Novere annotation scheme part of L2v2. However,
there is no consensus on the question (#2) of which XML
namespace should sboTerm reside in.

The lack of a clear preference in the case of #2 probably
reflects the lack of clear explanations of this point in the
survey itself and also the prolonged discussions on other parts
of the survey. However, Ben Bornstein, in his posting at
http://www.sbml.org/forums/index.php?t=tree&th=727&mid=2870&rid=5
provided evidence that putting sboTerm in its own namespace
would have significant drawbacks. In light of this, I
suggest that unless someone raises serious objections, we
should *not* put sboTerm in an SBO namespace. Obviously we
should give time for people to raise objections, so let us
set the deadline to be 20 Jan.'06. If no one finds a
problem by then, we will make sboTerm an SBML L2v2 attribute.

Mike