Hello ID
Pros,
I want to
get behind the ideas of a taxonomy and a glossary, and
propose that they are two views of the same thing – a high
quality glossary should explain how terms interrelate,
resulting in a taxonomy of relationships. Contrary to Andrew
Hughes’s point about glossaries, not all branching
structures are ratholes, some of them are ontologies. I
agree with him that it can be challenging to come to
consensus but not everything worth doing is easy.
Having a
jargon is inevitable in any profession, but if we’re trying
to be transparent and welcoming, we should document our
jargon in some form. Yes, there are existing compilations
of terminologies from various industry standards and
documents, but they lack coherence of meaning or context,
and if they were helpful to newcomers we wouldn’t be having
the conversation.
A rough work
plan for a project would be for members to contribute their
favorite lexicons, glossaries and taxonomies, then
aggregate, de-duplicate and fill gaps. Aim for a language
with which to express the body of knowledge – hopefully with
much of the basic knowledge captured in the relationship
between the terms.
My $0.02USD,
Scott