The ORM Foundation

As an open forum, and with an intent to further the knowledge, insight and future development of ORM, I was wondering if it is possible to have an 'Open Letters'. An 'Open Letters' section (as opposed an 'Open Forum') would be a forum to ask questions that probe the boundaries of research and development.

Further, if in answering these questions, there is errata of other related outcomes, then I believe there is value in a reciprocating 'Revisions and Errata' section within the 'Library'.

 As most of the work presented in the Library is 'bleeding edge', I feel it would be quite normal to accept that from time to time visions will be suitably challenged, and sometimes changed. Ideas will be reviewed, and work corrected.

 I'd see great merrit in having a forum and library section that allows for all of that.

Hi Victor,

Thanks for your post.
If you want to start a discussion about a specific document in the Library, I suggest that you post a question in a Forum that relates to the topic. If the topic you want is not already there, then its best to request a new topic by name. My concept in creating the Forum categories is to help people to focus their discussions. Thus, I feel that your suggestion about an "open letters" rather goes against the idea of having named forums.

To help you here, I have created a new Forum called "ORM Workshops" under the Research group. So you can either post your questions there or use the comment feature in the Library. If you click on a Library document, you will see a comments box at the bottom of the page.

Hope this helps

Ken 

Hi Ken,

 Thank you for your response. To answer your quesiton, your response doesn't really address the issue or help at this stage. I apologise in advance on that. It might warrant further consideration and thought.

I'll rephrase my request so that it is better understood and answers you requests directly:

 1. In the 'Research' forum (or similar) I would see great benefit in having a topic called ''Revisions and Errata'. The reason for this is that relevance and credence in a sphere of 'research', and (asperational) 'standards', is only built upon honest and open discussion and display of 'revisions and errata'. With the recent ORM conference, it was suggested that ORM achieve ISO standard qualification. If that is to be the case, then there will be no option but to publish revisions and errata. There was also discussion of 'unification' of Niam and ORM. That will entail change, revisions and in the process there will undoubtably be errata. Basically, if there is nothing to hide, then it's a great idea to publish revisions and errata.

     This in response to >>  "If the topic you want is not already there, then its best to request a new topic by name."

     Colloquially - I just see this a the type of web site where I would hope to find the glossary, the documentation, the (future) standard, the revisions, the errata. If not, I'd kind of question the relevance of an organisation that doesn't challenge itself. That's all.

2. 'Open Letters'. The risk of not having this type of 'topic' somewhere, is that people will just ask their general questions anywhere they can. For instance, Orthogonal software's objectrolemodeling.com has a 'General Discussion' forum where people new to ORM come and ask questions, and even challenge ORM. By allowing the challenge, the site has relevance, because people wouldn't bother writing anything if they weren't interested in a response. And that's not to mention the ability of ORM specialists to help people find the information that they need by answering their questions. I feel that Orthoganal have hit the nail on the head there and I see great benefit for ormfoundation.org to do something similar.

     This in response to >>  "If the topic you want is not already there, then its best to request a new topic by name."
     To be honest, I don't mind what it's called. Let's just have an open section where novices to academics can raise questions.

3. Yes. I agree, where a document exists in the library, and where someone wants to write directly to that document there is the ability to do that, and I have. It's a great feature of the site.

 4. Maybe there is a glitch, I can't find the new 'ORM Workshops' section under the Research group.

 Best regards

Victor