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Curated Text

A curated text is a text that documents a concept or other semantic unit of a particular party, and specifies, e.g., the term(s) by which the party refers thereto, its definition, and any other relevant information.

A curated text consists of two parts:

  • a header, which is a set of key-value pairs that are designed to facilitate automated processing;
  • a body, that contains texts that are designed for human interpretation.
Curated texts live in curated files, that may have been generated, e.g. from [ingress tools](docs/overview/tev2-architecture#ingress-tools), or may have been constructed manually (using a text editor).Curated texts are used for a variety of purposes, as they (may) contain texts that:

The (technical) structure and syntax for files that contain curated texts is specified here.

The manuals for contributors, [authors](/docs/manuals/author) and curators will provide guidance for people that act in these respective roles as they work with curated texts.

Editor's Note

Text needs to be revised from here onward. Here are some ideas to mention:

  • contributors can suggest contents as per the curators instructions;
  • authors can write the body of curated texts;
  • curators update the header of curated texts (conforming to the ctext specifications;
  • curators specify the process by which curated texts progress/mature, and get statuses assigned;
  • curators generate artifacts from 'decided on' curated texts, so that
    • rendering tools or generation tools used in other scopes can generate artifacts and
    • people can subsequently access nicely rendered, human readable versions

The terminology pattern provides an overview of how this concept fits in with related concepts.

Purpose

Curated texts are intended to be processable by a variety of tools, that are chosen by the curators. Together, these tools not only enable the curation of the scope's terminology, but also the generation of glossaries, and a better handling of terms in documentation, whitepapers and the like.

The precise conditions that headers and bodies of curated texts must satisfy will differ across scopes as curators are autonomous in choosing their tools and ways of working. To support other participants of their terms community in making contributions, they will define an ingestion process for the scope(s) they curate, enabling such participants to contribute in ways that are easy for them.

Notes

The intention of curated texts is to document a semantic unit, which is something that has a place in the way of thinking within a scope. Ways of working (e.g. installation procedures), reports on research to be published in papers, etc., are NOT thought of as part of the scope's terminology, and hence should not be documented as a curated text. Having said that, this is not a closed discussion; we can think of arguments to the opposite, so who knows...