[osis-core] references and self-ids Part 3 - Proposal

[Todd Tillinghast]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-osis-core@bibletechnologieswg.org [mailto:owner-osis-
> core@bibletechnologieswg.org] On Behalf Of Harry Plantinga
> Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2002 9:09 AM
> To: osis-core@bibletechnologieswg.org
> Subject: Re: [osis-core] references and self-ids Part 3 - Proposal
> 
> 
> > > I see why it would be handy to identify a block-oriented
translation
> > > at a looser (range-like) level; but it does complicate
verse-finding
> > > code substantially, doesn't it? You have to do a fairly
complicated
> > > range-intersection algorithm to be able to know that
> > > Matt.1.3-Matt.1.7 relates to Matt.1.6-Matt.1.12; indeed, I'm not
sure
> > > the result is well-defined (mathematical intersection is, but the
> > > user's intent may vary in whether open vs. close-ended
intersections
> > > count, and so on for the other 13 or so cases that come up....)
> > >
> > There are two case:
> > Case 1) Multiple verses as defined by the reference system are
> > translated into a single verse element.  In this case is indeed
> > troublesome. Following are options:
> > a) We define a new reference system for this translation and
> > define a new verse id that is Matt.1.6-12 which maps to several
other
> > verses in the more common reference system it seeks to largely
comply
> > with.
> 
> This seems to me to be the natural solution. A transformation between
> these two systems would have to be defined in any case, and once
you've
> got it defined, you know that Matt.1.6-12 in one system corresponds to
> Matt.1.6, Matt.1.7, ..., Matt.1.12 in the other.
> 
> That way you solve a whole host of possible reference problems with
> one system. E.g. what about Greek Daniel, which may have segments
> from different books of the bible in the NRSVA -- Daniel, Bel, etc.
> You can't handle complicated situations like that very easily with
> a range identifier.
> 
> -Harry
> 
Your point is an excellent one.

There seem to be angles to this issue.  Whatever solution we choose it
will be easier for one and harder for the other.

There will be a number of translations for which there is no option but
to create a unique reference system for portions as large as a book or
more.  (Naturally there are totally divergent cases as well.)  I believe
that a majority of the modern translations and an even greater majority
of use/access instances will be to translations that use one of three
common reference systems.  

If we don't force each translation to have its own reference system
based on the aggregation or splitting of a few verses then software will
not be needed to map between reference systems for a majority of the
cases.  

It seems to me that most modern translations continue to support the
"standard" versification schemes even when they group or split up
verses, by creating what are really new identifiers that look to humans
like the "standard" identifiers that we are used to seeing.
(Matt.1.6-11 creates a new verse identifier "6-11" that gives clues to
the human reader that the "verse" you are about to read is equal to
verses 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 in the "standard" versification scheme.
For these cases there seems to be some hope of not creating a new
reference system.  (See the other options from the original post.)

For the cases such as Ester and Daniel there is no hope and a divergent
reference system must be used.  (However, even for Ester there seems to
be hope for a unified reference system by either using the number and
letter options for book names OR by adding the book additions to Ester.)

>From a purely technical perspective I have to go with option (a) as
Harry suggests.  But from a usefulness perspective I want to provide a
mechanism that would allow a large numbers of translations to share
common reference systems.  I simple way to state this is that if a human
can look at a reference in a translation where that is "a little
different" and is able to determine without any clues from the
associated text what that reference means with respect to the "standard"
reference system, then we should find a way to accommodate those cases.

For the cases where the numbering (lettering is totally divergent) then
an new reference system would be required.  (Different ways of handling
Psalms, the three ways of handling Ester, etc..)

If the osisID differs from the set of characters determined by the
translators for that verse then we may have to allow for a place to
store the translators PRESENTATION value.  Naturally this would not be
needed for case (a).

Thoughts?

Todd