Revision of encodingDesc

[danbalogh]

As @michaelnmmeyer has pointed out long ago in #334 and recently in #421, the <encodingDesc> of our XML files is obsolete.
It contains the following items (at least in the file that I've looked at).

• <projectDesc> containing a <p> stating that DHARMA has received funding from the ERC.
  • as per Why do our edition files credit the ERC in the Encoding Description? #334, the ERC should be acknowledged in <funder> under <publicationStmt> and nowhere else
  • we may or may not want to retain the <projectDesc> element
    • if we want to keep it, we need meaningful content for it
• <schemaRef> pointing to an outdated EGD copy archived on HAL, which should probably be discarded
• <listPrefixDef> with a number of prefix definitions (bib: and part:), which Michaël says "is useless for any practical purpose"
  • I cannot agree that it is useless, because even if Michaël processes the prefixes bib:, part: as well as sym: through the web app, it would be better practice (accessibility, interoperability) to declare these in the header and include sym: in this declaration (plus any other prefixes that we might use, if there are others I have forgotten about)
  • nonetheless, if updating the <listPrefixDef> is out of question (since this would need authority files set up in proper TEI to which these can refer), then deleting it altogether may be an option

The questions are thus:

1. Do we simply get rid of the entire <encodingDesc> in our existing files and templates?
2. If not, what do we put in it?

[danbalogh]

P.S. One suggestion in #334 was to replace our <encodingDesc> with the following

<encodingDesc>
<p>Encoded in TEI/EpiDoc according to the <ref target="{URI for DHARMA editorial conventions or page with link to Encoding Guides}>Conventions of Project DHARMA</ref></p>
</encodingDesc>

This of course requires a stable URI for the editorial conventions and/or a final archived version of the EGD, so if this is what we choose, it may have to be left for later.

[michaelnmmeyer]

I would rather get rid of <encodingDesc>, since its contents is not displayed anyway.

[danbalogh]

As I seem to be saying over and over again this morning, I think the question whether and how some item in the file is processed in the dharmalekha ecosystem should not be relevant to whether and how that item is encoded in our files.

I have no strong objection to getting rid of this part of the header, but given the TEI Guidelines' explanation of <encodingDesc>, I think it would be a good idea to keep it and to refer in it to the EGD as above. The problem with this is that we want to refer to the final EGD before we have archived a final EGD. It seems possible, however, to circumvent this by referring to the old EGD's ID number https://hal.science/halshs-02888186 without a version number and - when the new EGD is finished - archiving it on HAL as a new version of the same item. That way, the URI stays the same, and "version 2" may be specified in the text:

<encodingDesc>
<p>Encoded in TEI/EpiDoc according to the <ref 
target="https://hal.science/halshs-02888186">DHARMA 
Encoding Guide for Documentary Editions, version 2</ref></p>
</encodingDesc>

[arlogriffiths]

I second Dan's last message.

@michaelnmmeyer : can you move forward to implement Dan's proposal?