Develop SOP for changing OBO ID (aka shortname) of annotation extension relation

[dosumis]

Problem: annotators refer to relations using an old-style OBO relation ID (AKA shorthand): a human readable name with underscores in place of spaces. This usually, but not always, matches the label of the term. More perniciously, this ID is used to store a record of the annotation extension in GAF files and in the GOA database. In both cases, string parsing is required to even get to this ID.

So - we have all the problems associated with using meaningful Identifiers: how do we deal with cases where annotators would like to change the name of a relation (as far as annotators are concerned, these IDs are the names). How do we deal with cases where we want to merge relations and would like to update all existing annotation extensions to the winning relation name?

For now - I'm just changing the labels and aim to encourage tool developers to display labels.

Need to know: How practical is it to update all instances of relation usage in AE when a shorthand ID changes? This is most critical for relation merges.

Ultimately, annotation extensions need to be stored properly: with official OWL shortForm IDs and without the need for string parsing to break down the annotation extension.

@cmungall Help!

[dosumis]

This is more problematic than I though: at least under some circumstances, the obo id is being automatically generated from the label!

[dosumis]

This is not practical unless or until AEs are stored differently. Kicking into long grass for now.