3.1 Adding terms

Terms may be added to an existing namespace by Community Groups and by Working Groups, and MAY be part of Recommendation Track or non-Recommendation Track work (eg. a WG Note).

To add a term to an existing namespace, the group proposing the term should contact vocab-services@w3.org, with:

• A description of the term.
• The reason the requested namespace is appropriate.
• Evidence that any relevant groups and communities which initiated or use the namespace have been contacted to determine if there is any principled reason not to add the term.
• Any specifications the term is or will be referenced from, and their status.

Requests will typically be responded to within 2 business days.

Terms MUST be clearly described, and if associated with a Working, Interest or Community Group specification, MUST link to that specification and note the status of the specification. In particular, if one namespace document contains terms described in multiple specifications, the relationships between terms and their requisite specifications MUST be clear in the namespace document. Terms which are not associated with a specification MUST indicate which group is responsible for this term and descriptions of terms MUST indicate (or link to a way to determine) the stability of the term.

Terms which are part of a specification undergoing the Recommendation process may reasonably expect to be stable subject to the continuation of the Working Group. Nevertheless, such a term may be removed or changed according to the status of the Working Group work. Terms MAY be removed from the namespace if the corresponding specification does not advance to Recommendation status.

A term MUST be considered stable or frozen when the corresponding specification is a Recommendation. This MUST be clearly indicated as part of the description of the term in the namespace document.

3.2 Modification and removal of terms

Existing definitions for terms referenced by Recommendations MUST NOT be modified.

Terms referenced by Recommendations MUST NOT be removed from an existing namespace.

Other terms SHOULD NOT be modified or removed by anyone other than the Working Group, Interest Group or Community Group which originally proposed them, or a group which is a formal continuation of the group which originally proposed them, or without explicit (public, linkable) approval by the group which originally proposed them or a continuation thereof.

Other terms MAY be marked as deprecated but this MUST include a link to a WG resolution and rationale.