> Perhaps what we have here is a philosophical issue: Does a context set
> *reflect* the manner in which a community labels its indexes, or does
> a context set *dictate* the manner in which a community labels its
> indexes?

Yes. Both, in my opinion :)

The community should first reflect on what they do, and codify it as a
context set. Once it has been codified, it then dictates how they will
label their indexes from then on.

For example, if the DC context set had been written when dc included an
author field (and hence the context set would have dc.author) and then the
community evolved from calling it author to creator, the context set would
still dictate that the index should be called author.

Once some unspecifiable critical mass has been reached, the community
would then release a new version of the context set to say 'Well, we were
wrong, we should call it dc.creator instead'

And that's okay for them to do, as different versions of context sets
require different identifiers. Then those not part of the critical mass
can still use dc1.0 author and the others can use dc1.1 creator.

Rob