We’re excited to announce that the Collaborative Metadata Enrichment Taskforce (COMET) has completed its work as an official FORCE11 Working Group. Our formal outputs are now live, and we’re moving into a new phase that invites the broader community to help shape what comes next.

COMET was born out of conversations at the FORCE2024 conference in Los Angeles, where a diverse group of participants came together around a shared challenge: how can we make metadata better, more complete, consistent, and interoperable, by empowering more actors to contribute? That spark led to the formation of our Taskforce and incorporation of it into the FORCE11 Working Group structure. With FORCE11’s support, COMET has grown into a cross-community effort grounded in openness, inclusivity, and action.

Throughout our time as a FORCE11 WG, we’ve:

• Defined the core tenets of a distributed, open metadata enrichment model
• Mapped common challenges facing stakeholders across the metadata lifecycle
• Drafted a Community Call to Action, which invites organizations and individuals to endorse, adopt, and build on this shared vision 

This moment marks the conclusion of our time as a FORCE11 Working Group, but not the end of COMET. With the foundations in place, we’re now inviting others to join us. Our Community Call to Action outlines how to get involved, and we’re actively building partnerships to put the model into practice.

We’re deeply grateful to FORCE11 for creating space for this work to take shape. The mission to support new models for knowledge creation and sharing aligns closely with COMET’s goals, and we are proud to have been part of the FORCE11 community.

The COMET Working Group was convened by Clare Dean, John Chodacki, Maria Praetzellis, and Adam Buttrick. You can read more about the group and its outputs on the FORCE11 COMET WG page.

We hope you’ll join us as we move from defining the model to implementing it. Please respond to the Community Call to Action by May 1, 2025. Get in touch if you’re interested in participating.