@jamescummings had a suggestion for rephrasing at the F2F in Guelph?!

Hi, I would remove the 'ocellus nominum' since most people won't know what that means and MS cataloguers who do would use this element anyway when appropriate.

I'd say something like:

contains an proper noun or noun phrase used for a manuscript, or other object, instead of any formal identification number or classmark.

That brings it more in line with objectName and other name elements but with the specification that it isn't the structured forms like classmark which should go in idno.

I second James' interpretation and proposal, as in my understanding, msName is alternative respectively additional to idno.

The OP is clearly correct, in that the <gloss> of the <msName> is egregiously wrong; it should almost certainly be “manuscript name”. (The gloss simply expands the name of the element, which is by definition an arbitrary identifier, into words in a particular natural language. It does not define the element semantics.)

Council subgroup at F2F 2024 decides update the status of this ticket to "Go" and to implement the following changes:

• Correct the <gloss> of <msName> to "manuscript name" according to @sydb's guidance.

• Update the <desc> of <msName> with the description provided by @jamescummings