> From: "Miller,Eric" <[log in to unmask]>, 9 Mar 2000 13:24:53
>
> > I may have missed this, but please add an explanation (for the benefit
> > of post-ballot readers) of what exactly the
> >
> > Identifier: The unique identifier assigned to the data element
> >
> > is, and how it differs from
> >
> > Name: The label assigned to the data element.
> >
> > For example, is the Identifier a syntax-independent string that must
> > appear in expressions of that qualifier? In which case the term
> > "label" seems most appropriate to me.
>
> These terms came from the original dc1.0 and 1.1 documents.
It turns out that's not true. DC 1.0 uses the terms Name and Label,
and RFC 2413 defines them thus:
"[E]ach element has a descriptive name intended to convey a
common semantic understanding of the element, as well as a formal
single-word label intended to make the syntactic specification of
elements simpler for encoding schemes."
DC 1.1, on the other hand, uses the terms Name, Label (which it uses to
define Name), and Identifier. But DC 1.1 has the same problem as the
qualifier document: it isn't clear how the Identifier is used, how it
is unique, and how it differs from the Name.
> I would have
> greatly preferred *not* to include 'Identifier' in the ballot at this time
> due to what I'm afraid are incompatible views of what this means. But I was
> overruled (no referable notes from teleconferences...errr) in the desire to
> make this ballot as compatible with the other specifications.
Well, the compatibility argument doesn't work with DC 1.0 at all.
It's also not safe to assume that this use of Identifier will be
compatible with DC 1.1, as the dc-niso committee is taking up the
Identifier question in preparing the NISO ballot. The terminology
is confusing right now.
>
> > Also, in what context is the identifier supposed to be unique?
> > An unpleasant example is the term "Identifier" itself, which is now
> > used in three unrelated ways in DCMES:
> >
> > 1. "Identifier" the label on the fragments of the present document
> > (the concept that this message starts with),
> >
> > 2. "Identifier" the qualifier
> >
> > 3. "Identifier" the Dublin Core element
> >
> > Nailing down in this document what we mean by unique would help lots.
>
> for exactly these (and other) reasons, i'd like to remove the 'Identifier'
> part of this ballot...
Me too, obviously.
-John
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