Andy Powell, in reply to Chris Croome, said:
> > What I'm not so sure about it what URI to use?
> >
> > When producing metadata for a XHTML document should the URI be the
> > specification, as above, or the namespace or the DTD?
>
> Namespace feels wrong to me - since for some/many 'specifications' there
> will be multiple namespaces. Furthermore, not all 'specifications' will be
> XML or SGML based...
I agree. I'd say that an XHTML document *requires*, *references* or perhaps
even *hasPart* that matches the namespace name. It can't be said to conform
to it, since the namespace itself doesn't define what elements and
attributes are in that namespace, the relevant Spec does (the fact that that
spec would well be retrievable from the namespace name is another matter,
and touches on an ongoing debate).
e.g. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0... so
> linking to the DTD or XML schema won't be possible.
> In some cases, there won't be an appropriate URI, in which case I'd use
> the 'title' of the specification. E.g a resource that conforms to GCE A
> level (an educational level in the UK) one might simply have to use
>
> GCE A Level
>
> In general, I see the values of DC elements (and element refinements) as
> being human-readable. A URI for a spec is a useful identifier... clearly
> a URI is machine-readable, but in general, I'm not convinced that DC
> consuming applications will want (or expect) to be able to retieve what is
> at the URI and do anything useful with it (other than display it to the
> end user, or allow the end user to 'click' on the link).
RDF applications would of course benefit from a URI being associated with
the resource that the resource in question *conformsTo*, rather than having
to use anonymous nodes. In particular this will affect how graphs are
merged. That said when a URI is used, it doesn't have to be the only
information given about the resource, and it would be possible to create a
URI that identifies a resource within a particular application-defined
domain, even if it isn't globally recognisable.
|