This seems easy to me...
Point A:
The DEFINITION is broad and inclusive, and seems to me to clearly
satisfy both the biblioheads and the webheads.
The COMMENT is just that... A comment. Intended to clarify (oops... We
might not have done the best possible thing in this case, though the
word 'typically' is a very legitimate trap door).
Definitions are normative, comments are... well... Comments.
Point B:
The tricky balance that Misha articulates below has always been hard,
and inevitably rough around the margins:
a balancing act between having definitions that are so broad
that they become meaningless and definitions that are so narrow
that they fit only one community and are not shareable.
Always we should be apply the test of common sense... In this case, its
asking the question...
What is the most title-like-object in this resource, and if I choose it,
am I likely to blow up any other community's notion of THEIR
title-like-object?
The answer seems SOOOO obvious to me that I can't understand why this is
even an issue.
Hey, Misha... We've missed you!
s
-----Original Message-----
From: General DCMI discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Misha Wolf
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 2:26 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Never mind the syntax, feel the semantics
I'll start by mentioning that I've put on a hard hat and a flame-
retardant cape, just in case I need them.
It's also worth reiterating Stu's mention of my long involvement with
DC. See, for example, RFC 2413 (Dublin Core Metadata for Resource
Discovery), dating from 1998:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2413.txt
As I've mentioned in previous postings, the News Architecture Working
Party of the International Press Telecommunications Council
(IPTC) is actively examining the use of DC for those of our metadata
elements where there is a good semantic fit. Having been involved with
DC all those years ago, I had assumed that this would be a relatively
pain-free matter. I was wrong. Consider the humble title. RFC 2413
defines this as:
The name given to the resource, usually by the Creator or
Publisher.
The current official DC documentation states:
Definition: A name given to the resource.
Comment : Typically, Title will be a name by which the resource
is formally known.
Ouch! This comment may well work for the Library community. It
certainly does not work for many other communities, such as Web page
authors, professional photographers, or news organisations.
If I change the title of one of the hundreds of Web pages I maintain, I
am most certainly not changing "a name by which the resource is formally
known".
The same applies to a professional photographer changing the title of
one of thousands of photos on her/his computer.
And the same applies to a news story ... the title (ie headline) is most
certainly not any kind of formal name.
So we have a problem. If the Semantic Web is to work, it is not enough
to employ some common syntax or even a common abstract model.
We need to be able to share meaning. And this is obviously a balancing
act between having definitions that are so broad that they become
meaningless and definitions that are so narrow that they fit only one
community and are not shareable. Those of us working on the
architecture of mainstream news standards, perceive the comment
associated with dc:title as being on the latter end of the spectrum.
And so, as Chair of the IPTC News Metadata Framework WG, I am asking the
DC community to reconsider the text of the comment accompanying the
definition of dc:title.
Many thanks,
Misha Wolf
Standards Manager, Reuters
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