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Thomas Baker <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>> I see DC as a foundation upon which much can be built. We should not >>> discourage people to use DC, even when it goes beyond the simple uses that >>> we intend it for. Instead, we should encourage such development, as it will >>> strengthen the semantic meaning of documents. >> This view is very much in keeping with direction that I would like to see DC >> develop. > It is one thing to promote a default value construct as a way to let > people hang arbitrary graphs from an INTNODE in a way that does not > compromise the intended use of the Dublin Core as a pidgin for resource > discovery. It is quite another to imply that the myriad and diverse > concept spaces which people associate with Dublin Core elements are > within the scope of the Dublin Core itself, somehow making "the Dublin > Core" into a foundation of richer resource description. I agree with > Carl and Diane that we should avoid saying this. You seem to be confusing the argument. There are two issues involved here: 1) Specializing Dublin Core The DC-15 pick out some very basic terms about resources, however, these terms can be specified quite deeply. We should not prevent people from specializing these terms as long as what they do is a true specialization (that is that all answers for the specialization are valid answers for the unspecialized form -- I believe this is called the dumb-down rule). Allowing this specialization to be built on top of DC is a win for everyone. Example: The DCES defines an element called Contributor. I'd like to create a new term called Illustrator. Clearly anyone who illustrates a resource has also contributed to it, so therefore my term is a valid specialization of Dublin Core. Now, Dublin Core processors can replace my Illustrator term with Contributor, and continue on as they please. 2) Having Dublin Core Point to Resources Most current uses of Dublin Core have used the elements resolve in text strings. However, it is also important that we allow them to resolve to other first-class resources (what has been called an "INTNODE") which have their own properties (which may be Dublin Core elements). It is also useful to allow this method to be converted to a simple text string, and the Dublin Core should provide a method for doing so. Example: The dc:subject of "The Origin of Species" would probably be "Science". However, it could just as reasonably point to: http://dir.yahoo.com/Science/Biology/Evolution/ which is a resource that has its own attributes including: Title: Evolution Publisher: Yahoo! etc. Both of these are what I'm suggesting, and neither involves dimly-specified "concept spaces". I don't see where the problem lies. -- [ Aaron Swartz | [log in to unmask] | http://www.aaronsw.com ]