> | <META NAME="DC.author" CONTENT="(TYPE=name) Jon Knight">
> | <META NAME="DC.author" CONTENT="(TYPE=email) [log in to unmask]">
> | <META NAME="DC.author" CONTENT="(TYPE=affiliation) Dept. Computer Studies,
> | Loughborough University">
>
> This way of encoding the information (aside from the syntax-within-a-syntax)
> confuses any user agent that assumes the original semantics of DC;
> such a user agent will produce results indicating that your name is
> (TYPE=name) Jon Knight.
The "original semantics" as expresed at the Dublin, Ohio meeting (I was
told afterwards) did not include a syntax. The syntax used here is close
to what was suggested at Warwick, and has already been discussed on this
list.
I agree that:
> <META NAME="DC-1.1-author" CONTENT="(TYPE=firstname) Jon">
> <META NAME="DC-1.1-author" CONTENT="(TYPE=surname) Knight">
may be a problem.
A combination of a clear user guide and solid software support will be
needed to avoid this. There will be many possible similar problems with
user-tagged data; I'm not sure it's <B>any <I>worse </B>than </I>this</I>.
> Tag abuse often points to inadequate underlying semantics, and that's
> just what we have here. I reiterate that you can solve the problem
> effectively by adding elements, adding a qualifier for a pointer to
> author address information, or (for now, and what I recommend)
> supplying the info outside the DC set. Abusing the Author element
> only weakens DC's semantics and their real-world utility.
One reason that I had for bringing up author affiliation is that it
is frequently present in existing bibliographical databases -- e.g.
bibtex, texbib, refer, bib, etc. all have it -- and the ability to
encode it may aid conversion, and hence encourage people to use the
information, e.g. when they publush their own papers, or in making
older documents available. It was also a good example of something
on the edge of the DC.
I am not sure if it's abusing the Author field. I originaly saw the
author's institutional affiliation as an OtherAgent.
Certainly I can imagine wanting to search for all papers by people
at Xerox Parc.
We can decide how to encode author affiliation and say so, and if
we say it is part of Author, it isn't tag abuse. Of course, if
we put it into a field called "DATE", people will look at us oddly,
so it does have to be at least marginally plausible.
There are enough other things one could want to encode in DC that
one has to stop somewhere for the sake of simplicity and usability.
Lee
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