Re: Input on request for link relation

On 16/09/2009, at 7:46 PM, Sam Johnston wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 3:21 AM, Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net>  
> wrote:
>
> On 11/09/2009, at 11:17 PM, Sam Johnston wrote:
>
> One nitpick about the process is that it seems a request can be  
> denied with a suggestion for another relation (for example we might  
> prefer to use something like "push" or "notif[y|ier|ication| 
> ications" rather than "hub" for this one) but then that would  
> require restarting the process where it should proceed to  
> registration immediately if the change is accepted by the applicant.
>
> Yes, but is the overhead really that onerous?
>
> Perhaps not, and there could well be some delay in acceptance if  
> committees are involved. My worry is that if we don't streamline our  
> processes as much as possible (see Ian's suggestion about IANA  
> maintaining a RelExtensions style wiki) then people will do as they  
> please anyway - see rel="hub", rev="canonical", etc.

Interesting examples; the "hub" people are actively engaging  
(finally), and I've already talked to some of the "canonical" folks  
about doing an I-D once the Link draft is an RFC.

> Would it be possible then to support multiple references so that  
> people can see at a glance that a given relation is implemented as  
> described in multiple formats (rather than just the first format  
> that happened to register it)? May well not be worth the maintenance  
> effort.

How about adding a new field for references to more information about  
how a relation is used in a particular context (scoped by context  
media type)?

E.g.,

References regarding use in specific contexts:
     text/html: [HTML5]
     application/atom+xml: [RFC4287]

One concern here is that there are going to be questions about  
authority; while it's fine for the HTML5 crowd to dictate what happens  
when you see a particular relation in an HTML context, what happens  
when someone comes along and defines a spec for a media type they  
don't own? We'd need some additional guidance about amending  
registrations, I think, which is doable, but it'll make things more  
complex.

What do people think about this generally? Ian, would this help you at  
all?

We'd still need a generic 'reference' field for the defining document  
of the relation itself, but in some cases the current references would  
change to be context references; e.g.,

             Relation Name: chapter
             Description: Refers to a chapter in a collection of  
resources.
             Reference: [this specification]
             References regarding use in specific contexts:
                   text/html: [W3C.REC-html401-19991224]

--
Mark Nottingham     http://www.mnot.net/

Received on Thursday, 17 September 2009 06:26:57 UTC