Re: [dxwg] Differentiating Functional & Data Profiling in Conneg (#1022)

Trying to summarise the discussion and the contentious points:

@aisaac thinks the [current text (§2.1)](https://w3c.github.io/dxwg/conneg-by-ap/#conformance-profiles) blurs the line between data profiles and functional profiles, particularly since the text in the note in §2.1 (that is about functional profiles) has a hyperlink to the general definition of "profile" and not to a specific definition of "functional profile". He [goes on to say](https://github.com/w3c/dxwg/issues/1022#issuecomment-531238990): 
> And I'm not sure what to do with "Content Negotiation implies data" yes in a way it's true that one would expect data rather than functional profiles. But on the other hand one could also expect "Content Negotiation by Profile" to be about some kind of "Content Profiles". Our "Data Profiles" are not "Content Profiles", though. So the reader will need a clear rendition of what "Profiles" are. And if one of the first parts she sees in the document is about profiles that are really not the ones being negotiated, this is not super helpful.

and
> NB: I shall re-iterate the problem with the editorial issues (esp. the hyperlinks) I've spotted earlier. The problem between functional profiles and the title is big, but if the hyperlinks were not in, it would already be smaller!

@agreiner [agrees with Antoine](https://github.com/w3c/dxwg/issues/1022#issuecomment-521465749)
> I think introducing yet another use of the term "profile" is going to make this even more difficult for users to understand. It's both the anti-patterns of similar terms proliferating and reuse of the same term with different meaning.

@rob-metalinkage suggests to fix this by adding the following text to the [definition of profile](https://w3c.github.io/dxwg/conneg-by-ap/#dfn-profile):
> This definition includes both "data profiles" (when applied to data specifications) and "functional profiles" (when applied to behaviours of services). "Data profiles" are sometimes called "application profiles", "metadata application profiles", or "metadata profiles". This document describes functional profiles of service behaviour with respect to negotiation about choice of data profiles. The context determines how "profiles" should be interpreted in each case.

@larsgsvensson [suggests](https://github.com/w3c/dxwg/issues/1022#issuecomment-530830723) to clarify this by re-naming the document to "Content Negotiation by Data Profile". @nicholascar and @rob-metalinkage oppose to that.

And thinking about it again (and reading the document) my new take would be that the best way to solve this might be to move what is now §2.1 into its own section further down. This would solve two problems:
1. Readers are not immediately confronted with the concept of functional profiles. If we add that further down, they will have a chance to understand the general concepts first.
2. As it is now, §2.1 is not normative content. In [§2](https://w3c.github.io/dxwg/conneg-by-ap/#conformance) it says "For the purpose of compliance, the normative sections of this document are Section 3, Section 6, Section 7 and Section 8."

I also +1 @rob-metalinkage's suggestion for the text change to the definition of profile.
And in addition to that, I suggest that we mark everything connected to functional profiles as feature-at-risk. Then it will be easier to remove that if we cannot agree.

What do you think?

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Received on Friday, 20 September 2019 14:42:47 UTC