[VM] 2006-03-17 telecon report

SWBPD VM 2006-03-17 telecon report

Agenda: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2006Mar/0046.html

Participants: Tom, Alistair, Ralph

Summary

    RESOLVED: no VMTF telecons in April.  Mar 31 will be last
    meeting under SW BPD.

    ACTION Ralph: Contact Matthew Ellison about our interest in
    having STC participate in VM writing.

    AGREED to focus the last telecon on clarifying the list of
    issues to be carried forward into future chartered working
    groups (see draft text appended below).

1. David Booth's re-review

-- Point 1: As decided on the Feb 20 BPD telecon, Tom added text
   about URIs coined using the http://thing-described-by.org
   303-redirect service [1,2,3].

    [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2006Mar/0027.html
    [2] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/VM/http-examples/2006-01-18/#other
    [3] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/VM/http-examples/2006-01-18/#redirect

   Alistair is not convinced that using 303 redirects is
   actually simpler; he hasn't written up his thoughts yet.
   A 303 redirect service is not new; that's exactly what
   purl.org is.  He is also not sure that 303 is simple
   for slash namespaces -- see recipe 2a.  You still need a
   rule that catches multiple targets.  It is similar to the
   partial redirect problem in purl.org.  If t-d-b could be
   configured then lots would be easier, but without that
   t-d-b is functionally equivalent to purl.org partial
   redirects; and t-d-b relies on the persistence of 2 URIs
   whereas purl.org only relies on the persistence of one
   (purl.org) URI.  This option has not been fully explored,
   so we should look more closely at the supposed simplicity
   of the 303-redirect solution and consider whether TDB is
   really the best alternative.

-- Point 3: "Title of Section 3"

   Currently called "Some considerations when choosing a URI 
   namespace".  David suggests: "Choosing a namespace URI: hash
   versus slash".

   Alistair opposed to renaming the section to include
   "hash vs slash" text (Ralph agrees): we want to take out
   all references to past quagmires and think about readers
   coming to document for first time - they want clean,
   concise look at problem.

-- Point 3: "Wording in Section 3"

   Ditto for wording of section three: better not to bring up
   old arguments about hash versus slash.

   ACTION Ralph: Contact Matthew Ellison about our interest in
   having STC participate in VM writing.

    Matthew Ellison <matthew.ellison@email.com>: represents
    Society for Technical Communication (STC), a W3C that is
    providing volunteer resources for a range of W3C writing
    and eLearning development activities.  These activities
    include editing specifications, developing tutorials
    for W3C tools and technologies, and writing summaries on
    emerging W3C technologies and specifications.

-- Point 5: "Pros and cons of hash versus slash URIs"

   Alistair: Text of David's suggested editor's note isn't
   quite correct.  Also, prefer to keep this document at the
   need-to-know level.  If some pros and cons are to go into
   this document, they ought to be as simple as possible and
   gently worded.  Would prefer if all document on making
   choices were made externally to this document (i.e.,
   in another document), then just cite it.

   Ralph: Hard to keep this document both simple, and detailed
   enough for people curious to look under the hood.  Feels
   right to have an entirely separate discussion document.

2. Structure of Cookbook document as a whole

-- Tom proposed putting the requirements at the top, etc:
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2006Mar/0048.html

   Tom: As currently written, there is nothing in the
   introductory sections that simply says: "This document shows
   you how to publish both machine- and human-readable versions
   of a vocabulary."  The requirements need to be expressed
   up-front in some form, if only in a sentence or two.

   Alistair: Deliberately put the "Requirements" section at
   the back of the document because it is not need-to-know
   for the reader -- it's really there for the WG.  I'd rather
   the Requirements were not there at all.

   Ralph: Putting in alot of editorial notes, then stripping
   them out in the final product is not a bad process.

   Alistair: the "Apache Configuration" section is another
   thing that could be moved to an Appendix.  The important
   section is Choosing a recipe -- we want to get the reader
   there as quickly as possible.  Introduction, then Choosing a
   Recipe, directly.

   Tom, Ralph, Alistair agree: Need to provide the motivation
   for this specification in the introduction.  Alot of the
   detail could be pushed to appendix: URI namespaces; the
   second Apache configuration.  We need to decide what to
   expect of readers - will help us decide what to keep in.

   If we physically move stuff down, then flavor becomes
   "we don't think you want to see the details..."...
   That tone is a dramatic change from what we have now.
   Diagrams helped us, but may not be necessary for the
   intended users.  Simple visual images could perhaps convey
   these choices with less detail.

=====

Ongoing issues: "Best Practice Recipes for Publishing RDF Vocabularies"
--  http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-swbp-vocab-pub-20060314/

--  David Booth's re-review of Feb 15 [2] of the Jan 18 version [3] made
    the following points:

    1) "Simplest possible configuration"
       Using a 303-redirect service, while quite new as an approach,
       would theoretically be simpler to implement than the recipe
       in the Cookbook claimed to be "the simplest".  Suggests adding
       an editor's note.  Tom took this as an action on the Feb 20 telecon
       and followed up by adding some text [5], which David Booth
       approved.

    2) "Big-picture overview of server configuration steps"
       David suggests some text to add [2].

    3) "Title of Section 3"
       Currently called "Some considerations when choosing a URI 
       namespace".  David suggests: "Choosing a namespace URI: hash
       versus slash".

    4) "Wording in Section 3"
       David suggests a change of wording in one sentence in line 
       the new title (see 3 above).

    5) "More-explicit guidance on hash versus slash URIs"
       Additional discussion of Pros and Cons is suggested.

    6) "More-helpful comment line in the recipes"
       Suggests a few more words.

    7) "Interpretation of fragment identifiers"
            Recipe 3. Hash Configuration, Extended:
            I don't think the comment from my previous review was addressed:
            "Because the interpretation of a fragment identifier in
            the presence of 303 redirects is unclear as far as I know, I think
            this recipe should note that the browser may or may not apply the
            fragment identifier to the secondary URI."

    8) Numbering of sections is requested.

    9) s/URI namespace/namespace URI/ throughout

--  Hash namespace URIs

    On 2006-02-14, Ralph pointed out [6] that the Cookbook shows
    vocabulary
       http://isegserv.itd.rl.ac.uk/VM/http-examples/example1
    defining classes
       http://isegserv.itd.rl.ac.uk/VM/http-examples/example1#ClassA
       http://isegserv.itd.rl.ac.uk/VM/http-examples/example1#ClassB
    consistently omitting the trailing '#' from the vocabulary name.

    "I claim this is a fundamental mistake and would argue it on the
    basis of both semantics and what the RDF core specifications
    state.  The semantic point is that [1] should be the name of the
    vocabulary while [2] is the name of a document that might (should)
    describe that vocabulary."

    [1] http://isegserv.itd.rl.ac.uk/VM/http-examples/example1#
    [2] http://isegserv.itd.rl.ac.uk/VM/http-examples/example1

--  Recipe 6 is still a placeholder [1].
    [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-swbp-vocab-pub-20060314/#recipe6

--  Testing
    ACTION: Ralph to test recipes with W3C configuration.

--  Longer-term issue: alignment of content-negotiation ideas
    in the cookbook with TAG:
    -- http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/issues.html#namespaceDocument-8
    -- Associating Resources with Namespaces
       Draft TAG Finding 13 December 2005
       http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/nsDocuments-2005-12-13/

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2006Feb/0120.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2006Feb/0109.html
[3] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/VM/http-examples/2006-01-18/
[4] http://www.w3.org/2006/02/20-swbp-minutes.html#action16
[5] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2006Mar/0027.html
[6] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2006Feb/thread.html#msg105


-- 
Dr. Thomas Baker                      baker@sub.uni-goettingen.de
SUB - Goettingen State                            +49-551-39-3883
and University Library                           +49-30-8109-9027
Papendiek 14, 37073 Göttingen

Received on Sunday, 19 March 2006 14:11:07 UTC