Re: [Fwd: Review of HTML 4.0 Specification]

David Abrahamson wrote to the editors of HTML 4.0:

[...]
>               ISO-HTML Editor's Comments on W3C HTML 4.0
[...]
>
> <META> element
> --------------
> 
> We suggest adding the following description of name/value pairs:
> 
> Each <META> element specifies a name/value pair.  If multiple <META>
> elements are provided with the same name, their combined contents -
> concatenated as a comma-separated list - is the value that will be
> associated with that name.

I strongly disagree:

   <meta name="DC.creator" content="Gilbert">
   <meta name="DC.creator" content="Sullivan">

is not the same as:

   <meta name="DC.creator" content="Gilbert, Sullivan">

Though some implementations may carry out such concatenation, it is a 
short-cut which is neither normative nor advised.

> Note:
>  * The <META> element should not be used where a specific element,
> such as <TITLE>, would be more appropriate.  Rather than specifying a
> <META> element with a URL as the value of the CONTENT attribute,
> use a <LINK> element instead.

I don't understand the relationship between the two sentences of this 
paragraph and also don't understand the first sentence.  I strongly 
disagree with the second sentence.  "Dublin Core Metadata for Simple 
Resource Description" (draft-kunze-dc-00.txt) explicitly states that 
the elements DESCRIPTION, IDENTIFIER and RIGHTS may take URLs as their 
values.

> * The method by which the server extracts document meta-information is
> unspecified and not mandatory.  The <META> element only provides an
> extensible mechanism for identifying and embedding such document
> meta-information - how it may be used is up to the individual
> server implementation and HTML user agent.

I don't understand the reference to "the server".  Which server?

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Misha Wolf            Email: misha.wolf@reuters.com     85 Fleet Street
Standards Manager     Voice: +44 171 542 6722           London EC4P 4AJ
Reuters Limited       Fax  : +44 171 542 8314           UK
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Fifth Dublin Core Metadata Workshop, 6-8 October 1997, Helsinki, Finland

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Received on Thursday, 11 September 1997 14:14:18 UTC