Re: What if an URI also is a URL

Am Donnerstag, den 30.08.2007, 11:12 +0100 schrieb Xiaoshu Wang:
> Oskar Welzl wrote:
> > Pity, though, that there hardly seems to be an agreement on how to
> > handle this issue, so simply by choosing the above URI myself I will not
> > prevent *others* making statements like 
> > <#thismail> mail:sender <http://oskar.twoday.net>
> > when they refer to an update-notification they received from the weblog.
> >   
> Personally, I don't think it is a pity.  Rather I think it is good in 
> that way.  WebArch should not enforce what people can or cannot say.  
> But as person, we can choose what we agree and what we don't.  In the 
> web, we agree by sharing, by importing your statements.  So, what is 
> true (or in the sense of popular belief) are shared by a large 
> community.  What is not true (or not popular) is left to "die" or 
> continue live in isolate. What we need to educate ourselves and others 
> are how to best convey our meaning clearly so that we won't be left alone.

Sure, that's how it works in practise.

But because of the ambiguity of URIs (which, in fact, is an 1:n relation
URI:information resources), the "network effect" doesn't kick in as
easily as one would expect. If best practise guidelines where strict
enough or even existent, people might use a certain URI consistently
across the web. Statements could easily be collected to add information
about the resource. On the other hand, if I made a statement, I could be
sure it's well understood by others.

The way it is, even though I can collect as much statements about a URI
as I find, I'd better not mix statements from independent sources all to
carelessly: The might apply to completely different information
resources and leave me with unexpected results. Vice versa, I have to
expect my own statements get misinterpreted.

That's what I meant when I said it's a pity there's so little
agreement...

Regards
Oskar

Received on Thursday, 30 August 2007 18:16:18 UTC