Re: Metadata proliferation

On Sat, 8 Mar 1997, Misha Wolf wrote:

> There has been a recent debate, on the www-international list, regarding the 
> relationship between:
> 
>    1.   <... LANG=xxx> language tagging of HTML as per RFC 2070,
>    2.   <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Language" Content="xxx">.
>   3.    <META NAME = "DC.language" CONTENT = "...">
> 
> These flavours seem to be very loosely coupled.  I am trying to understand the 
> uses and relative priorities of the various flavours.  What should happen when 
> they disagree?
> 
> The last two flavours are designed to exist both inside and outside an HTML 
> document.  Would it be sensible to argue that where the HTML flavour is present, 
> the other two should be absent/ignored?

HTTP type can be determined without getting the whole document (just the 
head). I think it's basically pre-unicode when nobody had figured out 
how to deal with several languages on one page. Also, it's tied in
with content negotiation and the Accept-Language header. I'm slightly
out of touch with that topic, but you can set your browser to preferentially
accept a natural language and a negotiating server would give you
what wou want to start with (instead of going through a "click here
for English" page).

The three are targeted at slightly different objects - http type
for server/client, HTML for browsers and DC for cross-media  indexing. 
 I agree it's confusing.

Andrew Daviel