Protocol, Section 4.2.1 (Create Annotation) -- May vs. Should

The 2nd paragraph of Draft Web Annotation Protocol begins, "Upon receipt of an Annotation, the server MAY assign HTTP URIs to resources and blank nodes in the Annotation, and must assign a URI to the Annotation resource..."

Given the focus of this protocol on interoperability and reusability of annotations -- including for example use cases involving subsequent annotation of previously created annotation bodies, reuse of specific resource targets, etc. -- shouldn't we use the stronger 'SHOULD' with regard to assigning URIs to blank nodes in the annotation, at least those blank nodes that are subjects and/or objects of oa predicates? It seems a modest additional effort on the server side in most cases and SHOULD can always be overridden by implementers when there is good reason. 

Apologies if we've talked through this previously, I couldn't find any notes with a quick search.

-Tim Cole
University of Illinois at UC 

Received on Wednesday, 15 July 2015 02:17:59 UTC