RE: web resource and terminology

Hi Leonard,

 

> But it’s not a font, for example, that wouldn’t (necessarily) change the content itself

 

But what is the content that changes? That's what I'm driving at; it's not defined and requires a leap from resource to user-presented information from a resource. As silly as it sounds, why isn't a font a web document? It meets the criteria of being a resource, and since a document is only a set of resources. I can claim it has essential content, as if you remove the data the font won't function as expected.

 

Nothing says the content has to be human readable or perceptible right now, and that's where I see the current terminology lacking. I get that you're trying not to pin down formats, and I wasn't suggesting that you have to, but at the same time to provide no definition of content but jump on to essential content of individual resources leaves a significant hole. Here's the WCAG definition, for example:

 

content (Web content)

information and sensory experience to be communicated to the user by means of a  <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#useragentdef> user agent, including code or markup that defines the content's  <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#structuredef> structure,  <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#presentationdef> presentation, and interactions

A definition like this would help get away from content as simply what any given resources contains.

 

> Collation is simply a grouping – it has nothing to do with ordering.

 

A quick search nets from google:

 

1.    1. collect and combine (texts, information, or sets of figures) in proper order.

 

Similar can be found at other online dictionaries, not that collation implies a general group of things. If you don't want to suggest order, drop collated and simply leave "set".

 

Matt

 

From: Leonard Rosenthol [mailto:lrosenth@adobe.com] 
Sent: September 27, 2015 1:55 PM
To: Matt Garrish <matt.garrish@bell.net>; 'W3C Digital Publishing IG' <public-digipub-ig@w3.org>
Subject: Re: web resource and terminology

 

Matt – let me see if I can help.  (and, anyone else, feel free to correct me)

 

You are correct that a style sheet and a script (or a font) are as much resources as HTML is.  That is as it should be, because in the context of a web document, they aren’t necessarily different.  There is no reliance on a “primary resource” (as there is with EPUB, for example).  

 

Essential content is what would be displayed to the user and/or machine processor – depending on the context.   So it might be displaying text, or a .csv of spreadsheet data or … But it’s not a font, for example, that wouldn’t (necessarily) change the content itself (granted there are exceptions to that rule as well, but…)

 

Collation is simply a grouping – it has nothing to do with ordering. 

 

I don’t recall if “web content” was suggested or not, but from your description, I don’t think it fits our model (or at least mine).  There are things that fit into a PWD that are neither “web content” nor “rendering resource” - for example, my .csv in the previous example.  But that is a perfectly valid web resource.  I think web resource is a more generic form of both – and maybe we could define it that way, if necessary. (though I don’t see the necessity right now).

 

I think the single page vs. multiple page – or the general problem of “sectioning’ a web document hasn’t yet been raised.

 

Leonard

 

From: Matt Garrish
Date: Sunday, September 27, 2015 at 8:52 AM
To: 'W3C Digital Publishing IG'
Subject: web resource and terminology
Resent-From: <public-digipub-ig@w3.org <mailto:public-digipub-ig@w3.org> >
Resent-Date: Sunday, September 27, 2015 at 8:52 AM

 

I've been trying to read through the terminology and find there's a confusing reliance on "web resource" to mean both the content of the document/publication and the resources needed to render the document.

 

The definition of web resource seems reasonable enough, in that anything that can be referenced by a URI is a resource. By that definition, an HTML document is a web resource, but so is a style sheet, script, etc. Stating that the content of the resource can be retrieved by a protocol doesn't mean that a resource has content in the readable content of the document sense (e.g., a style sheet's "content" is all the rules defined in it).

 

The two sub-bullets then start to make an unstated distinction between types of web resources, however, as an html document will have "essential content", but a style sheet or script wouldn't appear to.

 

The confusion grows in the web document definition, as now web resources are "collated." Is it really the case that fonts, scripts, etc. are combined into a specific ordering? I didn't follow the entire email chain, unfortunately, but I do recall seeing this in relation to an ordering of the content in the web document. Collation makes sense in that context, as it is analogous to the epub spine.

 

And finally, web resource reappears in its more general sense in the third bullet, but here suggesting "essentiality" of certain resources but not others (I take from the discussions this has to do with not every resource impacting the overall readability).

 

Long story short, was consideration given to including a definition of "web content" (as also exists in WCAG) to disambiguate these many uses of "web resource" for both content and rendering resources? Essential web content and functionality is clearer than stated now for resources. A web document as a collation of web content is also clearer, and it being a web resource is less confusing. Portability would depend on the ability to present the content, even if some rendering resources aren't available.

 

Anyway, just wanted to share that thought I had while reading. The definitions are very nuanced right now without the context of the email discussions.

 

And as a side note, if "web document" is the ultimate choice for this then it might be good to bump up in importance that web document != html document from the last sub-bullet of the web document definition. I expect the terms are read as synonymous by many people, in which case having a web document made up of resources makes it sound like you're defining portability only for single pages.

 

Matt