RE: DWBP Abstract comments....

Eric,

 

Thanks for proposed edits. Just a couple of remarks in-line:

 

1: “This document provides best practices related to the publication and usage of data on the Web designed to help support a self-sustaining ecosystem.”

No changes just comments for sentence 1:  Loved the first sentence particularly the term “self-sustaining ecosystem”, this concept to me embodies the concept of   making the web data more valuable to the world community than it is today.

In this sentence, it is not entirely clear to which noun the clause starting with ‘designed’ refers. Maybe better:

 

“This document provides best practices related to the publication and usage of data on the Web. These best practices are designed to help support a self-sustaining ecosystem.”

 

2: “Data should be published, discovered and understood by humans and machines.”   

Suggested changes for sentence 2:  I recommended changing the second sentence to underscore producing and consuming data can be done by machines and humans.

This now implies that humans and machines should publish data. My suggestion: 

 

“Data should be published in such a way that it can be discovered and understood by humans and machines.”

 

3:  “Publishers should make data discoverable and when reused consumers should acknowledge the data publisher. “

 Suggested changes for sentence 3:  I had to read this sentence several times before I felt like like I understood the intent.  I recommended the above rewording to make it a bit clearer, hopefully the original meaning was changed.

I think you did indeed change the meaning. The original sentence said that the re-use of data should be discoverable. However, I do already have a problem with the original sentence because it contains instructions to re-users that may not always be valid. It seems to say that if a company takes data from the Web, they need to advertise that they did (ShareAlike) and need to acknowledge the source (Attribution). I wonder if we want to go that far. For example, I don’t think there is a requirement for re-users of data to make their product or service available on the Web or to advertise it, and if data is published in the public domain (or under a CCZero licence), a publisher does not ask for attribution so why make this a best practice?

 

Makx.