What is normative?

Dear all,

The BP editors have been working hard and have made a number of what I 
think are big steps forward with the doc.

But Issue-146 remains unresolved: what is normative in a BP?

Take our old favourite first BP
http://w3c.github.io/dwbp/bp.html#ProvideMetadata that says:

Metadata MUST be provided for both human users and computer applications

I doubt anyone here will disagree with this statement, but is it right 
to make this the normative part of the BP? And, if so, are we right to 
use the RFC2119 MUST?

Take a less clear cut example:
http://w3c.github.io/dwbp/bp.html#MultipleFormats that says:

Data SHOULD be available in multiple data formats.

Really?

SHOULD is "comply or explain" - i.e. you'd better have a very good 
reason not to provide data in multiple formats so I might argue one day 
that this should be a MAY. What does MAY mean? From the infamous RFC2119:

"This word, or the adjective "OPTIONAL", mean that an item is
    truly optional.  One vendor may choose to include the item because a
    particular marketplace requires it or because the vendor feels that
    it enhances the product while another vendor may omit the same item."

(I've omitted the rest of the definition but this is the essence of it).

Suppose the WG agrees and this BP now becomes:

"Data MAY be available in multiple data formats."

Which doesn't really convey in a single sentence what we mean. We might 
end up with

"Publishers are encouraged to make data available in multiple formats 
(OPTIONAL)"

i.e. re-word the normative line to fit in with the definition of the 
relevant RFC2119 keyword.

An alternative would be not to include any RFC2119 keywords at all. I'm 
easy either way - I can see arguments for and against including these 
keywords - but it remains an open issue that I think we owe it to the 
editors to decide what to do.

Phil.




-- 


Phil Archer
W3C Data Activity Lead
http://www.w3.org/2013/data/

http://philarcher.org
+44 (0)7887 767755
@philarcher1

Received on Monday, 18 May 2015 14:54:31 UTC