Re: What is normative?

Hi Annette,

That just changes the use of the normative statements a bit.

I proposed to interpret the normative statements in the following way: if
you claim conformance, you MUST, ...

What you are proposing sounds like: if you claim conformance to level X,
you MUST, ...

regards,
João Paulo



On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 3:32 PM, Annette Greiner <amgreiner@lbl.gov> wrote:

> We've had an idea at various times to assign a rating system, something
> like the five stars but different enough to avoid confusion. I still think
> that's the best way to deal with this issue. It enables a publisher of data
> to claim a concrete level of compliance, much like the WCAG.
> -Annette
> --
> Annette Greiner
> NERSC Data and Analytics Services
> Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
> 510-495-2935
>
> On May 18, 2015, at 8:17 AM, Phil Archer <phila@w3.org> wrote:
>
> > The issue is open in tracker so I'm taking it as open - but if we're
> taking them out (and I think we are too) then some of the intro matter and
> the template need updating.
> >
> > Phil
> >
> > On 18/05/2015 16:03, yaso@nic.br wrote:
> >> I thought we had an agreement on this:
> >>
> >> "An alternative would be not to include any RFC2119 keywords at all"
> >>
> >> I ran trough the logs and couldn't find nothing against not using the
> >> RFC2119 keywords at the document. Furthermore, we talked at the F2F
> >> about the translation to Portuguese problem with the keywords. There was
> >> another decision on that?
> >>
> >>
> >> yaso
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 05/18/2015 11:53 AM, Phil Archer wrote:
> >>> 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
> >
>
>
>