Re: Visible MetaData == "Visible to whom?" was Re: Design Principles

Well said. Another good example of invisible metadata that later
became "visible" and is a big success on the web is the use of
the link element to point at 
RSS and ATOM feeds   in HTML pages; later, these became "visible"
when browsers started showing an XML icon on pages.



Mike Schinkel writes:
 > Henri Sivonen wrote:
 > > On Mar 29, 2007, at 19:06, T.V Raman wrote:
 > >> A)  The metadata needs to be "visible" to the intended target.
 > >> B0- The metadata needs to be "invisible" to those it's not
 > >> intended for.
 > > The design principle aims to combine those cases when possible and 
 > > reasonable. When metadata is rendered to the user under the usual 
 > > browsing conditions, errors in the metadata are more likely to be 
 > > noticed and fixed. Metadata that is not rendered under the usual 
 > > conditions often gets copied as part of a template and is wrong.
 > This is an opinion that does a lot of damage to potential growth on the 
 > web, I think. It is used as a weapon against introducing mechanisms for 
 > metadata that may not be visible on the HTML page at the time of 
 > introduction, but that can become "visible" via other means.  Again, 
 > I'll point to T.oolicio.us as an example project whose goal is to 
 > empower to use of significant semantic metadata, much of it being 
 > "invisible" at first. I expect there will also be other tools that will 
 > leverage metadata, not just T.oolicio.us.
 > 
 > If mechanisms for adding metadata are empowered to be squashed by (IMO) 
 > short-sighted principles,  then many of the potential future benefits 
 > will be minimized.
 > 
 > -- 
 > -Mike Schinkel
 > http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/
 > http://www.welldesignedurls.org
 > http://atlanta-web.org - http://t.oolicio.us
 > "It never ceases to amaze how many people will proactively debate away attempts to improve the web..."
 > 

-- 
Best Regards,
--raman

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Received on Thursday, 29 March 2007 18:12:20 UTC