Re: "index" link relation

On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 08:20, Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de> wrote:
> <http://microformats.org/wiki/existing-rel-values> says:
>
> "Refers to a document providing an index for the current document.      was
> in HTML4    explicitly dropped from HTML5"
>
> and has it under "dropped".
>
> That's very misleading; it was dropped from the spec, but the WG decision
> explicitly mentions that not including it in the spec doesn't preclude it
> being in the registry (and observes that it was in the registry what was the
> registry-du-jour back then).

Julian,

Could you provide the URL (even if it is obvious) and a specific quote
from the WG decisions that you are using to substantiate your
conclusion that "not including it in the spec doesn't preclude it
being in the registry (and observes that it was in the registry what
was the registry-du-jour back then)" ?

I'd just like to be sure to cite some specific text so that we can
minimize further thrash (excepting of course if new information or
additional WG decisions change the outcome)


> I believe this needs to go back to "proposed", and eventually need to be
> registered.

I personally am not opposed to 'index' in particular (I've used it in the past).

However, I strongly prefer that we follow at least some sort of
rational/scientific methodology in such iterations so as to provide
objective (repeatable) reasoning of our actions, decisions, changes.

So far I've been using the data available to reason how to treat
existing or previous rel values.

In short:
* if a rel value was in a draft and is missing (without explanation)
from the final spec, or
* if a rel value was in a previous version of and is missing (without
explanation) from an update to the specification (even a draft update)

Then absent any other information or explanation, it is presumed that
the group/editors working on that specification decided to explicitly
drop it (either in development, or in the updated version) and thus it
should be obsoleted (not re-registered).

Basically, the only hard data in this case is previous existence and
current non-existence of the value in the development/evolution of a
specification.

If there is more data, e.g. a link to an email of discussion of the
spec development that explains *why* the rel value was dropped, and it
explicitly states, e.g. it was without prejudice, or merely
post-poned, or perhaps expected to be spun-out into its spec (or some
other explicit positive reason), then it makes to link/cite that
explicit text as part of a proposal.

I've updated the wiki page accordingly with these additional details
in the hopes that that helps provide a guide for folks to proceed
rationally/scientifically in these cases.

http://microformats.org/wiki/existing-rel-values#dropped

If you have suggestions for improvement, or bug fixes to the above,
please feel free to edit the wiki accordingly.

Thanks,

Tantek

-- 
http://tantek.com/ - I made an HTML5 tutorial! http://tantek.com/html5

Received on Thursday, 23 June 2011 19:05:16 UTC