Re: backronym proposal: Universal Resource Linker

Michael Schneider wrote:
> I think people do quickly adopt any technical term, if the thing that it
> denotes becomes interesting or relevant to them, or to large parts of the
> society. People know what /firewalls/ or /dynamic IP addresses/ are, or what
> the term /bitrate/ means for their favorite /audio compression format/, and
> they know all sorts of technical terms related to microprocessors or hard
> disks, etc. 
>
> In particular, they have already learnt what the term /URL/ means, they have
> not been born with this knowledge. So why shouldn't they learn /URI/?
>   

What do you mean by URI?

Do you mean the Abstraction atop URN and URL? If so, taking that at face 
value doesn't unveil the existence of the Generic HTTP scheme URI for 
Naming, and there lies the problem. See the broken capsule depiction [1] 
to see why I say this, notice the unlabeled intersection of URL and URN?
> Certainly not just because of confusion due to the large similarity of these
> two terms. People can distinguish between so many different acronyms (for
> example, the many 3-letter abbreviations of German football clubs come to
> mind :-)), they will hardly fail on this particular one, if they /have/ to
> learn it or /want/ to learn it.
>
> So why don't people adopt the term "URI"? Instead of trying to re-mint terms
> (don't touch the Wikipedia article! ;-)), you may rather see the
> non-satisfying situation as an indicator: namely for how relevant or
> interesting the term "URI" (and what it is intended to refer to) is for
> people and society at the moment. 
>
> The name is not the issue.
>   
Being clear about using Generic HTTP scheme URI for resolvable Naming is 
the issue.

Links:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:URI_Venn_Diagram.svg


Kingsley
> Best,
> Michael
>
>   
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: semantic-web-request@w3.org [mailto:semantic-web-request@w3.org]
>> On Behalf Of Dan Brickley
>> Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2010 12:18 PM
>> To: Semantic Web; public-lod
>> Subject: Fwd: backronym proposal: Universal Resource Linker
>>
>> So - I'm serious. The term 'URI' has never really worked as something
>> most Web users encounter and understand.
>>
>> For RDF, SemWeb and linked data efforts, this is a problem as our data
>> model is built around URIs.
>>
>> If 'URL' can be brought back from limbo as a credible technical term,
>> and rebranded around the concept of 'linkage', I think it'll go a long
>> way towards explaining what we're up to with RDF.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Dan
>>     
>
> --
> Dipl.-Inform. Michael Schneider
> Research Scientist, Information Process Engineering (IPE)
> Tel  : +49-721-9654-726
> Fax  : +49-721-9654-727
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>
>
>
>   


-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	      
President & CEO 
OpenLink Software     
Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen

Received on Sunday, 18 April 2010 19:56:28 UTC