Re: NIR SIDETRACK Re: Change Proposal for HttpRange-14

Jonathan,

On 30 Mar 2012, at 01:51, Jonathan A Rees wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 6:01 PM, Jeni Tennison <jeni@jenitennison.com> wrote:
>> Good practice would be for Flickr to use separate URIs for 'the photograph' and 'the description of the photograph', to ensure that 'the description of the photograph' was reachable from 'the photograph' and to ensure that any statements referred to the correct one. Under the proposal, they could change to this good practice in four ways:
>> 
>> 1. by adding:
>> 
>>  <link rel="describedby" href="#main" />
>> 
>> to their page (or pointing to some other URL that they choose to use for 'the description of the photograph')
>> 
>> 2. by adding a Link: header with a 'describedby' relationship that points at a separate URI for 'the description of the photograph' (possibly a fragment as in 1?)
> 
> Sorry, I didn't get why these are said to be better practice than the
> current Flickr page - how the document distinguishes the two cases.
> Does it say there 'should' or 'must' be a describedby? If the info
> resource assumption is gone, won't the Flickr page [still?] be
> understood the way Flickr intends? I'll have to study the proposal
> again (sorry, very hurried now, can't keep up)


I see best practices as being separate from normative requirements, and thought that the proposals were for the normative requirements. We did recognise in the proposal the requirement for a best practice document to supplement the normative requirements:

  We also recommend that a clear guide on best practices when publishing 
  and consuming data should be written, possibly an update to [cooluris].

I don't see this proposal as changing the current best practice recommendations, which are to have separate URIs for documents about things from the things themselves.

I'm not sure I've understood your second question, but perhaps you're saying that using hash URIs for fragments of the page that contains descriptions doesn't work when mixed with the assumption that you get the description of that hash URI by looking at the page (it gets too circular).

Anyway, the fundamental point is that if Flickr decide they do want to start distinguishing between the URIs they are using (for 'the photograph'), and the page about the photograph, they can introduce a new URI (for 'the description of the photograph') and add a link to it from the existing page without having to change all their and other peoples' existing URI usage.

Cheers,

Jeni
-- 
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com

Received on Friday, 30 March 2012 14:33:20 UTC