RE: "Should" sanity check

Hello,

Tinkering with CSS now just for a handful of SHOULDs seems to me really an overkill. Here is a simple proposal (which, I believe, is
compatible with the usage of SHOULD in RFC):

- We use "SHOULD" in places where we really want to stress the normative meaning of the word, such as definitions of behavior,
typing constraints, etc.

- In places where the normative meaning of the word is not relevant (such as examples or additional explanations), we use "should".
To avoid confusion, we use "should" in a sense that is as close as possible to the normative meaning; that is, to the best of our
intentions, we will avoid using "should" in some other sense (such as, e.g., "must").

This seems to be a clean solution, which does not break the flow of the text, but also makes the normative meaning of the document
clear.



I took the liberty to update the document along these lines: once we see the text, we might actually have a better idea of how good
the resolution works. Also, I have added a new section 1.1 which describe the meaning of "SHOULD" and "SHOULD NOT". Here is the
diff:

http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Syntax&diff=8197&oldid=8168

Section 1.1, I hope, also addresses Peter's comment that we need to specify which part of the document is normative and which is
not. (The solution is, roughly speaking, to make the whole document normative, apart from the intuitive description of the
semantics.)

Please let me know should you have some comments/problems regarding my formulation in Section 1.1 and/or the usage of "SHOULD" and
"should".

Regards,

	Boris

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rinke Hoekstra [mailto:hoekstra@uva.nl]
> Sent: 29 May 2008 08:16
> To: Boris Motik
> Cc: public-owl-wg@w3.org
> Subject: Re: "Should" sanity check
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I agree uppercase SHOULDs are kinda ugly. Perhaps we could do
> something with CSS and JavaScript so that we could switch some kind of
> visual feedback on the normative structure on and off? For instance,
> use a script to enable the CSS style "text-transform: uppercase;" or
> something that turns all the MUSTs red, the SHOULDs blue and the MAYs
> green?
> 
> ... but maybe that's too much effort for too little gain?
> 
> -Rinke
> 
> 
> On 28 mei 2008, at 21:15, Boris Motik wrote:
> 
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > I just went though all the documents and have checked the usage of
> > "should" in them. I have corrected the usage in several places;
> > here are the diffs:
> >
> > Semantics:
> > http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Semantics&diff=8177&oldid=7488
> >
> > RDF mapping:
> > http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Mapping_to_RDF_Graphs&diff=8172&oldid=8170
> >
> > XML syntax:
> > http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=XML_Serialization&diff=8176&oldid=794
> >
> > Profiles:
> > http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Profiles&diff=8173&oldid=7913
> >
> > Structural specification:
> > http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Syntax&diff=8168&oldid=8155
> >
> >
> > After this clean-up, only the structural specification contains
> > occurrences of "should" in the text (profiles contain "should" in
> > reviewers' comments, but not in the text). All usages of "should" in
> > the structural spec are now in the sense "should do unless
> > there is some really good reason not to".
> >
> >
> > For the moment, I left all the letters in lower case. I did this
> > because of two reasons:
> >
> > - I really didn't understand what the outcome of the discussion at
> > the teleconf was.
> > - Writing "SHOULD" instead of "should" in places such as examples
> > seemed to me really ugly.
> >
> > I tried to reformulate the examples in a way that doesn't use
> > should; however, the text then becomes really weird.
> >
> > If the general consensus is that we should use "SHOULD" in the
> > normative part of the document, then I propose to use lowercase
> > "should" in places that are not normative, such as examples. In all
> > cases, I will use "should" and "SHOULD" in the same sense; it is
> > just that using the stressed "SHOULD" in nonnormative parts of the
> > document such as examples seems quite strange to me.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > 	Boris
> >
> 
> -----------------------------------------------
> Drs. Rinke Hoekstra
> 
> Email: hoekstra@uva.nl    Skype:  rinkehoekstra
> Phone: +31-20-5253499     Fax:   +31-20-5253495
> Web:   http://www.leibnizcenter.org/users/rinke
> 
> Leibniz Center for Law,          Faculty of Law
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> -----------------------------------------------
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 29 May 2008 08:42:38 UTC