Re: [Proposal] ISSUE-42: How does RDFa deal with @src

Ivan wrote:
> Actually, I am not convinced of that. I guess It is a question of
> general approach: I'd somehow prefer, as an author, _to be in control_
> over _all_ triples that are generated, and avoid any automatism. I may
> put in the 'alt' tag into my HTML file for reasons of accessibility, for
> example; I may _not_ want that information to appear in the triples.
>
Mark wrote:
> First, what is the downside of adding extra triples, as long as they
> are consistent? You don't need to use them, after all. (I'm not saying
> there isn't a downside, just asking if anyone can think of one.)

eRDF also generates rdfs:label triples for img and anchor elements,  and  
I've had problems with this generation of triples that I'm not in  
authorial control over.

What I was doing was taking the triples generated from a php template  
marked up with eRDF, and using that to generate SPARQL queries. So the  
extra triples were a nuisance because  it would add conditions I didn't  
want to my generated queries, which made them return different results.
So I wrote my own parser that made the generation of these extra triples  
optional.

To be fair, that's a fringe  use of RDF-in-HTML, but you could take it as  
an example of unintended negative consequences when you try to do too much  
and don't give the author control. As I've said before, I think  
RDF-in-HTML is an interesting space, and I reckon there are lots of uses  
for it still waiting to be discovered, so it's worth bearing in mind that  
magical automation can often be more annoying than helpful (like the  
paperclip in MS Word ;) ).

On the other hand, when trying to write software that displays RDF,  
rdfs:labels are very nice to have. Exhibit (from Simile) now allows you to  
use any RDF on the web to power your exhibit (on the fly), but if the  
resources don't have rdfs:label properties, then the software falls back  
to these long, unfriendly-looking, generated id strings. So I can also see  
that it makes your RDF more useful if the resources are nicely labelled,  
and it's definitely easier to write software if you can rely on labels  
being present.

However, on balance, I think it's better to leave the author in full  
control over the triples generated as default behaviour.

Cheers

Keith

ps: I'd also chime in agreement with what Dan was saying about not  
assuming anything that you can parse into some triples /is intended/ to  
parse into those triples. For example, since the RDFa syntax is still  
being finalised, it doesn't seem improbable that there might be RDFa out  
there that wouldn't now parse into the triples that the author intended  
when s/he wrote the html.

Authorial intention is key.

Received on Monday, 25 June 2007 15:35:06 UTC