Re: comments on http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-rdfa-syntax-20080612

Hi Alan,

A quick note to mention that our Last Call Period ended a couple of 
weeks ago, and we're in the middle a CR transition. I'm not sure at 
which point in the process we can factor in your comments, I'm guessing 
probably not for a week or two. We'll keep you posted, and thanks!

-Ben

Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
> 
> Find below my review of this CR. It is possible that I have 
> misunderstood elements of the specification, in which case I would be 
> grateful for corrections. Please note that this is not an exhaustive 
> review, but rather a selection of items that caught my attention.
> 
> -- 
> 
> In section 2.2, the examples of syntax, the interaction between the 
> domain of properties and the parent subject is confusing. Specifically:
> 
> <html
>   xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
>   xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"
>   xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
>   >
>   <head>
>     <title>My home-page</title>
>     <meta property="dc:creator" content="Mark Birbeck" />
>     <link rel="foaf:workplaceHomepage" 
> href="http://www.formsPlayer.com/" />
>   </head>
>   <body>...</body>
> </html>
> 
> Here we have
> 
> <> dc:creator "Mark Birbeck"
> <> foaf:workplaceHomepage <http://www.formsPlayer.com/>
> 
> The domain of foaf:workplaceHomepage is a foaf:Person. The first 
> statement says that <> is a foaf:Person. The second statement says that 
> that person is created by Mark Birbeck. The Title suggests that <> is a 
> web page ("My home-page").
> 
> In the following example we have a similar situation. The title suggests 
> that the URI denotes a blog. However, the domain of cal:summary is  
> UnionOf(Vevent Vtodo Vjournal Valarm). While <> might conceivable denote 
> a an instance of Vjournal, the title suggests that <> is the blog, 
> rather than a specific entry in the blog. However, the intent seems to 
> be that the subject is a Vevent (as indicated by a later example using 
> <p typeof="cal:Vevent">, and the subject seems to be simply absent. (I 
> separately note that the http://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/ical# has 
> harmless, but perhaps confusing, duplicate elements in the domain of 
> cal:summary and other properties)
> 
> <html
>   xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
>   xmlns:cal="http://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/ical#"
>   >
>   <head><title>Jo's Friends and Family Blog</title></head>
>   <body>
>     <p>
>       I'm holding
>       <span property="cal:summary">
>         one last summer Barbecue
>       </span>,
>       on September 16th at 4pm.
>     </p>
>   </body>
> </html>
> 
> The subsequent example, with
>    <span property="cal:dtstart" content="20070916T1600-0500"
>             datatype="xsd:datetime">
>         September 16th at 4pm
>       </span>.
> has the same issue.
> 
> The example using typeof either explicitly states the subject is a 
> Vevent (However, see below comments re:typeof - Is this the type of the 
> document? or is the subject a new blank node?) . This clashes, then, 
> with the title. Strictly speaking, it is also redundant, given that this 
> can be inferred from the domain of cal:summary. Perhaps the remedy is to 
> change the title to make it clear that the subject is a Vevent. *OR* it 
> emphasizes the fact that the previous subjects have no subject.
> 
> Some explanation of how the use of html to represent a Vevent is to be 
> understood as compared to a situation of content negotiation, where a 
> document of mime type text/calendar might also be expected to be 
> available at the same URI, making it perhaps more clear that the URI 
> must denote a calendar event.
> 
> The next example says "The metadata features available in XHTML only 
> allow information to be expressed about the document itself. RDFa 
> provides a means of referring to other documents and resources"
> 
>  <span about="urn:ISBN:1596913614" typeof="biblio:book">
>       autobiography
> </span>.
> 
> Here there is a question of what "referring" to means. What refers to 
> what? Should we not have a triple of the sort:
> <> referes_to <....> if reference is intended? What makes the about here 
> different from an href? Is there a missing @property here?
> 
> In addition, the directedness of the <span> element seems to me to 
> further confuse matters. Consider two common cases of the use of <span> 
> in html - to <span class="foo">element</span> or <span 
> style="font-size:20">element</span>
> 
> In these cases the relationship is such that the span says something 
> about element - the style or the class - element is the object of an 
> implicit statement. However, in the case of autobiography, 
> "autobiography" is either a label of urn:ISBN:1596913614, or 
> "autobiography" refers to urn:ISBN:1596913614.
> 
> So we have a situation in which no clear reference (as manifested as a 
> triple) is present, and yet in which "autobiography" seems possible to 
> be both the subject and object of some reference.
> 
> A  later example, which has no text is enclosed by the span, seems to 
> deny either case.
> 
> <div about="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Albert_Einstein" 
> rel="dbp:citizenship">
>   <span about="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Germany" />
>   <span about="http://dbpedia.org/resource/United_States" />
> </div>
> 
> -- 
> 
> The documentation of typeof is confusing. First we have:
> 
> @typeof a whitespace separated list of CURIEs that indicate the RDF 
> type(s) to associate with the subject
> 
> This suggests that typeof simply adds information about an existing 
> subject.
> 
> However later:
> 
> @typeof is unique in that it sets both a predicate and an object at the 
> same time.
> 
> And , in the processing section we have
> 
> if @typeof is present, obtained according to the section on CURIE and 
> URI Processing, then [new subject] is set to be a newly created [bnode];
> 
> In this case the typeof seems to create a *new* subject (the blank node)
> 
> -- 
> 
> Step 9 "The next step of the iteration is to establish any [current 
> object literal];"
> 
> In the case that "or there are no child nodes", what plain literal is 
> the current object literal? ""?
> 
> -- 
> 
> 6.1.1.5.2. Using an implicit object
> 
> I am confused about which processing model is normative. It would seem 
> that these rules should be considered part of "Completing 'incomplete 
> triples' "  or better, in the processing model. Moreover this section is 
> consider a subsection of the section called 6.1.1.5. Inheriting a 
> subject. Or why not under 6.3 (Object resolution). It was not clear to 
> me whether this case (and some others) were even covered in the 
> processing model. In this case the question is: what exactly is meant by 
> "processing model"?
> 
> Generally I would prefer to see one section (5) be considered normative 
> and complete, and other sections (6 in particular) be informative. 
> Otherwise the reader is confused about how to thread together a 
> processing model out of the various pieces that are offered.
> 
> I should say that I am confused about how to know when <div> introduces 
> a new blank node, and when it doesn't.
> 
> -- 
> 
> Section 7 Curie Syntax Definition.
> 
> Why do we have a normative section on CURIES in this document rather 
> than a reference to http://www.w3.org/TR/curie/ ?
> 
> Having duplicate normative sections in different documents is a recipe 
> for confusion and a magnet for desynchronization.
> 
> ---
> 
> Section 9.3. @rel/@rev attribute values
> 
> Why do we have a normative section here rather than referring to 
> http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-modularization/
> 
> 
> Alan Ruttenberg
> http://sciencecommons.org/about/whoweare/ruttenberg/
> 
> 
> 
> 
>

Received on Friday, 13 June 2008 15:09:13 UTC