ISSUE-177: Last Call Comment: Labelling Normative Material

ISSUE-177: Last Call Comment: Labelling Normative Material

http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/177

Raised by: Sean Bechhofer
On product: SKOS

Raised by Jeremy Carroll [1]:

1) labeling normative material (editorial - suggest no or little
change)

I assume this issue has been considered before, however I think I
like it how it is.
My immediate reaction on seeing an LC Rec track doc that does not
clearly label either normative material or informative material or
both, is to request such labeling, since it is usually a good
practice.
Once I had finished the ToC I had determined that this would be one
of my comments.
However, by the time I had finished 1.3 I was having second
thoughts on this, and overall, I think the document gives subtle
gradations of normativity to its various constraints and
recommendations, which quite possibly actually works, and such
subtly cannot be achieved with the hammer of "1. Introduction
(Informative)". In general it is not a good practice to omit such
labeling because it relies on having editors who can write well. I
believe this to be the case in this instance.

Perhaps the references should be split into normative references
and informative ones ...

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swd-wg/2008Oct/0077.html

Received on Tuesday, 7 October 2008 15:16:53 UTC