[ALL] Distinguishing editors drafts

Hi

I have just been reviewing the n-ary relations draft

http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/OEP/n-aryRelations-20040623/

and had one observation, for all editors in our WG, that is not a 
comment on the draft but about how to distinguish an *editors* draft 
from a *W3C* working draft.

The n-ary relations note only has two features that make it clear that 
it is not yet a W3C WD approved by the WG and the director. These are:
- its URL is not in TR space, i.e. does not start http://www.w3.org/TR/
- the This version and Latest version links are still to do.

I wanted to contrast this with an editors draft from another group e.g.

http://www.w3.org/QA/WG/2004/04/specgl-lite.html

key thing is the subheading instead of reading

"W3C Working Draft 10 June 2004"

reads

"W3C Editor's Draft 17 May 2004"

in one of RDF Core and WebOnt we generally just used

"Not a W3C Working Draft 10 June 2004"

Another aspect that should read differently is the "Status of this 
Document". Technically that part of the document belongs to the W3C team 
(i.e. Ralph), hence omitting it is plausible (the QA note takes this 
line), although as a reviewer I prefer to have some text. With the OWL 
Test Cases I tended to have the editors drafts come out as
===
Status of This Document

This is an editors' draft and has no official status. The rest of this 
section is fictitious.

... [[Intended status]] ...
===


The reason for worrying about this is merely to avoid a misunderstanding 
by some member of the public, that some text that has not been approved, 
has a higher standing than it in fact does.

Jeremy

Received on Tuesday, 6 July 2004 05:16:27 UTC