Never mind the syntax, feel the semantics

I'll start by mentioning that I've put on a hard hat and a flame-
retardant cape, just in case I need them.

It's also worth reiterating Stu's mention of my long involvement 
with DC.  See, for example, RFC 2413 (Dublin Core Metadata for 
Resource Discovery), dating from 1998:
   http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2413.txt

As I've mentioned in previous postings, the News Architecture 
Working Party of the International Press Telecommunications Council 
(IPTC) is actively examining the use of DC for those of our metadata 
elements where there is a good semantic fit.  Having been involved 
with DC all those years ago, I had assumed that this would be a 
relatively pain-free matter.  I was wrong.  Consider the humble 
title.  RFC 2413 defines this as:

   The name given to the resource, usually by the Creator or 
   Publisher.

The current official DC documentation states:

   Definition: A name given to the resource.

   Comment   : Typically, Title will be a name by which the resource 
               is formally known.

Ouch!  This comment may well work for the Library community.  It 
certainly does not work for many other communities, such as Web page 
authors, professional photographers, or news organisations.

If I change the title of one of the hundreds of Web pages I maintain,
I am most certainly not changing "a name by which the resource is 
formally known".

The same applies to a professional photographer changing the title 
of one of thousands of photos on her/his computer.

And the same applies to a news story ... the title (ie headline) is 
most certainly not any kind of formal name.

So we have a problem.  If the Semantic Web is to work, it is not 
enough to employ some common syntax or even a common abstract model.  
We need to be able to share meaning.  And this is obviously a 
balancing act between having definitions that are so broad that they 
become meaningless and definitions that are so narrow that they fit 
only one community and are not shareable.  Those of us working on 
the architecture of mainstream news standards, perceive the comment 
associated with dc:title as being on the latter end of the spectrum.

And so, as Chair of the IPTC News Metadata Framework WG, I am asking 
the DC community to reconsider the text of the comment accompanying 
the definition of dc:title.

Many thanks,
Misha Wolf
Standards Manager, Reuters




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Received on Thursday, 23 June 2005 18:26:40 UTC