Re: finding newer versions of W3C Technical Reports [was: trivial question about SPARQL]

Dear Ralph,
thanks for the note

I think I landed on an extremely old version from either a web search, of 
from a link in a very old document. So the version I was looking at was 
ancient. But there was nowhere on the page to tell me
that I was looking at something out of date. If something is archived, it 
would be useful to have
the words /OLD VERSION, FOR THE NEW VERSION CLICK HERE/ somewhere prominent
This can be achieved by automating the template default after a document has 
been given a certain
status (for all archived documents, apply template which has the label 
above)  OR
by making the categories CURRENT/ARCHIVED very visible on each template so 
the user is aware
that they've got to check the current version if accidentally they stumble 
across an archived one.

 From a user viewpoint, the usual web navigation principle apply, for 
example, it would be useful to have a navigation bar/menu on the left or 
right of the site (which means it is always there even when people navigate 
on different pages) which guides the user through the site, one of these 
menu
options could be LATEST SPECS or something, so that irrespective whether one 
gets lost in navigation
one can easily jump back to the current version.

Sometimes breadcrumbs are also used for that purpose

Something else that I noted, is if one browses back and forth, its not easy 
to 'know where you are'
for example: i click on the 'errata' (because it says somewhere: check also 
the errata) and I was unsure whether the errata was referring to all the TN 
that ever existted, or only to a particular one, and which one.

Also tags can be useful, like buckets/containers where we can label things. 
I dont know what plaform your website uses, maybe you should consider a cms 
like drupal, which automates a lot of those functions. (or publish only the 
tec notes on a site that allows tags) Just an idea.

Overall, I read  Ralph's and Dan's comments that followed your email, and 
they are alredy a bit complicated for me (I really dont like to expose my 
simplicity but somebody's gotta do it).
 To be usable for Joe Web you have to tell the user what to do in no more 
than 3-6 simple steps,
be able to store all the required information to carry out each step in one 
screen, and you have to assume no prior knowledge nor skills.

I think at this point you have so much information which is so important for 
many people outside the workgroups that a simple and robust information 
structure could be helpful.

Let us know how we can help

cheers
PDM

>
> 1. This Version
> 2. Latest Version
> 3. Previous Version
>
>>is there a way of flagging the
>>outdated stuff more prominently (put them in a liked category 
>>superseded_by comes to mind) or somethign
>
> The W3C Technical Reports index [1] lists (only) the most recent
> version of each published Technical Report.
>
>  [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/

GREAT IT WOULD BE GOOD IF THAT LINK WOULD BE PROMINENT IN
THE TEMPLATE FOR ALL THE RELATED (OLD) PAGES,

>
> If you are asking whether we could revise the _content_ of an
> older version once an update has been published, that's a debate
> we had a long time ago and the conclusion has been that no, once
> the "This Version" URI has been given to a document the only
> changes we will make to the content at that "This Version" URI
> (called "in-place changes") are to fix markup errors and -- very
> occasionally -- broken links.  That policy has been interpreted
> as precluding any other change that would cause differences
> in the rendered (e.g. hardcopy) document.

YES, THIS WE CALL VERSION CONTROL, I THINK ITS GOOD PRACTICE
TO FREEZE THE VERSIONS FOR FUTURE REFERENCE
>
> Note that some documents on the W3C site may appear in the
> same style as a W3C Technical Report but are not TRs and may
> not consistently apply the conventions used for TRs.  [1] is the
> definitive list of W3C Technical Reports.

THIS YOU MAY WANT O LABEL MORE CLEARLY IN YOUR
INFORMATION STRUCTURE NAVIGATION TREE/MENU
BY CREATING DIFFERENT CATEGORIES FOR THE TR
>

Received on Saturday, 26 January 2008 11:25:43 UTC