Re: shorter /TR links and https://w3.org

Hi Ian,

On Thu, 2007-05-31 at 13:10 -0500, Ian B. Jacobs wrote:
> > 2) I'd like to request that there be such shortcut URIs as
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf and /TR/xmlschema and TR/css etc. - basically
> > for every non-obvious group of shortnames in /TR/ (like xmlschema-1 and
> > xmlschema-2) there should be a more obvious, memorable shortname, that
> > goes either to the main spec (if one can be identified) or to a listing
> > page akin to /TR/soap/.
> 
> See similar recommendations to authors here:
>  http://www.w3.org/2005/05/tr-versions
> 
> I am not sure that we want to mint new URIs for groups that have
> not chosen such short URIs. Instead I propose that we revise
> the TR page (including search options) to make it easier to find
> documents without resorting to typing URIs.

The recommendations about versions are nice, but I don't know of a
document that would recommend to have xmlschema when a group is creating
xmlschema-[012]. Some groups will think of it, some won't.

I don't see my suggestion as "to mint new URIs for groups that have not
chosen [them]", instead I see it as improving usability of the W3C web
site. If you can choose one of the specs, do a redirect and the user
will see the corrected URI, bookmark it, copy&paste it for links etc, so
you're not really minting a new URI there because it's only going to be
used on napkins and typed into the address bar, not in links.

I see this as the same category of change as when I suggested to add
w3.org/Members because I used to mistype this thinking this was the
right thing (btw, since that was added, I now type only w3.org/Member
because I know both are right and this one is shorter, I no longer have
to think which is right). Also similarly, the W3C site has a very
helpful case-correcting system, so I can forget the shift key, only type
w3.org/tr/xpath and go where I want.

Improving the TR page might be useful, but very similarly I could just
type the thing into my google box and not my address box. What I'm
looking for here is eliminating that hand movement to mouse, finding the
right link on the screen, and mouse movement to point and click that
goes with google as well as with the TR page.

Also, I don't quite see people being uneasy about the introduction
of /TR/css, /TR/xmlschema, /TR/rdf, /TR/owl etc. If my argumentation is
wrong, it's probably here, for some obscure reason.

Hope it makes sense,
Jacek

Received on Thursday, 31 May 2007 23:32:16 UTC