Re: References Re: What are the requirements/problems? Re: Working on New Styles for W3C Specifications

On Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 9:11 PM, Robin Berjon wrote:
> On Dec 14, 2011, at 21:10 , Marcos Caceres wrote:
> > Only problem, for me, is that the references point to the dates version of specs. Preferably, they should point to the latest published version.
> > 
> > So, instead of: 
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-2dcontext-20110525/ 
> > 
> > What should be there is:
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/2dcontext/
> > 
> > The use case are: 
> > 1. avoiding pointing to a stale version (and if your document goes stale, the references don't!). 
> > 2. Matching on the short name as an id (in case I don't want to use your ID system, which is the <label> element). 
> 
> 
> 
> This brings me to a convention I've been advocating here and there but that hasn't been formalised. There are use cases both for point to the latest version, and for pointing to a specific version that you don't want to see change beneath your feet. 
Whoa! hang on. No Working Draft should be cited that way (i.e., as stable!). That's why HTML5 has the *big red warning* and document's SoTD always says that documents may be obsoleted at any time (unless they are Recs) and it's inappropriate to cite them as anything but a work in progress.  
 
> Supporting both requires that identifiers for either be distinguishable (especially for automated tools that generate the bibref for you, of which we have several).
> 
> The convention is simple:
> 
> [FOO] always points to the latest version, i.e. for W3C that's /TR/foo/
> [FOO-20120315] is the dated version, i.e. for W3C /TR/2012/WD-foo-20120315/

 [FOO-20120315] should _never_ happen, unless you are doing something non-normative: "Because of screwups in [FOO-20120315], bla bla bla"
> 
> > Also, what would be great is to include the Editor's draft, if one is available. 
> 
> Perhaps we could also have a [FOO-ED] convention?
A lot of editors would prefer the Editor's Draft to actually be the authoritative draft. Appearing on /TR/ MUST NOT be taken as a sign of maturity or stability (unless the spec is REC or PR). All other statuses are as unstable as each other.

Received on Wednesday, 14 December 2011 22:03:05 UTC