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

On 12/22/2011 8:09 PM, Marcos Caceres wrote:
> I think the W3C should mandate that every versioned specification alway
> have a/latest/  (or similar, like Unicode does) for people who just want
> the latest Rec of a spec.

I want to be clear what you're advising. We've been talking about biblios, 
so let's consider a case where Bibilo B is to reference the specific 
version RV of evolving specification R.

* If you are saying that each dated version of R, such as RV, should also 
include a reference to R (the undated/unversioned link), I agree. I think 
that's standard practice for W3C TR track documents, no?

* If you're saying that the biblio entry in B must include not only the URI 
for version RV, but also for R, I strongly disagree. Particularly in the 
case of normative references, the biblio should reference the 
dated/versioned URI or the latest/undated URI according to whether the 
intention is to have reference to the specific or the evolving version. If 
the reference is to RV, then the biblio should >not< in general reference R 
as well: as noted above, then I think it should be the RV document itself 
that has links for funding successor versions.

I couldn't tell which of the conventions above you are advocating.

(I know IETF has different conventions, and speaking just for myself, I 
find them unhelpful. There's a priesthood that knows what to do when an 
IETF URI ending in some number like "-02" disappears from the Web, but 
ordinary mortals don't. I'm sure IETF has good reasons with lots of 
history, but it doesn't work well for me. Nonetheless, I think this should 
be addressed by IETF, if it is to be addressed at all: I don't think the 
biblios in W3C documents are the right place to give tutorials or hints on 
how to deal with IETF document versioning.)

Noah

Received on Friday, 23 December 2011 18:15:24 UTC