Re: Proposal for an "address:" URI Scheme

Before I embark upon answering Aaron's thoughtful reply, I'll just let
you know that the "proposal" is now up at:-

     http://infomesh.net/2001/03/address/

And there is also a handy little address: to XHTML conversion script
at:-

     http://infomesh.net/2001/03/address/view/?address:xxx

Substitute your address for xxx... if used with Protozilla [1] you can
already use the URI scheme in XHTML and have it do something!

Aaron:-
> perhaps it should be better written as: [...]
> address://us/... [...]
> where the authority section is the ISO (or whatever) two-letter
country
> code.

I'm having second thoughts about constraining people to the direction
in which they should put these now anyway. Reason being, both the
U.S.A. and the U.K. do it "the wrong way around", i.e. put the object
(e.g. person) first, whereas other postal systems (such as Russia) use
it the proper way around. There seems to be no confliction whatsoever
when sending mail between countries that have different postal
addressing schemes. Therefore, I think that the recommendation should
be that the direction of the scheme parts comply with the postal
scheme practises of the target country.

Thus your nicely abbreviated from:-

> address://us/02139/545%20Tech%20Square/W3C/

Could become:-

address:W3C/545%20Tech%20Square/02139/us/

See:
http://infomesh.net/2001/03/address/view/?address:W3C/545%20Tech%20Squ
are/02139/us/

The recommendation could be that either the first or final part of the
scheme must consist of the country/continent/area code. As for using
URL localization, I'd like it to be a URL... but I think this is too
generic a format for that - i.e. it's an indicator, not a locator. The
postal people probably wouldn't be able deliver the mail using the Web
:-)

> How about something like location: or place:?

Well, location and place are both too general - Time Square is a place
and a location, but I wouldn't call it an address (although it no
doubt has one... but who would get the mail?). Maybe postal-address:
would be better, but it's a bit long. I stand by my original address:
decision, though it's not set in stone.

> Do other planets get to use the triple slash?

Other planets / solar systems / galaxies / universes get to be added
onto the beginning or the end of the URI depending on their postal
service scheme practises. For example, an address to Jupiter (intra
solar system) might be:-

address:Jupiter/My%20Colony/My%20Podule/Me/

[1] http://protozilla.mozdev.org/

--
Kindest Regards,
Sean B. Palmer
@prefix : <http://webns.net/roughterms/> .
:Sean :hasHomepage <http://infomesh.net/sbp/> .

Received on Thursday, 15 March 2001 21:12:52 UTC