Documenting URI schemes

Consider the following as guidelines for dealing with the many 
undocumented or poorly documented URI schemes.

* For documentation of unregistered or ill-defined schemes, use 
Informational-series ("FYI") Requests for Comments (RFC). Or use W3C 
group Notes.

* Maintain a one-to-one correspondence between current documents and 
URI schemes. (The planned splitting of the scheme documentation in 
rfc1738bis is a Good Thing.) Resist the temptation to combine scheme 
documentation. Separate documents allow for better searching (a title 
like "The 'irc' URI scheme" is quite clear) and for stronger metadata 
(obsoleting rather than updating).

* Maintain a usage document separate from all particular scheme 
documents. The usage document (again, an FYI or Note) would list the 
following data for each scheme, whether registered, unregistered, 
IETF-blessed, poorly documented, or whatever.

     * Name.
     * Level of use (say, "pervasive", "common", "rare").
     * Expected change in level of use.
     * Reference to scheme-specific documentation.

* Update the usage document regularly. What would be an appropriate 
interval? A year? Two years?

-- 
Etan Wexler.

Received on Tuesday, 10 August 2004 10:14:16 UTC