RE: Rolling the personalization SC into 4.1.2

John wrote:
> I believe what is *truly* required is "contextual information SUPPLIED as metadata", so that machines can parse and adapt to that data (ergo - personalize).
…
> which is why I would favor a direct, not-beating-around-the-bushes SC that explicitly calls for the provision of metadata (while leaving open the possibility that multiple sets of metadata could emerge, from existing semantics in HTML5

I’m wondering if this is a change without a difference, because technically tags are metadata as well, but I assume you mean that it must use particular attributes?

If so, explicitly calling it metadata then precludes you from using built-in semantics from HTML(5) to fulfil the criteria. (And I’m still not clear why this has to be explicit when 4.1.2 only needs “programmatically determined”.)

For example, coga-field (for form elements) has a value of ‘phone’, which could be fulfilled by the HTML input type of tel. Another examples would be if we later to include regions/sections (under the personalisation spec’s “3.4 Potential parts of a page”), HTML elements that mean the same thing should be available as sufficient techniques.


> As the current wording for the draft SC is presented:
> “contextual information is available for common form elements, common navigation elements and common interactive controls is programmatically available.”

I had suggested a version closer to 4.1.2:
“For common navigation elements, common form elements and common interactive controls contextual information can be programmatically determined.”

I wouldn’t object to adding this to the end: “can be programmatically determined from the metadata”, but I think it is unnecessary, and prevents us simplifying later if HTML adds something that can be used for the same scenario.

Cheers,

-Alastair

PS. Where you said “*All* metadata requires a taxonomy - that is what makes the metadata useful, as it can be machine-interpreted”, that implies it has to be pre-agreed terms.
Taxonomies can be pre-determined, or they can be open. In this context I agree a pre-determined taxonomy is most suitable, but in the context of Search or Administrative metadata, they are quite often open. I.e. an author could add a new term to the object their working on.
I’ve done a lot of Information Architecture work, including specifying taxonomies for content management systems, (not to mention folksonomies, fuzzy matching of terms etc), so I’m pretty familiar with the various uses of metadata. Open taxonomies have their uses to.