Use of dcterms:conformsTo in Web metadata

Stu,

I don't know how familiar you are with the long-running debates in
the Web community about how to characterize, in a manner something
like the role filled by DOCTYPEs and MIME types to date, the general
content characteristics of 'documents' containing a mix of for
example, XHTML, SVG, and MathML markup vocabularies.

The issue is reviewed in the following appendix which should be
treated as a Request for Comments:

http://www.w3.org/TR/WICD/#media-type-argument

I'm under an action item from the Hypertext CG to try to get the
Compound Document Formats WG some external help in
resolving the issues raised in this appendix.

The URC Standards, with my encouragement, have used a
<dcterms:conformsTo> element to assert what specs the current
XML object asserts allegiance to.  See for example

http://www.freestandards.org/pipermail/accessibility/2005-February/001100.html

Is there anything you know, or contacts you can find in the Dublin
Core 'Usage' activity can tell us, that would mitigate against our
continuing to advocate for [syntax suitably bound to this DC term]
in compound documents?

There are pragmatic considerations mitigating against a total reliance
on external metadata, as they tend to be less reliable than the
utterances within the data object itself.

In addition, relying on external metadata in HTTP header
fields does not address large webs distributed on media, for
example digital talking books.

http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39-86-2002.html

I'm not asking you to resolve the internal/external issue for us,
although Dublin Core experience that would bear on this issue
could be helpful.  I merely mention the internal/external issue
as something that means we should be looking at what are
good internal-metadata candidates and I'm not aware of why
dcterms:conformsTo is not a leading candidate.

Al

Received on Friday, 7 October 2005 15:32:58 UTC