- From: Felix Sasaki <felix.sasaki@dfki.de>
- Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:12:16 +0200
- To: Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org>
- Cc: andy.powell@eduserv.org.uk, pete.johnston@eduserv.org.uk, dc-usage@jiscmail.ac.uk, www International <www-international@w3.org>, public-lld <public-lld@w3.org>, Thomas Baker <tbaker@tbaker.de>
- Message-ID: <CAL58czqgBDLFGUP6Mb1nxPTf2ti-2ERKs2QYwAZUu0hPFP3zhg@mail.gmail.com>
Hi Richard, all, I am putting also the library linked data list into the loop, since many people here are involved in dublin core, also specifically Tom Baker. Best, Felix 2011/7/23 Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org> > I hope I'm addressing this to the right people. If not, please let me know > where to send. > > While reviewing the HTML5 Metaextensions registry I came across the entry > for dcterms.language. There are two issues with that that I'd like to bring > to your attention: > > [1] The description "A language of the resource. Recommended best practice > is to use a controlled vocabulary such as RFC 4646 [RFC4646]." is referring > to an out of date specification. RFC 4646 was obsoleted by RFC 5646. > > It would be much better to refer to BCP 47 http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/* > *bcp/bcp47.txt <http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/bcp/bcp47.txt>. BCP 47 is > an unchanging name created specifically to refer to the latest version of > the specs related to tags for identifying languages. > > > [2] The 4th column contains the following text: > > "Redundant with the lang attribute on the html element. (Browsers pay > attention to the lang attribute but not dcterms.language)" > > It's not clear to me who wrote that, but it appears to be misleading. > > The lang (or xml:lang) attribute on the html element defines the default or > primary language of the *text* inside the html element (and is used by such > text-processing applications as spell-checking, style choices, voice browser > settings, etc. which need a clear indication of which (one) language they > are dealing with), whereas an indication of the language of 'the resource' > is presumably intended to be metadata about the intended audience of the > *resource as a whole*, as described in the HTTP specification referring to > the Content-Language header (http://tools.ietf.org/html/** > rfc2616#section-14.12 <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616#section-14.12>). > > Note that the lang attribute can take only one language tag at a time as > its value, since the text it is referring to can only be in one language at > a time. The Content-Language header, however, can use as many language tags > as are appropriate to describe the intended audience of the resource. > > This makes the lang attribute and the Content-Language header like chalk > and cheese. > > Note also that the use of http-equiv=Content-Language on the meta element > was recently declared non-conformant in HTML5, due to the confusion that has > surrounded its use over the years. I'd hate to revive that confusion with > name=dcterms.language, and so I think it would be good to clarify the > intended usage. > > The loss of http-equiv=Content-Language of course means that there is no > in-document way of signalling language metadata for the resource. I'm > guessing that the intent of dcterms.language is to provide such a thing. > > If so, I think its usage needs to be described more clearly as metadata > about the intended audience of the resource, and linked to the HTTP > Content-Language header. It also has to allow for a comma-separated list of > language tags (using BCP 47 rules). > > If my assumptions are incorrect, I think it should be removed from the > metaextensions registry. > > I hope this is of some help. Please let me know your thoughts. > > Best regards, > Richard. > > > -- > Richard Ishida > Internationalization Activity Lead > W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) > > http://www.w3.org/**International/ <http://www.w3.org/International/> > http://rishida.net/ > > > Register for the W3C MultilingualWeb Workshop! > Limerick, 21-22 September 2011 > http://multilingualweb.eu/**register <http://multilingualweb.eu/register> > >
Received on Saturday, 23 July 2011 10:12:59 UTC