RE: web proper names

On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 17:49:04 +0200, "Benjamin Nowack"
<bnowack@appmosphere.com> said:

> On 21.09.2004 14:24:19, Hamish Harvey wrote:

> >When a (URI qua symbol) is to indicate a non-retrievable resource, such
> >as the Eiffel Tower, it is then possible to place an eg HTML document to
> >be retrieved using that URI as a (URI qua retrival path), and it is
> >precisely the fact that humans can do this in order to get a hint as to
> >what a (URI qua symbol) is supposed to identify that leads to the
> >argument that one should always use http URIs. This document is of value
> >only to humans.

> I'd disagree on that. The moment you put a dereferencable document at
> that location, people might want to start talking about it, and we end
> up with an ambiguous URI. So I'd say, whenever you want to use a URI
> for a non-web resource, don't put a web resource at (exactly) the same
> place. This doesn't mean that we can't provide information, but we have
> to make sure (via URIQA, redirects & Co.) that we don't lose the URI's
> disambiguity.

_:dereferenceableThing ex:resultOfDereferencing
"http://www.paris.org/Monuments/Eiffel"^^xsd:anyURI .

and say anything you want to about _:dereferenceableThing. No ambiguity.
People can talk about the document, they just need to make sure they are
talking about the document and not the thing indicated by the URI.

If you are going to say "don't put a web resource at the same place"
then it would seem to me to be illogical to use http URIs; that then
moves into a different debate. To humans, being able to dereference a
URI and find some explanation of what that URI qua symbol is intended to
indicate is very valuable indeed, and I was starting from the assumption
that http URIs would be used, as symbols, to indicate non-web resources,
precisely because this meant it was possible to post an explanatory web
page.

Cheers,
Hamish

Received on Tuesday, 21 September 2004 16:13:34 UTC