- From: Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 10:48:58 -0800
- To: "Jeffrey Winter" <JeffreyWinter@crd.com>
- Cc: <www-tag@w3.org>, <tag@w3.org>
Yes. It makes a lot of sense. For example, any page on our site has a general human-readable admin page (which happens to be the URI followed by a comma ie for http://www.w3.org/2003/01/W3COrg.svg see http://www.w3.org/2003/01/W3COrg.svg, ). It would be cool to have an RDF metadata page - which could point to the admin page and other related things. You just have a convention, that site-specific stuff is put in with the root metadata. Tim On Tuesday, Feb 11, 2003, at 05:39 US/Pacific, Jeffrey Winter wrote: > > Why limit this approach to just site-level > metadata? Shouldn't a similar approach be > adopted to bind metadata to any resource > under the control of the "publisher"? > > I can see how this would benefit an RPC-style > gateway as a means of (for example) standardizing > how to obtain a WSDL document, but what about > REST-style applications where each resource > may (and probably will) have its own specific > metadata? > > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Tim Berners-Lee [mailto:timbl@w3.org] >> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 11:02 AM >> To: www-tag@w3.org >> Cc: tag@w3.org >> Subject: Proposed issue: site metadata hook >> >> >> >> In the face-face meeting I took an action to write up a proposal for >> the following potential issue: >> >> >> Proposed Short name: SiteMetadata-nn >> >> Title: Web site metadata improving on robots.txt, w3c/p3p >> and favicon >> etc >> >> The architecture of the web is that the space of identifiers >> on an http web site is owned by the owner of the domain name. >> The owner, "publisher", is free to allocate identifiers >> and define how they are served. >> >> Any variation from this breaks the web. The problem >> is that there are some conventions for the identifies on websites, >> that >> >> /robots.txt is a file controlling robot access >> /w3c/p3p is where you put a privacy policy >> /favico is an icon representative of the web site >> >> and who knows what others. There is of course no >> list available of the assumptions different groups and manufacturers >> have used. >> >> These break the rule. If you put a file which happens to be >> called robots.txt but has something else in, then weird >> things happen. >> One might think that this is unlikely, now, but the situation could >> get a lot worse. It is disturbing that a >> precedent has been set and the number of these may increase. >> >> There are other problems as well - as well sites are catalogued >> by a number of different agents, there tend to be all kinds >> or request for things like the above, while one would like to >> be able to pick such things up as quickly as possible. >> >> If, when these features were designed, there had been a >> general way of attaching metadata to a web site, it would >> not have been necessary. >> >> The TAG should address this issue and find a solution, >> or put in place steps for a solution to be found, >> which allows the metadata about a site, including that for >> later applications, to be found with the minimum overhead >> and no use of reserved URIs within the server space. >> >> Example solution for feasability >> >> A new http tag such as "Metadata:" is introduced into HTTP >> This takes one parameter, which is the URI of the >> metadata document. The header is supplied on response to >> any GET or HEAD of the root document ("/"). It may also >> be supplied on a any other request, including error >> requests. >> >> The Metadata document is conventionally written in RDF/XML. >> It contains pointers to all kinds of standard and/or proprietary >> metadata about the site, including for example >> >> - privacy policy >> - robot control >> - icon for representing the site >> - site maps >> - syndicates (RSS ) feeds >> - IPR information >> - site policy >> - site owners >> >> The solution only needs to document the hook and the >> vocabulary to point to metadata resources in current >> use. Vocabulary for new applications can be defined >> by those applications. >> >> timbl >> >>
Received on Tuesday, 11 February 2003 13:48:18 UTC