- From: Chris Lilley <chris@w3.org>
- Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 14:59:23 +0100
- To: www-tag@w3.org
Hello all Flickr have an article on what they call 'machine tags'. Or in other words, sort of using namespaces, while coining a new term to avoid the gag reflex from the HTMLorati. (But see below) http://www.flickr.com/groups/api/discuss/72157594497877875/ > We are rolling out a new feature called "machine tags" that allows > users to be more precise in how they tag, and how they search, their > photos. > > Many of you may already be familiar with machine tags by another > name (triple tags) or because you are already using them, > informally, in your code (for example, "geo:long=123.456"). > > "Machine tags" is the technical term for the extra hamsters we've > added to the Flickr servers to formalize how these sorts of tags are > treated. I've included a "Ceci n'est pas un FAQ" below with all the > details. > > For the moment, machine tags are principally an API "thing". The > photo pages have been updated to display tags a little differently > but otherwise all the magic you can perform with machine tags > happens here at the API layer. (This includes the special wildcard > syntax for searching photos with machine tags.) and the FAQ kicks off by saying they use 'namespaces'. But then goes on to explain a syntax that does not use namespaces at all, but does use hardcoded magic prefixes: > 1) A "namespace" : > > Namespaces MUST begin with any character between a - z; remaining > characters MAY be a - z, 0 - 9 and underbars. Namespaces are > case-insensitive. > > 2) A "predicate" : > > Predicates MUST begin with any character between a - z; remaining > characters MAY be a - z, 0 - 9 and underbars. Namespaces are > case-insensitive. > > 3) A "value" : > > Values MAY contain any characters that a "plain vanilla" tags > use. Values may also contain spaces but, like regular tags, they > need to wrapped in quote Note the lack of a URI anywhere in this description. So in conclusion - they don't use namespaces at all. But they have a registry of colon-separated prefixes, which may or may not conflict with other peoples usage. -- w3c:Chris_Lilley mailto:chris@w3.org Interaction Domain Leader Co-Chair, W3C SVG Working Group W3C Graphics Activity Lead Co-Chair, W3C Hypertext CG
Received on Friday, 16 February 2007 13:59:35 UTC