Updated draft of TAG Self-Describing Web Finding

I have posted a new draft of the TAG Finding on Self-Describing Web at 
[1,2].  Most of the changes from the previous draft were motivated by 
comments from the official TAG reviewers, Norm Walsh and Stuart Williams. 
There are at least two remaining tasks in finalizing this as a published 
TAG finding:

1. As signaled in a note just sent [3], there is still ongoing debate 
about what the story should be for RDFa.

2. I have not proofread the most recent changes as carefully as I'd like. 
Most of them are pretty small editorially, but I will give it another 
thorough readthrough within the next couple of days.  Typos and minor 
editorial changes will be fixed in place;  if more significant changes are 
needed I'll issue a new draft.

Modulo those to points, I believe that this is ready for review by TAG 
members and others in preparation for the TAG's face to face meeting in 
two weeks.  Given (what I take to be) the relatively positive reviews by 
Norm [4] and Stuart [5-8], I expect to suggest that we should make the 
decision to publish when we meet.  Thank you.

Noah

P.S. Stuart, Norm and I have been having some private correspondence on 
details of their comments.  For their benefit, a list of changes from the 
latest internal draft (not the May draft) follows the list of references 
immediately below.

[1] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/selfDescribingDocuments

[2] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/selfDescribingDocuments-2008-09-08

[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2008Sep/0013.html

[4] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2008Aug/0122.html

[5] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2008Sep/0000.html

[6] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2008Sep/0002.html

[7] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2008Sep/0008.html

[8] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2008Sep/0009.html



========
Suggestion from Norm:

> s/looks up DNS name/looks up the DNS name/

DONE

========

SKW:

> Is this particular idiom for the us of the profile attribute
> actually grounded in an HTML specification?

Changed to:

"Unlike some other microformats, hCard does provide an option for 
deploying in a way that is self-describing. The hCard profile specifies a 
value for the profile attribute of the HTML 4.01 [HTML 4.01] <HEAD> 
element:"

Where "profile" and "<HEAD>" are hyperlinks, and [HTML 4.01] is a bibref. 
This doesn't quite prove that this idiom is grounded, but it does point to 
the versions of the specifications referenced (indirectly) by the authors 
of the particular hCard profile in question.

and added:

"(Note, however, that there is ongoing discussion as to whether the 
profile attribute will be specified as part of HTML 5, and if not, whether 
some other mechanism will be provided for signalling the use of extensions 
such as microformats.)"

=========

SKW:

Change:  "to obtain RDF triples that represent or describe the referenced 
resource."
To: "to directly obtain RDF triples that represent or indirectly obtain 
RDF triples that describe the referenced resource."

DONE.

=========

SKW:

Objects to:  "Indeed, RDF's Schema [RDFSchema] and OWL Ontology 
technologies [OWL] together offer a standard, machine-processable means of 
describing particular uses of RDF.  They provide the standard means by 
which software can discover the relationships between RDF statements (e.g. 
that two seemingly differing predicates are the "<code>owl:sameAs</code>" 
each other), or other information needed for processing the RDF. "

Changed to:
"Indeed, RDF's Schema [RDFSchema] and OWL Ontology technologies [OWL] 
together offer a standard, machine-processable means of describing 
relationships between RDF statements, e.g. that two seemingly differing 
predicates are the "owl:sameAs" each other. " 
(so, I've removed the pharse suggesting that particular uses of RDF are 
described).

==========

SKW inconsistency in grammar relating to list of steps in 2.0.   Changed 
to:

"The steps taken by Bob's browser when he clicks the link illustrate a 
typical path through the standard retrieval algorithm of the Web (readers 
unfamiliar with the HTTP protocol may find it useful to consult either 
[HTTP], or one of the many HTTP introductions available on the Web). Bob's 
browser... 

* parses the URI, and from the http: at the beginning determines that the 
http scheme has been used — this tells the browser that a representation 
retrieved using the HTTP protocol is authoritative. "

I have decided not to further clarify the notion that the representation 
is authoritative.  Stuart had been concerned about confusion with the 
finding on authoritative metadata, but I think it's fairly clear that here 
it's the representation and not the metadata that we're claiming to be 
authoritative.

==========

SKW 

Section 2.0 Concern about references to the "nature of the resource".

Original:  "Neither Bob nor his browser has any advance knowledge of the 
nature of the resource, yet the browser successfully retrieves a 
representation, determines its format, and interprets it for him. "

Changed to:  "Neither Bob nor his browser has any advance knowledge of the 
nature of the resource or the fact that its representation is provided in 
HTML, yet the browser successfully retrieves the representation, 
determines its format, and renders it for him. "

==========

SKW Suggests:

Replace:
"...but the decision to use an uncommon and proprietary media type is 
unfortunate."

with
"...but the decision to use an uncommon, proprietary, unregistered and 
apparently experimental media type is [at best] unfortunate."

Changed to:

"but the decision to use an uncommon, proprietary, unregistered and 
apparently experimental media type is unfortunate."

(Stuart's suggestion is adopted with out the optional [at best], which I 
felt disrupted the flow for little [if any] gain in emphasis.)

==========

SKW suggests that the RDF/XML example in section 5.0 be replaced by N3. 
I'm not so sure more readers will be happy with N3 than with RDF/XML.  In 
this draft, I offer both, with an editors note suggesting that we'll want 
to pick whichever one seems more effective.  I don't want to retain both 
together.



--------------------------------------
Noah Mendelsohn 
IBM Corporation
One Rogers Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
1-617-693-4036
--------------------------------------

Received on Tuesday, 9 September 2008 01:07:49 UTC