Re: scheduling persistent naming discussion

On 23 Mar 2010, at 18:25, Jonathan Rees <jar@creativecommons.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Larry Masinter <LMM@acm.org> wrote:
>> ===================================================
>> I met a traveller from an antique land
>> Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
>> Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
>> Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
>> And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
>> Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
>> Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
>> The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
>> And on the pedestal these words appear:
>> "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
>> Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
>> And Here is my URL, http://ozymandias.org.
>> Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
>> Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
>> The lone and level sands stretch far away.
>> ================================================
>>
>> A "name" is just a string. What you really want is not a  
>> "persistent name" but a "guarantee" -- whatever that might mean --  
>> of a service, generally recognized by society -- that will direct  
>> others from the name to the thing that you want the name to mean.
>>

Well said.

>> As long as we call the problem "persistent naming" rather than  
>> "persistent services", we'll keep on talking in circles.
>
> Yes, many of us made the same point on the GBIF committee I served on,
> so we talked about "persistent actionable identifiers", although I
> might have been happier with "persistently actionable identifiers".
>
> I don't think anyone disagrees with the point that it's not just a
> technical problem. The sloppy terminology is more a matter of habit
> and entrenched practice than misconception.

I'm not so sure. The way a problem is described often shapes how we  
think solutions might look.

> The digital archiving
> world, for example, seems hellbent on "persistent identifier" (without
> misconception about what is *meant*, I think) and nothing we say will
> change what it calls this phenomenon.

It might take time, but this can be changed.

> Maybe Noah can help make the point by changing it on the agenda to
> "persistent identifier resolvability" or something of that sort.

Was wondering about "Long-life links" but it still puts too much blame  
on the uri, maybe?

Dan

Received on Tuesday, 23 March 2010 17:48:15 UTC