What is metadata? (was: Re: [office] Re: Splitting View and Model)

[Elias Torres <eliast@us.ibm.com>]

Michael.Brauer@Sun.COM wrote on 12/20/2006 02:17:01 AM:

[snip]
>
> I'm confused. Are you arguing for putting the metadata into the content
> (for instance within a paragraph) or are you arguing for putting it
> to a location
> outside the content. If I did understand you correctly, then you say
> you are arguing
> for putting it in some other place than the content. But if I look
> at your example
>
>       <span about="foo" property="dc:date" type="xsd:date"
> content="2005-08-01">
>         August 1, 2005
>       </span>
>
> then it seems to be included in the content. What am I missing?
>
>

I hope I got your attention, except that there is no right answer as to
what is metadata. :)

These are some of the things I would like to at least identify as things we
might be interested in....

BTW I think these are all metadata

1. Identifiers (xml:id)

<text:span xml:id="elias">Elias Torres was born in Nicaragua.</text:span>

2. Context (meta:about and meta:property)

<text:span meta:about"elias" xml:id="elias">Elias Torres was born in
  <text:span meta:property="ex:born">Nicaragua</text:span>.
</text:span>

3. In-line Content ("Nicaragua" which is in the content is metadata)

<text:span xml:id="elias">Elias Torres was born in
  <text:span meta:about"elias"
meta:property="ex:born">Nicaragua</text:span>.
</text:span>

4. meta.xml (whatever is not already in the content.xml we put here.

<rdf:Description>
      ... whatever ...
</rdf:Description>

These are just for our discussion today.

-Elias