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Subject: Re: [tm-pubsubj] Recommendations for PubSubj Documentation - version0.2


Murray

> > I'm still unconvinced that a new syntax is necessary, or even a good
> > idea. I don't want to stand in the way of progress if I'm the only
> > person who feels this way, but I continue to think that recommending
> > metadata additions to XHTML (but still within XHTML's syntax) is the
> > kind of thing that (a) doesn't require new syntax, its development,
> > promulgation, and acceptance, (b) doesn't require new tools, documentation,
> > or education, and (c) is simple and already exists.

I foolow you 120% on that path. In fact, I was about to answer to Lars Marius along the
same kind of lines, but you beat me at it. That's fine. It seemed to me that it was the
general TC consensus anyway at that point. Our charter is not to deliver YAS (yet another
syntax/specification) but *recommendations* and best practices to leverage legacy (data
bases, catalogues, classifications, directories ...) and existing technologies to provide
efficient and trustable use of published subjects, that in a certain sense *already exist*
implicitly all over the place, just waiting to be declared as such, not to be reinvented
and rewritten from scratch in a brand new syntax.
This is exactly what the introduction of 3. in Recommendations is all about in my mind.
Maybe the wording is still too *rough* and not explicit enough about it. But the intention
is there, in my mind at least.

Concerning the suggested practices.

> > Last year I published a recommendation on adding metadata (Dublin Core,
> > in fact, though any would be possible) to XHTML documents. I think some
> > parts of this spec could be useful for the PubSubj TC's needs:
> >    http://www.doctypes.org/meta/NOTE-xhtml-augmeta.html

Agreed. I recommend everyone in the TC to have a close look at this document, and I will
add the reference in the "working documents" list.

Lars Marius wrote (with a clearly different viewpoint)

> - section 3.3.2: yes, and this syntax should be XTM.

I can't follow you on that path. There is no point at enforcing XTM on publishers, first
because I don't see any technical need to such a format restriction, as Murray clearly
points out, and second it will be a "topic maps fundamentalist" position, whereas we are
seeking IMO for adoption of the notion of published subjects far beyond the scope of topic
maps technologies. At least that has always been my view of things. The more I go, the
less I figure published subjects as simply a part of topic maps technology, and the more
the other way round: topic maps as one among many technologies that could make use of
published subjects.
So we have to be the most "cross-technologies" as can be. Remember that to begin with, I
wished the TC to be called "Published Subjects" without any reference to Topic Maps in the
title. We finally put Topic Maps in the title to identify this TC as belonging to the
general scope of TopicMaps.Org migration into OASIS. That was in particular Karl Best's
request. But I still believe it was a long-term political mistake, and at that point I
would gladly propose in the revision of the charter that we rename the TC simply
"Published Subjects TC". This is a core issue, and an agreement on that is essential to
all move in the same direction. Please folks give your opinion.

Lars Marius
> annex A: I think this ought to be the main part of the recommendation.
> Why do you want to push this out into the periphery?

For the above reasons: Any kind of format or syntax is not in the core of the
recommendation, except if we adopt a fundamentalist viewpoint.

Debate is open.

Bernard



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