[Handle-info] [news] W3C TAG publishes "finding" on Metadata in URIs (w3.org)

[John Erickson <john.erickson@hp.com>]

See: http://tinyurl.com/ydd9yf (w3.org)

The use of Metadata in URIs
TAG Finding 2 January 2007

This finding addresses several questions regarding Uniform Resource 
Identifiers (URIs). Specifically, what information about a resource can 
or should be embedded in its URI? What metadata can be reliably 
determined from a URI, and in what circumstances is it appropriate to 
rely on the correctness of such information? In what circumstances is it 
appropriate to use information from a URI as a hint as to the nature of 
a resource or its representations? Simple examples are used to explain 
the tradeoffs involved in employing such metadata in URIs...

:

The first question is primarily of concern to URI assignment 
authorities, who must choose a suitable URI for each resource they 
control. The other questions are focused on people and software making 
use of URIs, whether at the resource authority or elsewhere. Of course, 
the questions are related insofar as one reason for an authority to 
encode metadata is for the benefit of resource users.

The TAG has earlier published a finding Authoritative Metadata 
[AUTHMETA], which explains how to determine correct metadata in cases 
where conflicting information has been provided. This finding is 
concerned with just one possible means of determining resource metadata, 
i.e. from the URI itself. The TAG publication [AWWW] discusses related 
issues under the heading of URI Opacity; this finding provides 
additional detail and guidance on the encoding of metadata into URIs, 
and on when it is or isn't appropriate to attempt to infer metadata from 
a URI...


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