[cc-community] Is there a validator for CC tagging?
Paul Houle
paul at ontology2.com
Tue Mar 9 12:10:15 EST 2010
Nathan Yergler wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> We've had a validator/extractor in the past; the current version,
> developed for Google Summer of Code a couple years ago, is up at
> http://validator.creativecommons.org/. It has some issues (and
> incomplete areas) right now, but I think it's functional. We're
> planning some improvements to it later this year (probably over the
> summer).
>
I found that my code doesn't validate. Unfortunately the validator
doesn't give me any insight as to why.
> We recommend using [X]HTML+RDFa for marking works as licensed. You
> can obtain the correct markup by going to
> http://creativecommons.org/choose/.
>
> Regards,
>
Well, I find that a deeply unsatisfactory answer.
Now, there might be a day when there is an HTML+RDFa standard, but
it doesn't really exist. At the moment, it is tied to XHTML, which
is, practically, about as successful as Netscape Netcaster. Yes,
you'll find pages that have XHTML documents, and some of them are even
valid and well-formed, however, it's pretty difficult to create
dynamic sites that reliably produce good XHTML with mainstream
toolsets. (I remember a blog article that advocated that web browsers
should reject ill-formed XHTML documents, that, inevitably, served an
XHTML doctype with an ill-formed XHTML document.) Even if you manage to
solve that problem (ASP.NET can make good XHTML, but it's challenge to
get anything else to work right) or sweep it under the rug, using the
XHTML doctype appears to increase cross-browser rendering problems
rather than diminish them.
I'm also concerned about the interoperability of RDFa. Looking
back, some people see RDF/XML as a mistake that retarded the growth of
the semantic web for much of a decade. RDFa repeats the same mistakes:
by offering people ten thousand different ways that could attach
metadata to their documents, I think people are going to be confused,
intimidated, mostly decide not to do it, and the 5% that do try to do
it are going to do it wrong. I've got a lot of skepticism that any kind
of interoperable ecosystem will emerge here.
On the other hand, if it can really be made as simple as dropping
in a <meta> element, and if you can give people unambiguous
instructions that give them exactly one choice as to how to do it, I
think you'd get a high take-up rate.
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