discussion of the Creative Commons Metadata work

[Ben Hammersley <ben AT benhammersley.com>]

Awoken from my slumber, allow me to barge in.

On Thursday, December 26, 2002, at 07:44 PM, Shelley Powers wrote:
> > Picking either form alone would be satisfactory for computers, but
> > picking both leads to confusion. I picked the second because that is
> > how I've seen dc:creator used in most instances (most notably
> > MusicBrainz, which defines 34265 artists in this way), because that is
> > what you would guess from the term's definition, because it is
> > dc:creator and not dc:creatorName, because the second makes providing
> > more information about creators easy, and because my friends at the 
> > W3C
> > would be upset if I didn't.
>
> Upset by what? That you used the data structure rather than the 
> literal? Or
> that you used creator and didn't try to use creatorName?
>
> BTW -- a whole lot more Movable Type users than MusicBrainz, I betcha 
> now
> (would have to get figures) -- which means more people using straight 
> text
> than structure. Probably because that's what's demonstrate at Dublin 
> Core,
> itself.
>
> I know that this is given PCDATA in the DTD and both are allowable -- 
> but I
> still prefer to use what's in the original DC docs as examples, until 
> they
> come out and say, "Ooops! Examples were wrong!", and probably tick off 
> a lot
> of people who use straight text.
>
> I do agree with both causing confusion -- and you now have both in one 
> page
> at my weblog.

This *really* gets on my wick. Say this three times. The example is the 
spec. The example is the spec. The example is the spec. Either, right 
now, someone from the Dublin Core team, and someone from the w3c rdf WG 
comes together and fixes this once and for all, or we all accept the 
fact that the common usage is the proper one, even if it's not. If the 
examples are wrong, they get more and more right every day just by dint 
of usage.

It's the job of the RDF WG to give steerage. Loudly, clearly, and 
without confusion. If people are following the spec examples, rather 
than reading the WG hive mind, then it's the WG's fault.

> > > For instance, I don't want my photos used within 'racist' content. So
> > > I might add a prohibition against 'racist use'. Simple thing to 
> > > modify
> > > the RDF/XML, but what will this do to the validity of the license?
> >
> > Obviously you'll need a new license with this prohibition. The license
> > characteristics are descriptive.
>
> True, which means I can't modify the RDF/XML for prohibits without 
> getting
> the CC to agree to the new license type.

or to invent your own license and give it a URI all of its own. We can 
do that, without CC giving a damn, right? (as long as we don't use the 
CC logo etc.)