discussion of the Creative Commons Metadata work

[Lorenzo De Tomasi <lorenzo.detomasi AT creativecommons.it>]

Summary: Setting a proposed recommendation dc:term for concise descriptions
could be useful when search engines and directories will add an option that
permits to choose the license of the resources you are searching for.

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I have looked at the code of CC RDF of digital code.
I have seen you have used the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (Dcmi)
<http://dublincore.org/documents/2003/03/04/dcmi-terms/#H1> term
'description', that permits an unlimited description of the work.

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Term Name:  description
  URI: http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/description   Label: Description
Definition: An account of the content of the resource.   Comment:
Description may include but is not limited to: an abstract, table of
contents, reference to a graphical representation of content or a free-text
account of the content.   Type of Term: element   Status: recommended   Date
Issued: 1999-07-02
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I think it's a great choice, but I also think you should add a concise
description field, useful for search engines and directories (like dmoz.org
= Google Directory) that display a concise summary of the work/resource.

>From 'Open Directory Editorial Guidelines'
<http://dmoz.org/guidelines/describing.html#descriptions>
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The description gives specific information about the content and/or subject
matter of the site [resource]. It should be informative and concise, usually
no longer than one or two lines. The basic formula for a good description is
Description = Subject + Content
[...]
Keep the description of your site brief - no longer than 25-30 words.  A
well-written, objective description will make listing your site easier.
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A typical long Dmoz description is usually max 250 characters:
<dc:title> Creative Commons License Generator
<dc:description>Service allowing quick and easy selection of one of a range
of Open Content licenses to meet a content creators' requirements
(concerning attribution, whether commercial use is allowed, and whether
modification is allowed).

<dc:title> Creative Commons
<dc:description> A non-profit organization which designs legal and
technological tools to allow creators to designate their works as accessible
in the public domain.

Google displays only about 105 characters + ... [108 characters]

<dc:title> Choose a License | Creative Commons
<dc:description> Service allowing quick and easy selection of one of a range
of Open Content licenses to meet a content...

<dc:title> Creative Commons
<dc:description> A non-profit organization which designs legal and
technological tools to allow creators to designate...

I think it will be useful to create a new term and to propose it to the
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (Dcmi).
My preferred proposal:
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Term Name:  conciseDescription
URI: http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/concisedescription
Label: Concise description
Definition: A concise description of the resource for search engines and
directories.
Comment: Max 250 characters. Ask Google to expand Directory description to
250 characters, as AllTheWeb, Aol Search, Altavista and Netscape Search have
already done.
Type of Term: element-refinement
Refines: http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/description
Status: recommended
Date Issued: 2003-12-26
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Other proposals:
dc:shortDescription
dc:searchEngineDescription
dc:description250 [max 250 characters]
dc:description108 [max 108 characters]
to adopt the existing dc:abstract
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Term Name:  abstract
  URI: http://purl.org/dc/terms/abstract   Label: Abstract   Definition: A
summary of the content of the resource.   Type of Term: element-refinement
Refines: http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/description   Status: recommended
Date Issued: 2000-07-11

What do you think?
Ciao,

Lorenzo