Re: LYNX-DEV Internal MIME types

[Christopher R. Maden]

[Al Gilman]
> This is a positive step.  I am not sure that the XML enthusiasts are
> recognizing that there need to be shared [standard, registered,
> etc. ] content concepts as well as general well-formedness rules for
> forms.  XML is relaxing the tight one-to-one relationship SGML
> imposes between content concepts and structural forms.  This is
> good.  We want to reuse formal classes across multiple content
> classes.  But we still need to address content, albeit at arm's
> length from structure.

Ah - but there you're wrong. (-:  The issue of content description is
a known one, and on the list of things to address.  This came up
prominently in the area of indexing - yeah, you've labelled things,
but how can a user search for a *class* of things on the Web?

This is something that's being put off for a little while, because
there are applications that can proceed without it.  The working group
might make an explicit decision to punt it to some metadata working
group, but will absolutely not ignore it.

> If there is no registry to look up more info about what <warning>
> and <fluff> are, this is limited help.  What if class definitions
> are handled over an "orderwire," a separate discourse dealing with
> meta-data?  Suppose one could retrieve class definitions as required
> much the way the DNS works now?  Call it a Class Name Service.

Any suggestions anyone has are more than welcome.  This is really an
issue with generic information classification, and one that has never
been adequately solved.  Dewey Decimal, Library of Congress, Dublin
Core, Roget's, and PICS are all relevant buzzwords here, but what
combination, if any, will provide the answer is unknown.

-Chris
-- 
Christopher R. Maden                  One Richmond Square
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