[sc34wg3] www.topicmaps.com (and topicmaps.org)

Hunting, Sam (LNG-EWR) sc34wg3@isotopicmaps.org
Wed, 12 Oct 2005 14:32:23 -0400


History's history, and wounds heal. However, Murray's larger point is, 
I take it, that community artifacts should in principle be preserved, and
That OCLC has an orderly process for doing so. (By artifacts I include
Both deliverables and sites.) This seems uncontroversial to me.

See below.

-----Original Message-----
From: sc34wg3-admin@isotopicmaps.org [mailto:sc34wg3-admin@isotopicmaps.org]

Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 2:13 PM
To: sc34wg3@isotopicmaps.org
Subject: Re: [sc34wg3] www.topicmaps.com (and topicmaps.org)


* Sam Hunting
|
| +1 but would reframe the issue to the positive proposal of following
| the best practices of Dublin Core with respect to artifacts
| generated by the topic map community.

You lost me here. What best practices do you mean?

Reweaving a portion of Murray's orginal post on this matter in the thread:

I'm dismayed to see that the current site does not (as do many 
| places where standards and specifications are provided online) 
| contain backlinks to the earlier versions of the XTM 1.0 
| Specification, specifically the December 4th "AG Review" 
| version, where there was still a quorum that could be considered 
| TopicMaps.Org, i.e., that group of people who stood together on 
| a stage. That document remains important for both historical and 
| community interest. I don't mean to open up those old wounds, 
| but they in large part exist because of a lack of concern over 
| the technical as well as emotional needs of our community 
| (without even venturing into the legal). I would *truly* hope 
| that this would not be repeated once again by pulling the 
| site offline, erasing the remaining history.
| 
| As for modifying the site with some prominent notice or making 
| severe alterations (such as removing the content and replacing 
| it with solely a notice), I think that would be a similar 
| violence. If there's any question as to how this can 
| be done in a more reasonable way, I would suggest 
| hecking the Dublin Core site, particularly
| 
|      http://dublincore.org/documents/
| 
| DCMI labels superceded documents on their index page, and then 
| on the actual document they simply add a line stating the 
| document "has been replaced by" and a link to the new one. 
| Their old documents remain a DCMI Recommendation (as they 
| should), even after being superceded. There is no attempt to 
| hide, cover, or remove historical documents. They are also 
| important when upgrading legacy software and documentation.