Danny Ayers wrote:
> Bob, quick question: Take PaceCategoryRevised. Replace the word
> "category" with "subject"/"subjectIndicator" throughout.
> What doesn't work?
Well, I don't think subjects should have schemes. They should just
be URIs. What I would probably do is something like this:
<subject
subjectIndicator="http://bobwyman.pubsub.com/";
label="Bob Wyman's Blog">
<category
term="Writers/Idiocy/Complete"
label="Crazy People"
scheme="http://pedantic.org/topics.xtm"/>
</subject>
Where "category" is an optional child element but "subjectIndicator"
is required. Thus, the minimal form for this subject would be:
<subject subjectIndicator="http://bobwyman.pubsub.com/"/>
Using this method, it is possible for many different systems to
assign distinct classifications to unique subjectIndicators. Additionally,
distinct systems can map multiple subjectIndicators to a single
classification if there isn't consistency in the use of subjectIndicators.
It also becomes very easy to convert between systems (just lookup the
subjectIndicator to discover the classification) and it is easy to provide
classification in an I18N context.
Basically, if we switch our focus to subjectIndicators, the world is
wonderful and terribly simple -- except for the minor problem which is that
everyone except librarians and IR specialists think of this stuff in terms
of classification and we'll have to spend lots of time telling people "No,
that's not a 'subject' it's a classification....!"
bob wyman
