Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 13:41:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: David Robison <robison@nwnet.net>
Subject: Re: Yet more URI/URC
To: rdaniel@acl.lanl.gov
In-Reply-To: <199404221840.MAA17609@idaknow.acl.lanl.gov>
Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9404251309.R4911-0100000@norman.nwnet.net>
On Fri, 22 Apr 1994 rdaniel@acl.lanl.gov wrote:
>
> > Terry Allen writes:
>
> > [Mitra asks] about pathological cases, and on reflection
> > I see an issue here about URCs vs URNs. To what extent
> > ncan URCs be URNs through being designators for collections?
> >
> > The pathological cases I can see involve annotations, commentary,
> > and tendentious compilations. I won't suggest any particular
> > offensive example, but imagine a URC that couples "all-that-you-
> > hold-holy" with "all-that-is-most-offensive-to-you". In
> > the present world, such a thing would have to be a published
> > work, such as a book, to have any meaning. But if anyone can
> > make up URCs, then mere bibliographic juxtaposition could
> > conceivably have the same effect as actually printing up
> > an anthology. Where is the border between bibliography
> > and collective work?
>
> This is really a much more subtle question than I thought at
> first. Initially I thought that collections typically have
> commentary describing particular articles are included. That
> new content makes them a resource that gets a URN. There will be
> some associated URC(s) so we can find the resource. The URCs may
> contain a "References:" field, but it won't have the commentary
> so it is not the same as a collection - it is just a bibliographic
> listing. So no problem, URNs and URCs are distinct.
>
> But then I though some more about Terry's example of tendentious
> (that's "biased" to ex-Okies like me :-) compilations. Yesterday we
> talked about compilations that were lists of URNs that cited the
> original URN. This is pretty neutral - we didn't assume any editorial
> axe was being ground. But there is nothing to stop groups that oppose
> the view of the original URN from providing a URC that has a
> "Related-Material" field pointing solely to refutations of the original
> URN. There is no commentary here, but there is clearly an editorial
> bias and you do not have any information to clue you into what is
> happening until you read the refutations. This seems to be what Terry
> is worried about - editorial content masquerading as impartial content.
>
> Of course, how do we find these extra URCs? If the publisher of the
> original resource has control over the list of IP addresses that
> "publisher.uri.int" maps onto (and I think they should), these extra
> URCs for a URN will not typically show up. So, the extra URC has to have
> its own URN. This takes it out of the realm of an impartial service
> provided by the system and puts it back into the world of a resource
> provided by a publisher that may have a particular agenda to advance.
>
> So this pathalogical case doesn't worry me too much. Any
> counter-arguments out there on the list?
But it
does worry me. Publishers are in the business to sell books. They are not
in the business to collate and collect scholarship _about_ their works
(esp. things like negative reviews). If we rely on publishers to create
these mega URCs, I see a couple problems: many will not bother
participated in some esoteric scheme cooked up by some Unix weenies
(please, no flames, some of my best friends are Unix weenies ;-) and we
may see way-out-there publishers using the URC to create a stilted view
under the guise of neutral publishing (as Ron fears).
Now publishers should be able to do this if they please, but I doubt most
of them will anyway. This is the stuff of librarians and other scholars,
and I say again, I don't think URCs are the place. I am concerned that if
the IETF or ISOC presents these very-inclusive-URCs (VIURC) to the
publishing world they will laugh. As a librarian I can tell you that
while Books in Print works, it is full of errors and lots of problems. It
is also very simple. We want the publishers to buy into this, so lets
give them something the will use.
As we create this architecture, we need to consider who will do the work
and with what motivation.
David
P.S. Terry: I am not worried about O'Reilly's ability to handle its URCs ;-)