[tei-council] Proposal for TEI website stable URIs and archiving

[David Sewell]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009, Elena Pierazzo wrote:

> I was not in Lyon so possibly you already discussed a couple of the
> things I am commenting on now, so please forgive me if it is the case.
>
> 1. Have we considered to use PURL or DOI as a tool to enhance the
> persistence? In this case we might be able to change all links (for
> instance go to extension-less) without fear of breaking them.

We considered DOI registration but ruled it out as too expensive and 
excessive for our needs. We didn't really talk about a formal PURL 
resolution approach, but I think the general feeling is that we have a 
canonic website under our control (www.tei-c.org) and that we can create 
stable URIs under it, in the same way that the W3C maintains stable 
documentation on www.w3.org.

> 2. I cannot understand the difference between point releases (par. 1.2.)
> and the one in the Vault (par. 3): when a point release become part of
> the Vault?

Really the key is that we will have the same thing at two different 
locations. The Guidelines will be accessible as part of a full release 
in the Vault. They will also appear as pure Guidelines documentation at 
the simple URL proposed in 1.2. Casual users won't have to know about 
the Vault, releases, or archiving; they will just follow links to the 
Guidelines.

It's true that the duplication described in 1.2 could be omitted. James 
and I both thought it was a reasonable thing to have the current and 
historical Guidelines accessible as both stand-alone documentation and 
as part of the full release archive under Vault.

> 3. Simplify the access to Guidelines: David was mentioning Melissa's
> presentation: I remember she also said the codes as P5 should be avoided
> until someone has understood what P5 is, so what about calling the link
> "TEI Guidelines (current)" or similar? (by the way, I prefer the link
> from the home page, so option 1).

I disagree with Melissa there, as it is impossible to talk about the TEI 
Guidelines without having some sense of the difference between P4 and 
P5--and in the future, that will be true of P5/P6. It's like talking 
about "Windows" without talking about Windows XP or Vista. The major 
public releases are different entities. Of course a link could say 
something like "Current (P5) TEI Guidelines".

David
>
>
> Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
>> * as regards the web site making P5 more visible and prominent,
>>    I think tha arguments are good, any I don't have any
>>    great wisdom to add. rewriting the "P5 index page"
>>    will need someone to hack the hard-wired XSL, by the way.
>>
>> * the versioning of releases - I have two concerns
>>
>>     1. that it be 100% automated. ie write a script which
>>        does all the moving and making of symlinks/rewrites.
>>        make it _really_ easy, else we'll forget to do it
>>     2. what about all the rest of the release? you only
>>        mention the HTML. the whole tree just moves around,
>>        no changes which might affect relative links?
>>
>> * as regardless extensionless URLs, I'd like some
>>    confirmation that no browers would misbehave with this.
>>    are our files being delivered with the right mimetypes or whatever?
>>
>>    I do worry that this is a step too far. without rewrites,
>>    all the existing URLs would break, and I think the rewrites
>>    may be complex.
>>
>>
>> I'd vote for doing the web site changes and the versioning,
>> (as separate exercises) and holding off on the extensionless
>> stuff for a bit.
>>
>> Finally, if we do it, lets make this a clear project with
>> allowed person time, deadlines
>> and deliverables. Be specific about what can be achieved
>> by the next MM. I personally am sort of thinking
>> I will very little time to assist on it before October.
>>
>>
>
>

-- 
David Sewell, Editorial and Technical Manager
ROTUNDA, The University of Virginia Press
PO Box 801079, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4318 USA
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Email: dsewell at virginia.edu   Tel: +1 434 924 9973
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