[tei-council] Disambiguation of <ident> and <idno> (and also <gi>)

[Gabriel Bodard]

I think I support Martin's position here, that the distinction between 
<idno> and <ident> is as he described it in his proposed revisions to 
the guidelines and is pretty clear and unambiguous. The difference is 
also one of context, in that <idno> provides an identifier to its parent 
element, while <ident> identifies a string in prose or elsewhere as some 
kind of name or identifier. The two are usually very different kinds of 
animal (as he describes below).

Might they overlap sometimes? Maybe. Well, that's probably inevitable 
even, but I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with the idea of using 
<ident> to tag an isbn used outside of the context of a bibliography. 
(Even if we do decide that works, though, I don't think that destroys 
Martin's definitions; it would just be an edge case where we see 
overlap, but where context makes it clear what's needed.)

G


On 2011-11-24 13:43, Martin Holmes wrote:
> If everyone is of the view that<idno>  and<ident>  overlap, and the same
> information belongs in one or the other depending on context, then I'll
> abandon my attempt to clarify their definitions; it was based on a
> misunderstanding. I'm with Laurent in believing that they are for
> completely different purposes, but if Council believes they're not, then
> we should deprecate one of them because the difference is pointless and
> confusing. I thought I'd identified a useful distinction that justified
> the existence of both, but if not, then I'll just close that ticket and
> raise another suggesting that one be deprecated.
>
> So can we have a show of hands: Who agrees with the following statement?
>
> The same information can appear in both<idno>  and<ident>, and the
> decision as to which to use depends entirely upon context.
>
> -1 from me.
>
> Cheers,
> Martin
>
> On 11-11-24 04:51 AM, Lou Burnard wrote:
>> On 24/11/11 12:42, Laurent Romary wrote:
>>>
>>> Le 24 nov. 2011 à 13:39, Sebastian Rahtz a écrit :
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 24 Nov 2011, at 11:48, Laurent Romary wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> just what<ident>    is for, surely? it is sugar for<hi rend="identifier">
>>>>>
>>>>> That's exactly what I (didn't - indeed) want (ed) to hear from you. From an ontological point of view I don't like so much to see the same object receiving a schizophrenic treatment depending on where it appears (and we do mean the same thing in both cases).
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> <idno>    is a superset of<ident>.  It does the same job, but adds extra semantics, viz that
>>>> not only am I identifying this as an ID in general, but actually as the actual ID of my parent object.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Should they then have the same content model (ident becoming recursive if Idno is)?
>>
>> Hard to say no to that... tho I'd still rather see<hi>   permitted in
>> there....
>>
>>

-- 
Dr Gabriel BODARD
(Research Associate in Digital Epigraphy)

Department of Digital Humanities
King's College London
26-29 Drury Lane
London WC2B 5RL

Email: gabriel.bodard at kcl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 1388
Fax: +44 (0)20 7848 2980

http://www.digitalclassicist.org/
http://www.currentepigraphy.org/