Re: meta information

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Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 22:08:24 +0200
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From: "Daniel W. Connolly" <connolly@hal.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <www-talk@www0.cern.ch>
Subject: Re: meta information 
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In message <9406011501.AA19489@wildturkey.igd.fhg.de>, neuss@igd.fhg.de writes:
>Jens Kurlanda (kurlanda@informatik.uni-frankfurt.de) wrote
>
>You could use the HTML+ element "META". Example:
> <meta name="keywords" value="image,compression,multimedia">
> <meta name="description" value="Hierachical Compression of
>  5-D Image with 1-16 bpp">
>Remember, META is a header element, don't put it in the body.

Dave Raggett, Tim Berners-Lee and I discussed the META element
for a while. I don't like the idea. Tim didn't either, and
Dave Raggett eventually agreed that there might be better
ways to express these sentiments.

What is the meaning of the META element? I've heard several
things:

Proposal: It's for http headers:
	<META name="Expires" value="Tue Aug 12, 1994 10:33:32 CST">
Answer: Then why not write:
	<HTTP-HEADER name="Expires" ...>

and what happens when some dork writes:
	<HTTP-HEADER name="User-Agent" value="bogus">

I can see the need for:

	<EXPIRES DATE="...">

but not a general HTTP header escape mechanism.

Proposal II: It's for private indexing techniques. Then why not
	use comments or processing instructions?
	<?keywords a,b,c,d>
	<?description lksjdflkjsdf>
or
	<!-- @#@# KEYWORDS: a,b,c -->
	<!-- @#@# DESCRIPTION: ... -->

As long as these techniques are private to one implementation, this
is all you need. If you get to the point where you expect other
folks to understand the meaning of these idioms, just propose
new tags:
	<KEYWORDS>a,b,c,</keywords>
	<description>lkjsdlfkjsldf... </description>

And about indexing... anybody who's interested in these problems should
probably try to follow the discussions about URC's on the
uri-request@bunyip.com mailing list.

Also, at WWW '94, it was suggested that the TEI header might be a workable
technology to use in this area.


If you're gonna hack, go ahead and hack. If you're trying to get it
right, make sure you've done your homework. But don't hack and pretend
you're getting it right :-)

Dan