In this post, I enumerate the issues involved and summarize the proposals made
so far (insofar as I can recall them all :-)). Due credit to Rhys Weatherly
for proposing (in his note of December 8 1994) the general idea of a FAQ header
specifically intended for a URL link, with the semantics that the HTML target
of the link is a longer or cureent version of the FAQ posting.
Since Rhys's original proposal, there have been several suggestions for
different names for the header. Each reflects a slightly different take on
the link semantics. Some other issues, including readability by humans have
been raised.
I see four substantive issues:
1) Is the semantics of the link to be "point to *current* version of"? Or
"point to *longer* version of?". Or "point to *authoritative* version of"?
Or something else?
2) Should the header be specifically a URL/URN link or a general link-to-other-
resource header that can take a news article ID?
3) How important is it that the header name reflect standard-English practice
in dictionaries and encyclopedias? Can we accomplish this?
4) Should the FAQ header be mirrored in an X-header in the news header proper?
I see these as being in decreasing order of importance.
I assume we have all accepted Rhys's suggestion that the header use the
syntax <URL: ... >, so that the URL will be detectable by more advanced text
scanners.
Proposals informally made so far (I may have forgotten or mis-attributed some,
and will welcome corrections):
Longer-Version-Of: (Rhys Weatherly)
Pointer-To: (Eric Raymond)
Advertisement-For: (Eric Raymond)
Related-Article: (Peter J. Kappesser)
More-Information: (Peter J. Kappesser)
See-Also: (Peter J. Kappesser)
Primary-Source: (David Alex Lamb)
This-Article-Is-A-Summary-Of: (David Alex Lamb)
Current-Version-Of: (Paul Lindner)
URL: (??)
I would like this thread to lead to a decision on the syntax and interpretation
of the header which can be added to the FAQ standards, and represented to
newsreader builders and the WWW consortium as the consensus of the FAQ-
mauntainer community.
I will archive the thread for reference on the history and intent of the
convention. People who have already contributed are invited to send
me copies of their mail for the record.
(If you are reading this mail in an archive, the prior postings should
immediately follow this note.)
Let the formal discussion begin...
-- Eric S. Raymond <esr@locke.ccil.org> WWW: //www.thyrsus.com/~esr/home.html
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