[whatwg] Ghosts from the past and the semantic Web

[Kristof Zelechovski]

There is a difference between the general possibility of making nonsense
statements and an invitation to make them.  In my opinion, recommending
metadata about content within itself is such an invitation.
Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: whatwg-bounces at lists.whatwg.org
[mailto:whatwg-bounces at lists.whatwg.org] On Behalf Of Ben Adida
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 9:46 PM
To: Kristof Zelechovski
Cc: whatwg at lists.whatwg.org; 'Eduard Pascual'; 'Shannon'
Subject: Re: [whatwg] Ghosts from the past and the semantic Web

Kristof Zelechovski wrote:
> I am not opposing local metadata; I have already explained you can use the
> SCRIPT element for the purpose.  I only say that metadata should not be
> inside content they describe in order to avoid circularity.  This is a
> philosophical objection, not a technical one.

Your argument on circularity is wrong, in my opinion. The potential for
circularity exists in the English (or any other) language, as I've
explained in a previous email. RDFa only makes human-readable statements
machine-readable.

Does that mean you can make non-sensical statements? Absolutely. Just
like you can in plain English.

That's not a bug, that's just something we live with in language.

-Ben