[UA-discuss] Proposal: Handling Numbering of the UASG Documents

Thu Jan 24 22:55:28 UTC 2019

I agree with Jim, Dennis and Asmus comments. 

I don’t understand why Asmus disagrees with Jim’s reservation about referencing the technology in the path. I think the technology is irrelevant and unnecessary and likely to change over time so should not be included.

Also, I would caution on the original proposal presuming that with a change in language that the short title would change. It is possible for short titles, that the text would not change when the language changes, so that it would not be distinct.

The path should include an explicit language indicator, preferably using the iso language code or the fuller BCP47 code.

It is not clear to me that the language should “always” be a directory as Jim proposed. We should have a mechanism for users to indicate their preferred language without it being explicit in the path.

As with document versioning with dates in the name, I think language can be in the path (or in the name) but it shouldn’t be a requirement for more general retrieval of the document.

In offering multiple languages, we need to indicate if the translation(s) reflect the latest version of the document as there may be delays in availability.

We also need a way to indicate which languages are available if the same translations are not available for all documents.

We need to state how fallbacking will be addressed.

Perhaps the handling for translations should be taken up as a separate thread so as not to impede this proposal for document handling.

Also, I would like to see a naming convention for distinguishing drafts from official publications.

We need a mechanism for offering and reviewing draft versions.

Perhaps in an alternative directory, for ease of discovery.

https://uasg.tech/en/drafts/UASG000-Inventory-of-Material

tex

From: UA-discuss [mailto:ua-discuss-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Asmus Freytag
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2019 2:20 PM
To: ua-discuss at icann.org
Subject: Re: [UA-discuss] Proposal: Handling Numbering of the UASG Documents

All,

the virtue of a document number is that it makes it easier to correlate translations and give each document a translated name. That might outweigh the downside of having it so prominent in the first place.

Jim's comment about consistent punctuation in document numbering is spot on.

I also like to second his suggestion for structuring the path.

A./

PS: Brochures, by their nature are different from the kind of reports and formal documents that need careful version tracking in the document. I disagree with Jim on his reservation.

On 1/24/2019 12:26 PM, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:

UASG Colleagues:
[keeping list address, dropping redundant individual addresses]

I'm glad to see this discussion moving towards a convention which addresses some of the issues raised. Some comments on Don's proposal interleaved below.

On 2019-01-24 08:23, Don Hollander wrote:

Thanks for comments.  Here’s my proposal

Document Naming and Storage Conventions

>From time to time the UASG will review and revise documents.   The UASG’s naming and storage policy for the documents will be:

*	Document Number (e.g. UASG000) – this will be maintained as a consistent reference name for a document

This proposal seems to adopt a number and reject Asmus' proposal for a short title phrase as the consistent reference name. I see the value of having a document number, but I think having a consistent short title phrase is also valuable.

*	Document Revision – (e.g. UASG000 – 2019-01-25) This will be based on the publication date and represented in the file name as yyyy-mm-dd.  It will also be included within the document.

I like using a date in yyyy-mm-dd format as a document revision code.

*	Document Link – (e.g. English https://uasg.tech/wp-content/uploads/UASG-000-Inventory-of-Material.pdf ) This will be based on the language of the document and is what’s published on the UASG.Tech website and will retrieve the latest official version of the document.  

I have reservations about embedding text like "wp-content/uploads/" in the official document link for our documents. It seems to be an artifact of our current website technology, which has no place in the official link. 

I would suggest a link authored solely for being a clear reference, e.g. 

https://uasg.tech/publications/UASG000-Inventory-of-Material/ 

If we are using document numbers, we should use them consistency. Note "UASG-000" in the proposed document link differs from "UASG000", the proposed document number. They should be the same. 

It might be good to insert a language code in our URLs. I hope in good time we will have our website and our important publications in several different languages. The document link might be, 

https://uasg.tech/en/publications/UASG000-Inventory-of-Material/ 

The same document can be published in different formats. Additionally, there is a need to refer to metadata about the document. Metadata includes: a list of links to different revisions of the document, a list of links to different language versions of the same document, an abstract, revision details, and so on. 

So, I propose we make a Document Link structure which can consistently refer to:

*	the PDF representation of a current revision of a document, e.g. https://uasg.tech/en/publications/UASG000-Inventory-of-Material.pdf, 
*	the HTML representation of a current revision of a document, e.g. https://uasg.tech/en/publications/UASG000-Inventory-of-Material.html,
*	the HTML representation of metadata revision of a document, e.g. https://uasg.tech/en/publications/UASG000-Inventory-of-Material, 
*	the (PDF or other format) representation of a specific revision of a document, e.g. https://uasg.tech/en/publications/UASG000-Inventory-of-Material/2019-01-24/UASG000-Inventory-of-Material.pdf, 
*	all of the above in a different language, e.g. https://uasg.tech/ja/ <https://uasg.tech/ja/文書/UASG000-文書一覧.pdf> 文書/UASG000-文書一覧.pdf [Example only; I am not a skilled speaker of Japanese, I probably made bad choices for the translation into Japanese. —Jim]

*	Archives: The UASG.tech website will include a repository of deprecated versions of documents that will be stored and displayed based on its file name (which will include the published date)

Agreed. I am proposing that one link to the deprecated version of documents be in the metadata page for that document, and that our document link convention specify the document link format for deprecated versions also.

*	Revision Details: For most documents we will maintain a table at the end showing a summary of revisions.  Where a document is used a brochure, this will not be done.

Agreed. I am also proposing that the metadata page for a document include a summary of revisions, even for brochures.

Other comments?
         —Jim DeLaHunt, Vancouver, Canada

From: UA-discuss  <mailto:ua-discuss-bounces at icann.org> <ua-discuss-bounces at icann.org> On Behalf Of Asmus Freytag (c)
Sent: Wednesday, 9 January 2019 2:09 PM
To: Mike Hemp  <mailto:mikehamp1971 at mail.com> <mikehamp1971 at mail.com>
Cc: ua-discuss at icann.org
Subject: Re: [UA-discuss] Proposal: Handling Numbering of the UASG Documents

On 1/8/2019 3:58 PM, Mike Hemp wrote:

For the god sake do not make it complicated for people. RFC/IETF is only for highly technical community not for website and general application developers. Keep complications behind and keep the things simple for general audience. UASG is for everyone and must be understood very easily. Asmus idea is great. Get rid of numbers please. People who make money from technical stuff make issues complicated and would come up with such ideas. 

W3C manages without numbers.

But that requires short names like "CSS" or "HTML" or something.

Having to always cite documents by a full title like "email address internationalization EAI a technical_overview" gets pretty old.  However, changing the title around a bit to something like EAI Overview: Email Address Internationalization (EAI), would allow "EAI Oveview" or "UASG EAI Overview" as shorthand, which arguably would be more self-explanatory than UASG 02.

A./

Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2019 at 3:01 AM
From: "Asmus Freytag"  <mailto:asmusf at ix.netcom.com> <asmusf at ix.netcom.com>
To: ua-discuss at icann.org
Subject: Re: [UA-discuss] Proposal: Handling Numbering of the UASG Documents

For comparison, the Unicode Standard has the model where a link generally would get you the latest version of a document, but each document contains a header with a link to the previous revision of the document.

That way, if you want to point people to the latest version of a document you can use an "evergreen" link, but if you need to be sure that the link goes to a specific version, there's that option as well.

http://uasg.tech/document/uasg012/email_address_internationalization_EAI_a_technical_overview/

or

http://uasg.tech/document/uasg012/email_address_internationalization_EAI_a_technical_overview/latest

would get the latest version and

http://uasg.tech/document/uasg012/email_address_internationalization_EAI_a_technical_overview/2018-05-12/

would be a specific version. Each version remaining unaltered once posted.

A./

On 1/8/2019 12:54 PM, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:

UA Colleagues:

I think the problem Michael points out is a real one, and worthy of attention.

On 2019-01-08 07:03, Michael Casadevall wrote: 

So currently, the UASG publishes various documents such as UASG 0005 and
0007 and occasionally updates these documents to reflect best current
practices. For example, the UA Quick Guide was on Version 9 before it
was removed for revision.

One thing I'm concerned on is that it's not clear that a document has
been updated, nor what has changed from version to version. Furthermore,
when dealing with old discussions, a document may have changed from a
message or posted....

Michael proposes one alternative, 

…to change the numbering and management of UASG documentation
to model it around the RFC/IETF where a document is static once
published (with errata linked), and is obsoleted/superseded by future
documents.…

Another alternative is to keep the document number unchanged, but to have a clearly-defined revision date for each version of a document, and to always cite a revision date along with the document number. So, we would say "UASG012 Email Address Internationalization (EAI): A Technical Overview (v 2018-05-12)" instead of "UASG012" or "Email Address Internationalization (EAI): A Technical Overview".

Whichever we do, I believe we should set editorial standards that each document has a) document title, b) UASG number, and c) revision date clearly on the front cover and in the file name of each document issued. Looking through some existing documents, we seem to be inconsistent about this. It makes documents harder to find and harder to cite.

I believe we should also define standard, persistent URLs for each document, something like:

http://uasg.tech/document/uasg012/email_address_internationalization_EAI_a_technical_overview/2018-05-12/

and ensure that visiting such a URL with a web browser returns either the document file itself, or a page describing the document and allowing one to download it.  I find it hard to put links to UASG documents into presentations, because it's difficult to figure out which URL to use, and how much to trust it to stay usable over time.

Best regard,
     —Jim DeLaHunt, Vancouver, Canada

-- 
    --Jim DeLaHunt, jdlh at jdlh.com     http://blog.jdlh.com/ (http://jdlh.com/)
      multilingual websites consultant

      355-1027 Davie St, Vancouver BC V6E 4L2, Canada
         Canada mobile +1-604-376-8953

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