Re: [urn] Comments on PWID -05 - now PWID -06

["Svensson, Lars" <[e-mail]>]

I (as a non-computer scientist) tend to agree with Eld that even though it's technically possible to have a domain name that starts with a ~, it ought to be fairly unlikely. To me it would be fine to use ~ to indicate separately registered archive identifiers and to say that everything that does not start with ~ should be interpreted as a domain name.

Best,

Lars

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eld Zierau [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Sent: Monday, April 29, 2019 2:10 PM
> To: Martin J. Dürst <[e-mail]>; Dale R. Worley
> <[e-mail]>
> Cc: [e-mail]; Svensson, Lars <[e-mail]>
> Subject: RE: [urn] Comments on PWID -05 - now PWID -06
> 
> Did any of you have comments to my previous mail?
> Is there any action you want me to take in order to get it accepted?
> Best Regards, Eld
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eld Zierau
> Sent: Friday, March 1, 2019 1:29 PM
> To: 'Martin J. Dürst' <[e-mail]>; 'Dale R. Worley'
> <[e-mail]>
> Cc: '[e-mail]' <[e-mail]>; '[e-mail]' <[e-mail]>
> Subject: [urn] Comments on PWID -05 - now PWID -06
> 
> I have now uploade a new version: draft-pwid-urn-specification-06
>  - and thanks again for comments and suggestions
> 
> Regarding the suggestion from Martin (included below), I can as a computer
> scientist certainly see the reasoning as quite obvious. However, my experience with
> presentation of the PWID is that syntax based on computational reasoning is
> something that users find illogically, e.g. that the archived-item-id (usually URI) is
> included in the end of the PWID. I believe that adding a "~" for identifiers that are
> registered separately is acceptable for such users, but I am also convinced that a
> "+" before a domain will be something that confuses (non-computer science) users
> a lot.
> Also, as said in my previous mail, it is highly unlikely that there will ever be a case
> where "~" is the first character in a domain for a web archive. Therefore, it seems
> that it should not be necessary.
> A minor extra thing is that all existing PWIDs (and tools providing and resolving
> PWIDs) would not comply, which they would otherwise (none of these use
> registered identifiers yet only domains and URIs).
> In other words: I will be very sorry to add a "+" to domains, and I believe it is not
> necessary.
> 
> The uploaded version  does not include a "+" to domains, - If required, I will of
> course add it (although sorry to do so)
> 
> Please let me know if it acceptable, and I will act accordingly.
> 
> Best regards, Eld
> 
> 
> On 2019/03/01 11:31, Dale R. Worley wrote:
> > Martin J. Duerst <[e-mail]> writes:
> >>> [...]  E.g., one could require that any archive-id that is not
> >>> intended to be interpreted as a DNS name to start with one of "-",
> >>> ".", "_", "~".
> >>
> >> I haven't looked into the details, but in general, I think this is a
> >> bad idea. It is much better to have an explicit distinction than to
> >> rely on some syntax restrictions. Such syntax restrictions may or may
> >> not actually hold in practice. It's very easy to create a DNS name
> >> starting with '-' or '_', for example, even though officially, that's not allowed.
> >
> > I may agree with you ... But what do you mean by "an explicit
> > distinction"?  E.g., I would tend to consider "archive-ids starting
> > with '~' are registered archive names, and archive-ids that do not are
> > considered DNS names" to be an "explicit" distinction, but you mean
> > something else.
> 
> Well, the explicit distinction would be "if it starts with '~', what follows is a
> registered archive name, and if it starts with '+', what follows is a DNS name" or
> some such. This would not exclude any leading characters in either archive names
> or DNS names.
> 
> Regards,   Martin.
> 
> > Or maybe the right question is, What do you propose as an alternative?