It's about Reading -- not Writing...

["Bob Wyman" <bob@xxxxxxxx>]

	If a message is written but never read, was anything communicated?
If a tree falls in a forest...
	Atom and syndication are about communication - the authors of
entries have rhetorical intent. Thus, the standard and formal rules of
rhetoric apply. Speakers, or writers, are responsible for understanding the
warrants (i.e. prior knowledge, etc) of their audience -- and they are
responsible for speaking or writing in a language that their audience can
understand. Speakers are *constrained* by their audiences to limit their
speech to that which can be understood. If the speaker doesn't accept the
constraints, then communication doesn't occur. If there is a failure to
communicate, it is the responsibility of the speaker -- not the audience.
	RDF may contribute, as Dan Brickley says, "a strategy for
decentralizing vocabulary design." However, the goal of the Atom effort is
to contribute a "strategy and means for communicating information." The
problems of designing vocabulary and of employing vocabulary (communicating)
are distinct.
	The RDF camp seems enthralled by the glory of being able to easily
*express* a vast range of ideas with what is, at its core, a very simple set
of rules. However, we've learned over and over that RDF is more often
written then read. Non-RDF XML is the language of readers -- not RDF. The
reason is simple... RDF gives so much freedom to the writer that that reader
has little hope of understanding what is written. What one can understand
about something written in RDF is often no more meaningful then the examples
that Danny Ayers provides elsewhere. (e.g. Some unknown thing is said to
have a property which has unknown, but named, properties and that something
is said to have some undefined relationship to some other unknown thing...
How is this useful?)
	If one is communicating in a small group it is reasonable to utilize
private vocabularies -- to produce "jargon" as it were. Small groups do this
constantly -- with our without RDF. But, if you wish to communicate to a
large group then, in order to *communicate*, you must express yourself with
a broadly understood and more rigorous language. The opportunity for variety
and creativity in message construction is reduced as the size the audience
increases.
	The key challenge of Atom is, I believe, to enable speaking to large
audiences. Thus, Atom should focus first on the problem of providing a well
and rigorously defined vocabulary that can be shared efficiently by a large
audience. Atom should be optimized for communications. I believe that this
means that Atom should rely on rigorously defined XML -- complete with
schemas, etc. 
	RDF is certainly a useful tool for "vocabulary design" and can be
very effective in small, closely-coupled groups -- thus, RDF can be useful
to those who are experimenting with and designing early vocabularies that
might later be formalized for broad use. In some small groups, the focus of
communications is so limited that such formalization may not ever be
justified or even necessary. Given this, I think Atom should provide a means
to encapsulate RDF within its XML -- to enable experimentation and
communication within fringe groups. 
	However, once a vocabulary has been "designed" as a result of small
group RDF use, it simply doesn't make sense to continue using RDF. Once the
vocabulary, or its core, has become fixed and well understood, the
flexibility of RDF becomes both a burden (because of bulk, parsing
difficulties, etc.) as well as unnecessary to communicate those things that
have been formalized. Thus, *formal* extensions to Atom, intended to be used
by the broad market, should be defined rigorously in as non-RDF XML.
	Insisting on XML as the format for broad audience communication does
nothing to limit the RDF people. As shown by GRDDL[1], you can convert
easily between XML and RDF. The RDF-folk can view the whole world as RDF if
they want... On the other hand, insisting on well and rigorously defined XML
for Atom will make it much more likely that the users of Atom will be able
to accomplish their communications goals -- because they will have agreed
upon common vocabularies with some sense that their audience, *the readers*
of Atom files, will understand.
	The Atom extensibility mechanisms should address at least two
concerns:
	1. Adding additional "standard" elements that are expected to be
understood by *all* or a large number of Atom readers.
	2. Providing the flexibility needed by vocabulary designers, small
groups, and others who require or desire non-standard vocabularies.
	The mechanisms which are most appropriate to handle the first
concern are probably not the same as those which are most appropriate for
the second.
	Please remember: It's about reading -- not writing...

		bob wyman