RE: empty metadata elements

At 07:06 AM 2003-02-10, Jon Hanna wrote:

>Agreed. However in some cases there may be the possibility of there being
>several different values for the same property, in which case the strength
>of the statement is weakened (since it doesn't meant that the page
>definitely has no foo).

Taken the way Charles is interpreting it, it would definitely mean
that none of the possible values apply.

There is an interesting case in point that is under discussion in
XML having to do with the interpretation of a null (i.e. zero length
string) indicated value for xml:lang and the interaction of this with
the heredity of the language property.

But this is not for us to say.  If the data element uses any sort
of registry or standard vocabulary for its values, the interpretation
of a null is one of the things where the usage guidance that goes
_with the vocaubulary_ is what you want to know.  The 'meta' element
does not rule, here, it is the source of the definition of the
field identified by the 'meta.name' value.

Compare with the usage board for Dublin Core.

Al


> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On
> > Behalf Of Charles McCathieNevile
> > Sent: 10 February 2003 11:57
> > To: Scarlett Julian (ED)
> > Cc: '[email protected]'
> > Subject: Re: empty metadata elements
> >
> >
> >
> > It  would imply to me that the page has or is a foo, with a null value.
> > Sort of like <img src="bar" alt="" /> implies that the image at foo has
> > a text equivalent of nothing (i.e. it doesn't mean anything).
> >
> > This means you are making a statement, and should expect it to be
> > interpreted as as such.
> >
> > cheers
> >
> > chaals
> >
> > On Monday, Feb 10, 2003, at 22:21 Australia/Melbourne, Scarlett Julian
> > (ED) wrote:
> > >
> > > Consider a hypothetical situation where a metatag with no content is
> > > included in the page mark-up
> > >  e.g <meta name="foo" content="" />
> > >
> > > What implications will this have?
> > --
> > Charles McCathieNevile           [email protected]
> > Fundación SIDAR                       http://www.sidar.org
> >
> >