ISSUE-68: Informative section “RDF Concepts” in rdf-concepts spec is redundant

rdf-concepts-redundancy

Informative section “RDF Concepts” in rdf-concepts spec is redundant

State:

CLOSED

Product:

Raised by:

Richard Cyganiak

Opened on:

2011-07-20

Description:

RDF Concepts contains an informative section “RDF Concepts”:
http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/rdf/raw-file/default/rdf-concepts/index.html#section-Concepts

This section is quite redundant with later normative sections:
http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/rdf/raw-file/default/rdf-concepts/index.html#datatypes-1
http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/rdf/raw-file/default/rdf-concepts/index.html#section-Graph-syntax

Both sections describe the RDF data model in detail. The informative section is shorter (~3 pages vs. ~7 normative pages), and it's written in somewhat more accessible (and less precise) language. So it can be seen as a gentler introduction to the RDF data model.

On the other hand, this organization has quite a few downsides:

- spec is three pages longer
- many things are said twice in a very similar way
- readers are confused when looking things up
- there are two subsections named “Datatypes”
- there is a subsection “Literals” and another one “RDF Literals”
- there is a subsection “Graph Data Model” and another one “RDF Graphs”

In summary, I don't think that the informative section pulls its weight, and I think removing it would yield a more usable spec.

There are a few specific paragraphs and items in the informative section that might be worth keeping and folding into the normative sections as informative examples/notes.

Related Actions Items:

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Related emails:

1. Re: A new introduction section for RDF Concepts (from phayes@ihmc.us on 2011-11-18)
2. Re: A new introduction section for RDF Concepts (from richard@cyganiak.de on 2011-11-12)
3. Re: A new introduction section for RDF Concepts (from ivan@w3.org on 2011-11-12)
4. A new introduction section for RDF Concepts (from richard@cyganiak.de on 2011-11-11)
5. Re: Status update on LC comments and post-LC changes to R2RML (from richard@cyganiak.de on 2011-11-07)
6. Status update on LC comments and post-LC changes to R2RML (from richard@cyganiak.de on 2011-11-07)
7. RDF-ISSUE-68 (rdf-concepts-redundancy): Informative section “RDF Concepts” in rdf-concepts spec is redundant (from sysbot+tracker@w3.org on 2011-07-20)

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