Re: meaning of DNT 1 and DNT 0 when sent by user agents [ISSUE-78]

* Jonathan Mayer wrote:
>On Jan 16, 2012, at 4:46 PM, Roy T. Fielding wrote:
>> Defining the meaning of a header field is part of the protocol,
>> not the policy.
>
>I fear there may be a mismatch in terminology, so let me try to be
>clearer.  By "protocol," I mean the format for message-passing between a
>user agent and a server.  By "policy," I mean the limits a particular
>message imposes on a website's business conduct.

Let's say you can show your thumb leftwards, rightwards, or do something
else. Is that a voting protocol? No, because whatever you do you would
still be within the limits of the protocol, and there is no difference
between doing one thing or another as far as the protocol is concerned.

Let's say you can show your thumb up, down, or do something else. Is
that a voting protocol? Yes, to some degree anyway, since it is normal
to assume that people speak to some degree in metaphor, and if you are
familiar with ancient Rome you are likely to associate up with life and
down with death (and "life" as affirmative or positive and so on).

It is unclear to me whether this is meant to be a transient problem or a
permanent one (whether this is about how Working Drafts should be orga-
nized, or about how the Recommendations should be organized), but by the
time the Tracking Preference Expression specification mentions tracking
you are firmly in the up/down setting, so there is no "clear boundary"
between the specifications.

Realistically the Tracking Preference Expression specification will have
to indicate that DNT:0 means less tracking than DNT:1 in some form (or
was it the other way around? If it just defines syntax you would not
know from reading only the specification), so there will not be a clear
boundary between the specifications either. So it seems to me that you
will have to discuss where the boundaries are supposed to be and how to
link across them.

(In passing I note that I have used 'dnt-relevant tracking' in the past
to refer to whatever "tracking" the WG might end up addressing when it
has determined what it wants to address; splitting syntax and semantics
as is being proposed seems like a bad idea to me, but a neutral "this is
defined elsewhere"-indicating term does seem a viable option to me.)
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
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Received on Tuesday, 17 January 2012 02:44:02 UTC