Re: [Glossary] Definition of a portable document (and other things...)

I may be crazy and asking alot (I'm sick, and my head is fuzzy) but is it
possible to get a summary of this?  Is someone going to capture these
seemingly awesome comments and put them on Ivan's great document?

-Nick

On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 4:02 PM, Leonard Rosenthol <lrosenth@adobe.com>
wrote:

> > The definition of a portable document must not to be so general that  it
> includes every collection of resources
> > that could theoretically exist in the format we define as "portable.”
> >
> I quite disagree with you here, but as mentioned in the previous thread, I
> am concerned about the format itself.  And the format MUST allow for ANY
> collection of resources to be bound together in a “portable fashion” or
> it’s not a “Portable Document Format” (in the generic sense, of course).
>
> >I would argue that something does not become a portable document because
> a spider crawled the site and generated a sitemap file.
> >
> In general, I agree.  UNLESS the purpose of the spider WAS to create a
> document from your site.  And in that way, I agree with you when you wrote
> “I assert that to make something a document, a human choice needs to have
> been made to create it”.  So we agree that as long as there is explicit
> intent to gather that collection, then it’s a document.
>
> Leonard
>
> From: Deborah Kaplan
> Date: Friday, September 4, 2015 at 1:28 PM
> To: Leonard Rosenthol
> Cc: Ivan Herman, W3C Digital Publishing IG, Ralph Swick, Bill Kasdorf,
> Bill McCoy
> Subject: Re: [Glossary] Definition of a portable document (and other
> things...)
>
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 11:25 AM, Leonard Rosenthol <lrosenth@adobe.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Your personal website COULD be a document and in fact you might want to
>> “package it up” and archive it away as such.
>>
>
> Sure, it could be. But it isn't. The definition of a portable document
> must not to be so general that  it includes every collection of resources
> that could theoretically exist in the format we define as "portable."
>
> That's why I used the term "editorial constructed." Ivan took exception to
> the word "editor," although in this case I am distinguishing between the
> concept of "editor" and the concept of "editorial." In fact, you make the
> distinction for me yourself, right here, Leonard:
>
> “unrelated” is only a current state in the mind of a single person.  The
>> simple act of making a collection of them has now made them related.  And
>> that act of collecting them together (by human or machine) is the
>> “editorial construct”.
>>
>
> The simple act of making a collection of them has made them " editorially
> constructed." However, when you say that active collecting them together --
> by human or machine -- is the editorial construct. I would argue that
> something does not become a portable document because a spider crawled the
> site and generated a sitemap file. That can be *one* method by which
> portable documents are created (e.g., I can make the decision that I would
> like to create a document which is my entire site, so I build a spider to
> generate a collection). However, the mere act of having a machine generated
> collection doesn't make something a document.
>
> For what it's worth, I think this is an inherent danger in creating
> explicit definitions, although of course I see the value in doing so as
> well.
>
> The others here who have a library, archives, or information science
> background might recognize what I'm saying here, but I assert that to make
> something a document, a human choice needs to have been made to create it
> (even if the human choice was "I am going to run a web crawler and
> everything that it grabs will be a document"). Refencing Briet and those
> who followed: "There is intentionality: It is intended that the object be
> treated as evidence" and "the quality of having been placed in an
> organized, meaningful relationship with other evidence--that gives an
> object its documentary status." cf
> http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/digdoc.html
>
> To quote Buckland's conclusion in the link above: "Attempts to define
> digital documents are likely to remain elusive, if more than an ad hoc,
> pragmatic definition is wanted.."
>
> I know we are not going to pin down something which has eluded entire
> fields of information science. However, if we must define "document", it's
> vital to make it clear that a document is not a random collection of
> electronic files that happen to be something accessed together. They are
> constructed with intention, or compiled with intention.
>
> For what it's worth, compiled with intention can be a readerly choice, as
> well. Think about Pintrest as a (not at all portable) example. A collection
> of images of sofa cushions, curtains, and paint swatches from a variety of
> different company's websites and personal blogs does not itself construe a
> document. However, if a Pintrest user then puts together a board compiling
> all of those images, that  is a constructed document. The only implied
> consumer of that document might also be the compiler of it, but that
> doesn't make it any less a document. Nonetheless,  intellectual choices
> were a necessary part of that compilation.
>
> Deborah
>



-- 
- Nick Ruffilo
@NickRuffilo
http://Aerbook.com
http://ZenOfTechnology.com <http://zenoftechnology.com/>