SIGIA-L Mail Archives: Re: SIGIA-L: Article: Anti-Thesaurus
Re: SIGIA-L: Article: Anti-Thesaurus
From: Ziya Oz (ZiyaOz_at_earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Nov 30 2001 - 10:02:45 EST
Chris Chandler wrote:
> I suppose a "my bad" is out of the question.
What's wrong with relying on a member's summary?
>> Problem four: At least in the U.S., we try not to rely on the government
>> setting information 'standards.'
> I have no idea what what you mean. The standard I pointed
> to, like the one it replaced, will be relied on by many many
> people and businesses. There is no trying involved.
> It's true that government standards suffer from many of the
> same problems as other types of standards -- but, the
> government, any government has the power to set "strict"
> standards by fiat, without being "taliban." Just because
> they're not perfect and you don't like them doesn't make
> them any less real or important.
Are you unable to detect the difference between a private company trying to
set a standard which everybody else can ignore and the government setting a
standard which everybody must follow because the government has all the
powers to force everyone to follow?
This has nothing to do with 'real or important'. Of course they are. It has
to do with society's approach. In the U.S., especially in matters of
technology and information, we do not rely on government to set standards,
as the first choice.
We do not let the government operate our national TV, airlines, ISPs, design
our chips, conduct our polls, edit our national newspaper, etc., as is the
norm in many countries. Not as a matter of capability but of preference. I'm
not aware of any significant and widely supported call for the government to
step in define XML DTDs for various industries, or web services discovery
methods, or industry-specific metadata standards. Mostly because as a
society we have recognized that to do so leads to a path that ends up not
very far from the proverbial Taliban down the road.
Why is it so hard for you to imagine, for instance, the government using the
'nonwords' metadata method to hide pertinent information in its documents
from the general public?
Best,
Ziya
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