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Number of posts in this thread: 16 (In chronological order)

From: Paul Collins
Date: Tue, Aug 07 2007 3:50AM
Subject: Metadata
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Hi all,

I haven't had to do the Metadata side of things for a while and it's
time to bring myself up to scratch...

I wanted to first ask if someone could point me in the direction of a
resource that explains how to create good accessible Metadata. I am
guessing accessibility and SEO would go hand in hand with the correct
metadata, but a resource that speaks about both would be great.

Which leads me to my next question; does anybody on here use Dublin
Core metadata? I did last time I had to add metadata, but looking
around at other reputable sites, it doesn't seem like anyone else
does. Is Dublin Core not worth adding? Does Dublin core improve SEO,
or do you need to add seperate metadata for this?

Thanks for any thoughts offered.
Paul Collins

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Tue, Aug 07 2007 5:10AM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

On Tue, 7 Aug 2007, Paul Collins wrote:

> I haven't had to do the Metadata side of things for a while and it's
> time to bring myself up to scratch...

Metadata for web pages is mostly irrelevant, both as regards to
accessibility and in other ways. Some technical metadata like the
document's character encoding is very essential of course, but usually not
considered as metadata in discussions like this.

> I wanted to first ask if someone could point me in the direction of a
> resource that explains how to create good accessible Metadata. I am
> guessing accessibility and SEO would go hand in hand with the correct
> metadata, but a resource that speaks about both would be great.

"Search Engine Optimization" (which is probably what you mean by "SEO") is
primarily an expression for attempts at making money with technobabble.
There is of course a lot we can do to help people to find our pages using
search engines when they answer their questions, and there are good
treatises on this, but they usually use different phrases (like "being
search-engine friendly"). And they have little to do with metadata, except
the <title> element (which is metadata, though not often regarded as
that).

The connection with search engine friendlyness and accessibility is mostly
practical. To be search engine friendly, you need to be processable by
software that basically analyzes your textual content only, in the order
of its appearance in HTML source, and pays attention to some structural
markup at most (generally ignoring all markup related to fonts, colors,
etc.) and linearizes your tables. This tends to produce better
accessibility, too.

> Which leads me to my next question; does anybody on here use Dublin
> Core metadata? I did last time I had to add metadata, but looking
> around at other reputable sites, it doesn't seem like anyone else
> does. Is Dublin Core not worth adding? Does Dublin core improve SEO,
> or do you need to add seperate metadata for this?

Dublin Core is used to some extent by some public sites, often with
incorrect metadata (I've seen e.g. European Union webpages with Dublin
Core metadata that claims that the document language is English, quite
independently of the language actually used. I guess it's not difficult to
figure out how such madness emerges.) But not much. There is no evidence
of any general-purpose search engine, or any other software commonly used
in the web context, actually paying the least attention to Dublin Core
metadata. In a word, writing Dublin Core metadata for web pages is still
an exercise in futility.

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

From: Paul Collins
Date: Tue, Aug 07 2007 5:30AM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

Thanks for your reply Jukka, that was very interesting to hear your
thoughts. So, would not even the Keywords and description metatags
have any use anymore?

The main reason I had got into this is the site I am on currently
needs to meet Priority 2 of WCAG 1; hence the guideline:

13.2 Provide metadata to add semantic information to pages and sites.

Can we observe this as obsolete? It is quite general and could be
interpreted many different ways.

> Dublin Core is used to some extent by some public sites, often with
> incorrect metadata (I've seen e.g. European Union webpages with Dublin
> Core metadata that claims that the document language is English, quite
> independently of the language actually used. I guess it's not difficult to
> figure out how such madness emerges.)

Yes, I can definitely see how that happens, the Dublin Core stuff I
did for a site a while back has not changed since I left and been
copied across to new pages and sections :)

I found it interesting that it hasn't really taken off, although I can
see why in most cases.

On 07/08/07, Jukka K. Korpela < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Aug 2007, Paul Collins wrote:
>
> > I haven't had to do the Metadata side of things for a while and it's
> > time to bring myself up to scratch...
>
> Metadata for web pages is mostly irrelevant, both as regards to
> accessibility and in other ways. Some technical metadata like the
> document's character encoding is very essential of course, but usually not
> considered as metadata in discussions like this.
>
> > I wanted to first ask if someone could point me in the direction of a
> > resource that explains how to create good accessible Metadata. I am
> > guessing accessibility and SEO would go hand in hand with the correct
> > metadata, but a resource that speaks about both would be great.
>
> "Search Engine Optimization" (which is probably what you mean by "SEO") is
> primarily an expression for attempts at making money with technobabble.
> There is of course a lot we can do to help people to find our pages using
> search engines when they answer their questions, and there are good
> treatises on this, but they usually use different phrases (like "being
> search-engine friendly"). And they have little to do with metadata, except
> the <title> element (which is metadata, though not often regarded as
> that).
>
> The connection with search engine friendlyness and accessibility is mostly
> practical. To be search engine friendly, you need to be processable by
> software that basically analyzes your textual content only, in the order
> of its appearance in HTML source, and pays attention to some structural
> markup at most (generally ignoring all markup related to fonts, colors,
> etc.) and linearizes your tables. This tends to produce better
> accessibility, too.
>
> > Which leads me to my next question; does anybody on here use Dublin
> > Core metadata? I did last time I had to add metadata, but looking
> > around at other reputable sites, it doesn't seem like anyone else
> > does. Is Dublin Core not worth adding? Does Dublin core improve SEO,
> > or do you need to add seperate metadata for this?
>
> Dublin Core is used to some extent by some public sites, often with
> incorrect metadata (I've seen e.g. European Union webpages with Dublin
> Core metadata that claims that the document language is English, quite
> independently of the language actually used. I guess it's not difficult to
> figure out how such madness emerges.) But not much. There is no evidence
> of any general-purpose search engine, or any other software commonly used
> in the web context, actually paying the least attention to Dublin Core
> metadata. In a word, writing Dublin Core metadata for web pages is still
> an exercise in futility.
>
> --
> Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
>
>

From: Christophe Strobbe
Date: Tue, Aug 07 2007 6:30AM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

At 11:42 7/08/2007, you wrote:
>(...)
>Which leads me to my next question; does anybody on here use Dublin
>Core metadata? I did last time I had to add metadata, but looking
>around at other reputable sites, it doesn't seem like anyone else
>does. Is Dublin Core not worth adding? Does Dublin core improve SEO,
>or do you need to add seperate metadata for this?

Dublin Core metadata have been used by a few projects that I have
been involved in, e.g. IDCNet (<http://www.idcnet.info/>;) and
BenToWeb (<http://www.bentoweb.org/>;), but I am not aware of any use
of Dublin Core in the context of SEO or in the context of
accessibility (except for the work of the DCMI Accessibility
Community <http://dublincore.org/groups/access/>;).
The tools page at <http://dublincore.org/tools/>; lists mostly tools
for producing metadata and few tools for extracting metadata. There
is no mention of major search engines.
(There's also a Dublin Core Viewer extension for Firefox by Patrick Lauke:
<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/528>.)

Best regards,

Christophe


--
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
Research Group on Document Architectures
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442
B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/


Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm

From: Christophe Strobbe
Date: Tue, Aug 07 2007 7:40AM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi,

At 11:42 7/08/2007, you wrote:
>(...)
>Which leads me to my next question; does anybody on here use Dublin
>Core metadata? I did last time I had to add metadata, but looking
>around at other reputable sites, it doesn't seem like anyone else
>does. Is Dublin Core not worth adding? Does Dublin core improve SEO,
>or do you need to add seperate metadata for this?

In my previous message, I forgot to mention that "meta tags", which
is where you put Dublin Core metadata, have been declared dead a few
times (i.e. for the purpose of search engine marketing), e.g.:
* "Death Of A Meta Tag", by Danny Sullivan, 1 October 2002:
<http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2165061>;;
* "Meta-Tags Are Dead - The End of An Era of Deception", by Tony D.
Baker, 11 September 2006:
<http://www.xeal.com/blog/index.php/2006/09/11/meta_tags_are_dead>;.

(I also didn't want to imply that the sites I mentioned were the only
ones I knew that use Dublin Core; there are others, including e.g.
Alan Wood's Unicode Resources:
<http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/index.html>;, which even has a Dublin
Core logo. You can find more examples by searching for "Dublin Core
used here".)

Best regards,

Christophe


--
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
Research Group on Document Architectures
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442
B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/


Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm

From: Charge D Wise
Date: Tue, Aug 07 2007 10:00AM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

Some search engines will still use the description text when your site is
returned in their results but keywords are pretty much dead. As for Dublin
Core I have used them a few times but not often or recently for that matter.
I no longer maintain that site and the person who took over after I fired
that client was so clueless the site wasn't usable for anyone for a long
time.

Cheryl D Wise
MS MVP FrontPage
http://by-expression.com
http://starttoweb.com
Foundations of Microsoft Expression Web: The Basics and Beyond

From: Paul Collins
Date: Tue, Aug 07 2007 11:40AM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

Thanks for your replies everyone. I have learned quite a bit today...
Those links were very insightful Christophe, I never thought that
there was that small amount of support for meta tags.

So I guess, the WAI guideline, being as ambiguous as it is could
really refer to setting the language and character set anyway?

13.2 Provide metadata to add semantic information to pages and sites.

Thanks for all your help today!


On 07/08/07, Charge D Wise < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Some search engines will still use the description text when your site is
> returned in their results but keywords are pretty much dead. As for Dublin
> Core I have used them a few times but not often or recently for that matter.
> I no longer maintain that site and the person who took over after I fired
> that client was so clueless the site wasn't usable for anyone for a long
> time.
>
> Cheryl D Wise
> MS MVP FrontPage
> http://by-expression.com
> http://starttoweb.com
> Foundations of Microsoft Expression Web: The Basics and Beyond
>
>
>
>

From: John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program
Date: Tue, Aug 07 2007 12:00PM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

Paul Collins wrote:
> I wanted to first ask if someone could point me in the direction of a
> resource that explains how to create good accessible Metadata. I am
> guessing accessibility and SEO would go hand in hand with the correct
> metadata, but a resource that speaks about both would be great.

Hi Paul,

While I certainly respect Jukka's point of view, I would like to offer some
other thoughts for "balance". First, Jukka is correct that 'accessibility'
and 'metadata' really do not have a lot in common most of the time. This
however is not a reason to not continue to look at appropriate metadata for
your content, but your enquiry should be in context.

While the mainstream search engines today give virtually no weight to the
'standard' metadata "tags" (due to keyword stuffing, etc.), there still
remains times when metadata is important. One that springs to mind almost
instantly is video archives, where for the most part the *only* information
about a given video is the metadata stored in association with that video.
In the context of large information repositories (libraries for example),
metadata still plays an important role for the librarians, as it allows for
cross indexing and improved search-ability in an academic context: this is
something I see first-hand here at Stanford, where the libraries group uses
DC.metadata extensively. Sadly however, there are no commercial (i.e.
general public) search tools today that take advantage of DC.metadata, so
it's overall usefulness is somewhat limited. When I last asked some of my
internal contacts/friends at Yahoo! about DC.metadata the response I got was
essentially a rolling of the eyes - in other words, don't expect to see
support implemented any time soon. However, all of the major search engines
also sell search appliances (programs) for large institutions, and these
appliances can be fine tuned to meet client needs, so having a DC.metadata
search tool is not unreasonable.

>
> Which leads me to my next question; does anybody on here use Dublin
> Core metadata? I did last time I had to add metadata, but looking
> around at other reputable sites, it doesn't seem like anyone else
> does. Is Dublin Core not worth adding? Does Dublin core improve SEO,
> or do you need to add separate metadata for this?

Well, again, Search Engine Optimization today relies more on good structured
content, rather than specific metadata information. If this is the *only*
reason why you are considering adding extensive metadata, then you are
probably going to be disappointed with the results. This is not to say it's
pointless, but it ain't the magic bullet either. That said, I believe good
appropriate metadata makes some essential web content even "better", and
using a metadata standard such as Dublin Core is an extension of standards
based web development (IMHO).

Andy Powell of the University of Bath (UK) developed a nifty Perl based
DC.metadata generation tool [http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cgi-bin/dcdot.pl], and I
have posted a very simple form based tool at
[http://soap.stanford.edu/plugins/dublincore/]. I believe it has already
been noted that Patrick Lauke has created a Firefox plug-in for viewing
DC.metadata [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/528], and I know
that Matthew "Smiffy" Smith has done some work in the DC.metadata space
including a spidering search appliance [http://dcms.smiffysplace.com] and
some work on developing a Drupal module [http://dcd.smiffysplace.com] that
would allow for indexing and on-the-fly editing of DC.metadata values.
Whilst I've not spoken with him in a while, the last I heard he was still
poking away at this, but it seems that work has slowed somewhat since the
spring.

So... Metadata can be important. Does it have a direct affect on
accessibility? Not really (although the argument could be made that if you
can't find it, it isn't accessible). If you are interested in a "complete"
standards based authored document, then considering DC.metadata is not a bad
idea, but understand why you are using it, and what your payoff will be.

Hope this helps.

JF
---
John Foliot
Academic Technology Consultant
Stanford Online Accessibility Program
http://soap.stanford.edu
Stanford University
560 Escondido Mall
Meyer Library 181
Stanford, CA 94305-3093
Tel: 650-862-4603

From: S Perkins
Date: Tue, Aug 07 2007 1:10PM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

I have been trying to get a programmer interested in developing a DC search
engine for the past few years. It is possible to set up HARVEST and BROKER
to search only the <head></head> space of pages and return those with DC in
them. So far no one is interested. I think the difficulty of finding a
page actually using DC schema is a real barrier to its use. Why use it if
you can't find it with out having to sort through every page that has DC in
the body of the page but not in the head?

Thanks for the reference to Smitty.

Regards,

Steven C. Perkins



On 8/7/07, John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Paul Collins wrote:
> > I wanted to first ask if someone could point me in the direction of a
> > resource that explains how to create good accessible Metadata. I am
> > guessing accessibility and SEO would go hand in hand with the correct
> > metadata, but a resource that speaks about both would be great.
>
> Hi Paul,
>
> While I certainly respect Jukka's point of view, I would like to offer
> some
> other thoughts for "balance". First, Jukka is correct that
> 'accessibility'
> and 'metadata' really do not have a lot in common most of the time. This
> however is not a reason to not continue to look at appropriate metadata
> for
> your content, but your enquiry should be in context.
>
> While the mainstream search engines today give virtually no weight to the
> 'standard' metadata "tags" (due to keyword stuffing, etc.), there still
> remains times when metadata is important. One that springs to mind almost
> instantly is video archives, where for the most part the *only*
> information
> about a given video is the metadata stored in association with that video.
> In the context of large information repositories (libraries for example),
> metadata still plays an important role for the librarians, as it allows
> for
> cross indexing and improved search-ability in an academic context: this is
> something I see first-hand here at Stanford, where the libraries group
> uses
> DC.metadata extensively. Sadly however, there are no commercial (i.e.
> general public) search tools today that take advantage of DC.metadata, so
> it's overall usefulness is somewhat limited. When I last asked some of my
> internal contacts/friends at Yahoo! about DC.metadata the response I got
> was
> essentially a rolling of the eyes - in other words, don't expect to see
> support implemented any time soon. However, all of the major search
> engines
> also sell search appliances (programs) for large institutions, and these
> appliances can be fine tuned to meet client needs, so having a DC.metadata
> search tool is not unreasonable.
>
> >
> > Which leads me to my next question; does anybody on here use Dublin
> > Core metadata? I did last time I had to add metadata, but looking
> > around at other reputable sites, it doesn't seem like anyone else
> > does. Is Dublin Core not worth adding? Does Dublin core improve SEO,
> > or do you need to add separate metadata for this?
>
> Well, again, Search Engine Optimization today relies more on good
> structured
> content, rather than specific metadata information. If this is the *only*
> reason why you are considering adding extensive metadata, then you are
> probably going to be disappointed with the results. This is not to say
> it's
> pointless, but it ain't the magic bullet either. That said, I believe
> good
> appropriate metadata makes some essential web content even "better", and
> using a metadata standard such as Dublin Core is an extension of standards
> based web development (IMHO).
>
> Andy Powell of the University of Bath (UK) developed a nifty Perl based
> DC.metadata generation tool [http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cgi-bin/dcdot.pl], and
> I
> have posted a very simple form based tool at
> [http://soap.stanford.edu/plugins/dublincore/]. I believe it has already
> been noted that Patrick Lauke has created a Firefox plug-in for viewing
> DC.metadata [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/528], and I
> know
> that Matthew "Smiffy" Smith has done some work in the DC.metadata space
> including a spidering search appliance [http://dcms.smiffysplace.com] and
> some work on developing a Drupal module [http://dcd.smiffysplace.com] that
> would allow for indexing and on-the-fly editing of DC.metadata values.
> Whilst I've not spoken with him in a while, the last I heard he was still
> poking away at this, but it seems that work has slowed somewhat since the
> spring.
>
> So... Metadata can be important. Does it have a direct affect on
> accessibility? Not really (although the argument could be made that if you
> can't find it, it isn't accessible). If you are interested in a
> "complete"
> standards based authored document, then considering DC.metadata is not a
> bad
> idea, but understand why you are using it, and what your payoff will be.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> JF
> ---
> John Foliot
> Academic Technology Consultant
> Stanford Online Accessibility Program
> http://soap.stanford.edu
> Stanford University
> 560 Escondido Mall
> Meyer Library 181
> Stanford, CA 94305-3093
> Tel: 650-862-4603
>
>
>
>
>

From: Andy Mabbett
Date: Tue, Aug 07 2007 2:50PM
Subject: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

In message < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >,
Christophe Strobbe < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > writes

>There's also a Dublin Core Viewer extension for Firefox by Patrick
>Lauke: <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/528>.

That reminds me - Patrick kindly agreed to my request that he extend
this to also discover eGMS metadata:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EGMS>;

I must remind him!

--
Andy Mabbett
* Say "NO!" to compulsory UK ID Cards: <http://www.no2id.net/>;
* Free Our Data: <http://www.freeourdata.org.uk>;
* Are you using Microformats, yet: <http://microformats.org/>; ?

From: Paul Collins
Date: Wed, Aug 08 2007 3:00AM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

Thanks for your replies again everyone, in particular, thanks for
taking the time to explain DC to me a bit further John. The site I
have built is for a School, so there could be some good reasons for
adding DC Metadata. However, they are a small school, with only a
limited amount of courses and I would struggle to educate them on why
they need it and how to update/search with DC.

The main reason I wanted to enquire about metadata was for
accessibility. It's good to have a more clear understanding of how
Dublin Core relates to that, however I probably won't find too much
need for it on the type of sites I work on normally.

Thanks again for all your help.
Paul


On 07/08/07, Andy Mabbett < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> In message < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >,
> Christophe Strobbe < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > writes
>
> >There's also a Dublin Core Viewer extension for Firefox by Patrick
> >Lauke: <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/528>.
>
> That reminds me - Patrick kindly agreed to my request that he extend
> this to also discover eGMS metadata:
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EGMS>;
>
> I must remind him!
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> * Say "NO!" to compulsory UK ID Cards: <http://www.no2id.net/>;
> * Free Our Data: <http://www.freeourdata.org.uk>;
> * Are you using Microformats, yet: <http://microformats.org/>; ?
>

From: Christophe Strobbe
Date: Wed, Aug 08 2007 4:20AM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi Andy,

At 22:38 7/08/2007, you wrote:
>In message < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >,
>Christophe Strobbe < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > writes
>
> >There's also a Dublin Core Viewer extension for Firefox by Patrick
> >Lauke: <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/528>.
>
>That reminds me - Patrick kindly agreed to my request that he extend
>this to also discover eGMS metadata:
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EGMS>;

Thanks for the pointer. I had never heard of e-GMS, let alone that it
has an Accessibility element (as I have just discovered).
However, it mixes accessibility with ICRA labels.
Here are the notes on the accessbility element from the "e-Government
Metadata Standard" version 2 (December 2003) [1]:
<quote>
This element is mandated for core pages of web sites, which should
carry an Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) label indicating
the suitability of the material for children. Some applications
designed to protect children will in future not allow access to any
site that does not have a suitable ICRA rating. More information
about this rating can be found at http://www.icra.org
The way in which ICRA and other labels are added to the metadata may
require different notation from the remaining elements, to ensure
they are located and read by the relevant software applications.
This element will be developed further in line with recommendations
by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, W3C and other international
organisations working on this issue.
Other accessibility information may also be given. See the Government
Web Site Guidelines for further details. The checklist states:
* Web managers should register their web site with at least the ICRA
PICS service
* Meta tags covering your whole site should be placed in the head
element of the default page, e.g. index.htm or default.htm
* Check that all web pages meet the defined rating. Additional meta
tags can be placed in the home page of directories to rate pages
within that directory, and where necessary can be applied to
individual web pages.
Tools for accrediting accessibility can be found on the W3C site. The
Bobby Initiative tests whether web pages meet the criteria for W3C
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.
</quote>

[1] <http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/documents/metadataV2.pdf>; (referenced
from the wikipedia page).

Best regards,

Christophe


--
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
Research Group on Document Architectures
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442
B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/


Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm

From: Webb, KerryA
Date: Thu, Aug 09 2007 6:00PM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

Paul asked:
>
> Which leads me to my next question; does anybody on here use Dublin
> Core metadata? I did last time I had to add metadata, but looking
> around at other reputable sites, it doesn't seem like anyone else
> does. Is Dublin Core not worth adding? Does Dublin core improve SEO,
> or do you need to add seperate metadata for this?
>

Apologies for coming in late to this.

Various governments have mandated the use of metadata on their
government agency websites, generally based on Dublin Core, but it's
fallen out of favour. We in the Australian Capital Territory Government
still require some metadata elements for record-keeping purposes, but
we've acknowledged that subject and keyword metadata isn't much use at
all, even with our internal search facility.

Kerry

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From: Peter Krantz
Date: Fri, Aug 10 2007 12:40AM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

On 8/10/07, Webb, KerryA < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Paul asked:
> >
> > Which leads me to my next question; does anybody on here use Dublin
> > Core metadata?
> >
> Apologies for coming in late to this.

Ditto.

>
> Various governments have mandated the use of metadata on their
> government agency websites, generally based on Dublin Core, but it's
> fallen out of favour. We in the Australian Capital Territory Government
> still require some metadata elements for record-keeping purposes, but
> we've acknowledged that subject and keyword metadata isn't much use at
> all, even with our internal search facility.
>

In Sweden the guidelines for public websites mandates the use of
Dublin Core. (Last time a check was made, 18% of the websites were
using DC metadata to some extent). Reasons for including DC in the
guidelines are:

- Providing data for the government portal and search engine www.sverige.se.
- Teaching site owners about Dublin Core as a structured way of
providing metadata.

The ambition is that as more pages are classified with metadata, users
will be able to quickly find specific information across websites
through the government portal. Hopefully other search engines and
crawlers will make use of this data too.

Regards,

Peter

From: Joshue O Connor
Date: Fri, Aug 10 2007 3:00AM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | Next message →

This has been a really interesting thread and thanks to John and
Christophe for the links and also Jukka for the priceless:

> "Search Engine Optimization" (which is probably what you mean by "SEO") is
> primarily an expression for attempts at making money with technobabble.

Indeed :-)

However I can't help but think that its not the end of metadata at all.
Basically because data that describes data to machines that don't
understand what the data is in the first place unless they are told - is
useful stuff indeed. At this point in the development of the web it may
not be needed anymore, for the search engine indexing etc but only in
that context. There is often a disconnect between what a particular
technology or specification has been designed for and what it is
actually *used* for and metadata certainly has useful implementations in
other contexts for indexing video etc as John pointed out and could well
be back with a bang in the wild in the future.

No doubt there will also be some cynical Metadata 3.0 revival sometime
soon in order to extract some more cash from the vulnerable tech
illiterate business owner.

Josh


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From: Christophe Strobbe
Date: Fri, Aug 10 2007 8:50AM
Subject: Re: Metadata
← Previous message | No next message

Hi Josh,

At 10:55 10/08/2007, you wrote:
>(...)
>However I can't help but think that its not the end of metadata at all.
>Basically because data that describes data to machines that don't
>understand what the data is in the first place unless they are told - is
>useful stuff indeed. At this point in the development of the web it may
>not be needed anymore, for the search engine indexing etc but only in
>that context.

Search engine indexing is a very rough method, especially from the
point of view of (the dream of?) the Semantic Web. I was reminded
of this again when I stumbled upon Brian Karlak's introduction to the
Semantic Web (<http://zenkatinc.com/blog/?p=7>;). He tried using
Google to find all Web 2.0 companies in San Francisco and got many
hits that neither companies nor in San Francisco. This is where
good-quality metadata might help, but it's not quite "just around the corner".

Best regards,

Christophe


--
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
Research Group on Document Architectures
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442
B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/


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