• From: "Liam R. E. Quin" <liam@f...>
• To: Roger L Costello <costello@m...>, "xml-dev@l..." <xml-dev@l...>
• Date: Thu, 11 May 2023 15:09:08 -0400

On Thu, 2023-05-11 at 18:18 +0000, Roger L Costello wrote:
> Hi Folks,
> 
> Traceability = who/what is the source of the data.
> 
> Do you put traceability information in your XML documents?

Traceability and (closely related) provenance, are essential in a lot
of environments and contexts, and can be catastrophic if omitted.

Of course, in every-day discourse, on social media and in email, it
would be very useful for sources to be checked. Imagine if it was a
normal and reasonable expectation that when you saw a quote you could
touch it / click on it and find out where it came from. What effect
might that have on rumours and the lies that so often fuel conspiracy
theories?


> 
> Consider this XML document about a runway at an airport in Jamaica:
> 
>       <airport>
>          <name>NORMAN MANLEY INTL</name>
>          <runway>
>             <runwayLength>08909</runwayLength>
>          </runway>
>       </airport>
> 
Here's my corrected version:

      <airport>
>          <name>NORMAN MANLEY INTL</name>
>          <runway>
>             <runwayLength>18909</runwayLength>
>          </runway>
>       </airport>

Which do you trust? Why?

Whenever data is aggregated, tracking sources may be necessary.

This is partly why i believe RDF has been actively harmful: it makes it
harder to track than not to track where "facts" came from, and to have
that information survive querying.

liam

-- 
Liam Quin, https://www.delightfulcomputing.com/
Available for XML/Document/Information Architecture/XSLT/
XSL/XQuery/Web/Text Processing/A11Y training, work & consulting.
Barefoot Web-slave, antique illustrations:  http://www.fromoldbooks.org

• References:
  • Does high quality data contain traceability information?
    • From: Roger L Costello <costello@m...>