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[Dirk Koopman]

On Thu, 2006-02-09 at 11:17 +0000, Struan Donald wrote:
> * at 09/02 11:08 +0000 Dirk Koopman said:
> > On Thu, 2006-02-09 at 10:31 +0000, Dominic Mitchell wrote:
> > > Then you've got a broken web site -- period.  Content should have only
> > > one, canonical URL.
> > 
> > <rant>
> > 
> > Really? So we are only allowed to hyperlink with absolute names now are
> > we? Have you googled for stuff on this mailing list recently? 
> 
> Aren't all the messages in the archive in one place only?

But that isn't the point of the rant.

> 
> > The real world really does not work like that. In fact, I would go
> > further: any site that implements the "one canonical URL" paradigm is
> > likely to be extremely difficult to use. 
> > 
> > </rant>
> 
> I don't think so. Sure, you can have multiple ways to get to that one
> URL but it makes perfect sense to me to have the content in one place
> on the site. 

And if this is true then you don't (necessarily) have "one canonical
URL". Multiple ways imply the possibility of multiple URLs. 

As an illustration, a music site I once was concerned with had a single
canonical "database" of articles/data on musicians and their music. It
was a "find a starting point, but then follow your nose if you found
anything (more) interesting" site. This meant that the site had a)
multiple pathways to navigate around that data and [to pay for it all]
b) different branded skins to view it with. Editors were at liberty to
create/break "cross" hyperlinks as they saw fit.

The result of this was that, depending on how you got into the site and
also how you arrived at the data, you [wc]ould get a different URL.

Same data - many URLs.

Dirk