Stephen Farrell wrote:
Dave Crocker wrote:
Stephen,
I fear that this is a real matter of technical confusion -- not just
literary taste -- and that the source of confusion is common to the
topic and not just how the document is written.
That's not to say that the writing might not be contributing to the
confusion.
So let's see if we can have a brief dialogue to clarify the points of
distinction, which might make better wordsmithing easier.
The current wording is trying to emphasize the difference between
reference and referrant, or the thing and a label for the thing.
Identity is meant to refer to the thing itself, such as you, where as
identifier is meant to refer to a label, such as "Stephen Farrell".
From my own historical confusion in these sorts of discussions, as
well as the confusion i keep seeing in others, making and maintaining
the distinction between thing and label is very real challenge, often
failed.
To the particulars of the document:
A domain name is an identifier. The organization owning it is the
identity. The trademarked name of the company is another identifier.
Sometimes the domain name is treated as the online name of the
company, as well as its "address". That's ok. It's still an
identifier, even if it is thought of as similar to the registered
corporate name. (Distinguishing between domain name and company name
might be important for assessment services, but it isn't for DKIM
signature validation.)
So how about adding a paragraph like the above to the document?
It'd help me at least.
dandy.
So with the above as background, can you elaborate a bit on the
confusion you are seeing? Anything that you or others can provide
might help us better understand the underlying writing problem that we
need to address.
So I can volunteer to check the output of "grep [Ii]dent" on the
document based on your identity/identifier distinction above, if
you guys don't get to it before me (might be next week before I
get to it). If you get it done first, I'm happy to believe you've
done a good job:-)
Volunteer to do detail-oriented work? Gosh, I think so.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
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