Re: <OWNER> tag in head? and other things that would be nice...

Lou Montulli (montulli@stat1.cc.ukans.edu)
Tue, 19 Oct 93 12:53:42 CDT

>
> I am sure this has been talked about, but I don't see any answers...
>
> It'd be nice to be able to easily contact the owner of a document you are
> reading on the web... specifically, I was browsing GNN and wanted to
> suggest a change to a reference to info I maintain; unfortunately, there
> wasn't even a tag at the end of the page listing a contact (I know I could
> find the address as soon as I really looked, but...).
>
> But why shouldn't you just be able to fire a message off to the owner of
> a document. It seems like it'd be easy enough to declare a new tag that
> would only be in the header of docs... <OWNER> seems best to me. Really
> cool browsers could then use that to automatically address mail, and
> not-so-cool browsers could at least provide that information on demand.
> Obviously, I think this info should be a legal e-mail address, although
> maybe (don't know why) it should be a real name and a separate tag created
> for a corresponding e-mail address...

There is already a structure that does this.
<link rev=made href="mailto:montulli@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu">
defines me as the "maker" of a document.

Unfortunatly the only really cool browser that currently supports
this feature is Lynx :)

>
> Another direction I think would be quite useful would be the development of
> HTTP "environment variables"... work out a method so that servers can ask
> clients for certain frequently useful information, such as the users e-mail
> address, perhaps the user's snail mail address or shirt-size... couldn't
> it even be open-ended? That is, if a client receives a request for an
> undefined variable, it could ask, and add that variable to a .browserrc
> type file...

A From: tag is passed to the server from clients. From: is often
the mail address of the user. Again, the only really cool browser
that I know supports this is Lynx, :) which passes the mail address
if the user chooses to fill it in.

>
> As forms get more widely implemented, I think this would become quite
> useful...
>
> Joe
> (who's on the verge of actually getting paid to develop hypertext - yay!)
>

:lou

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