The final call for papers on the EC-TEL doctoral consortium has been released today. First, I thought on submitting something to that event as well, after I submitted my final version of the full paper, yesterday. However, after I got through the topics I was not sure if I really should do so.

Everything looked fine until I got to the meta-data section. I never took meta-data people too serious. Yes, I admit that they do an important job. But for some reason I always had the feeling that they lack of creativity and sensibility. Now I know why I had this feeling. It appears that language and meta-data do not belong to the same problem space. Instead, meta-data people use a meta-language that has just as much to do with normal language as a person with large heavy stones attached to his legs has to do with swimming.

The best example is given by the first point in the "Metadata for TEL" section for EC-TEL's doctoral consortium. It says:

 Re-Using, Re-Authoring and Re-Purposing (Rip, Mix and Burn)

I love these creative acronyms. Nevertheless, I would suggest a slight improvement in order to highlight the meaning of these activities a bit more. In my humble opinion the topic should read:

 Re-Using, Re-Authoring and Re-Purposing (Rob, Rape and Burn)

Apart from being more on-point regarding the meaning, my proposal also shares more letters with the original words and this is usually a good indicator for the quality of acronyms.

Needless to say that meta-language rules!