[Zope-CMF] Enforcing Metadata (was: WebDAV, ZPT & CMF)

[seb bacon]

* Shane Hathaway <shane@digicool.com> [010402 18:30]:
> Jeffrey P Shell wrote:
> > 
> > On 4/2/01 5:58 AM, "Seb Bacon" <seb@jamkit.com> wrote:
> > > ... I've decided, though, that
> > > in the the context of the CMF WebDAV is not a good idea, since it
> > > removes any way of enforcing inclusion of metadata.
> >
> > <snip>  Granted, one still has to know to look for the meta tags in
> > their editor, but can be done.  Enforcement?  None.  Mostly because it's
> > very hard to communicate with the clients well - you can't [easily] say "Oh,
> > you *need* to fill in a Subject and Description meta tag."
> 
> Here's how I see it: the server should accept WebDAV uploads regardless
> of metadata, but the workflow should disallow specific transitions until
> the metadata tool verifies that the required metadata is filled in
> correctly.  For example, on one site a document could not be moved to
> the "published" state until the "creator" and "subject" fields have been
> filled in.

As Paul pointed out in the oss4lib interview (see link from the news
section on the dogbowl), everyone uses Word but no-one knows
File->Properties exists.  Yet the success of a CMF-based application
depends completely on the entry of metadata, IMO.  There really must
be some way of enforcing metadata.

Shane's suggestion of enforcing it at the workflow level makes sense.
However, I don't think it would be appropriate in all
circumstances.  The CMF I'm currently implementing is for a company
knowledge-sharing portal, and all employees can see all uploaded
content immediately.  Publishing content makes it available outside
the organisation.  I'm concerned that having a two stage process will
act as a barrier to people ever sharing content.  They'll
save something to the system using webDAV, but then the onus will
continue to be on them to mark up the content before anyone else can
see it within the organisation.

Ideally I'd want webDAV to provide for interacting with a user to
enforce properites, but I'm not aware that it does so.  Another idea
might be that people save their articles in some kind of special word
template, which uses some hideous configuration of VBA and modal
dialogues to make the user update the document properties.  

Can anyone think of any other solutions?

cheers,

seb