I mentioned yesterday that creating a public interchangeable identifier isn’t as easy as identifying identifier and documenting them publicly. Recognizing an Interchangeable Identifier
What if I identified (by some means) “Patrick” as an identifier and posted it to my website (public documentation).
Is that now a “public interchangeable identifier?”
No. Why?
First, there has to be some agreed upon means to declare an identifier to be an identifier. When I say agreed upon, it need not be something as formal as a standard but it has to be recognized by a community of users.
Second, it is important to know in what context this is an identifier? Akin to what we talk about as “scope” in topic maps. But with the recognition that the notion of “unconstrained” scope is a pernicious fiction. Scope may be unspecified but it is never unconstrained.
I would argue that no identifier exists without some defined scope. It may not be known or specified but the essence of an identifier, that it identifies some subject, exists only within some scope.
More on means to declare identifiers and their context anon.