The Qualifier Camp, as the name implies, want sub-element refinements which they assert are both useful and necessary. Language - the language of the actual element . For example, in officially bilingual countries such as Canada, the elements may be written in English or French. Type - a facet or the scope of an element. For example, the Date element could be the date of creation, the date last modified, etc.
Qualifiers are to be used to refine rather than to extend the semantics of an element.
Unresolved Issues and Future Developments Weibel identified three important issues still to be resolved. First is the very political matter of multilingualism. A second issue revolves around determining responsibility for the registration of elements and qualifiers, and for element refinements and qualifiers, especially those related to coverage, relation, and date. Metadata architecture, that is, how the metadata are embedded, is also an issue. PICS was developed primarily as a rating system for filtering devices such as those used to protect children from undesirable sites on the Internet.