Potential wording adjustment in the Open Badges 2.0 specification text

[MrJasonJapan]

Well-structured revoked assertions with a response status of 410 are rightfully considered valid by the IMS Open Badges Validator. In other words, the validator returns a green true. However, the bold text below may suggest to the reader that the validator should return false instead. Maybe the wording could be adjusted to clarify the fact that "invalid" is referring to how Displayers interpret the badge and not how Validators interpret it.

Wording to consider: see bold text below↓

https://github.com/IMSGlobal/openbadges-specification/blob/develop/ob_v2p0/index.md#revoking-hosted-assertions-example Revoking Hosted Assertions (example)

To mark a hosted assertion as revoked, respond with an HTTP Status of 410 Gone. The response may include an Assertion body containing some additional metadata, such as a revocationReason, but it is not required to meet all normal property presence requirements. For revoked Assertions, only id and revoked are required.

If either the 410 Gone status or a response body declaring revoked true is returned, the Assertion should be treated as revoked and thus invalid.

[jbohrer]

The phrase "and thus invalid" is confusing because the assertion is technically valid (i.e. conformant as evidenced by successfully passing the IMS OB Validator). One solution would be to remove the phrase "and thus invalid".

[ahripak]

The workgroup will update the validator code to return invalid status when the Hosted Assertion returns a 410 response. We may also wordsmith the language in the specification further.