This page is outdated!  please see

Citable Documents Specification

I think this will be the easist because we will just use the enum standard to indicate a paragraph just as the Lawyers do!

So

http://archive.domainname/path (if needed)/documentname/Daytimestamp (YYYYMMDDHHMMSS UTC) # enum

For example:

Http://archive.house.gov/HR1586IH/20030318233035#S1b1Bii

which would point to this

" $250,000 ($125,000 in the case of a married individual filing a separate return)."

just to prove the point I had to create a temporary page to even point you to the BILL HR1586IH because the link from Thomas is inherently broken!

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c111:1:./temp/~c11161qbDA::

HR = House Resolution

1586 = number of bill in current session

IH = version "Introduced in House"

20030318233035 = March 18 2009 at 23:30 and 35 seconds UTC time (yes I know this is duplicated bc of version in this example but not in others that occur and faciliates the human readable aspect.) YYYYMMDDHHMMSS

#S1b1Bii = is the path to a paragraph -> section 1 subsection b chapter 1 paragraph B clause ii

The URL is human readable for anyone familiar w legal notation or alphanumeric outline which is taught in most 8th English grade classes.

The combination of (domainname/path/documentname) must be unique.  And if used without a datetimestamp should default to the newest version.

The enum on webpages - can be a microformat w hidden hashtags

Enum should be flexible and needs to degrade properly.  So if someone leaves off the clause on the URL it should point to the  -> paragraph.  If leaves off clause and paragraph -> section etc...