The first is simple, but it doesn't distinguish between editorial content and member-contributed content. The second does this by adding a PersonID, but it introduces a mixed case URL. The third does this by adding a userid, which will normally be lowercase. One advantage of using the PersonID over the UserID is that this is what is used in the Item table to identify the author, whereas the UserID would have to be looked up from the Person table after it was retrieved from a row in Item. Furthermore, writing a mixed case PersonID in lowercase still works. So, for the sake of avoiding an extra step, PersonIDs may be preferable.
Whichever is used, there is one catch to putting the author's id first, and this is that someone could use an id that matches a directory name. So it may be preferable to frame the semantic URL in a pseudo-directory that doesn't match the name of any existing directory. The last three do this with different names for the pseudo-directory. If inventor is used, the PersonID used would be the InventorID instead of the AuthorID.
I'll go over some options for semantic URLs here using an example. Here is the actual URL for the example:
Here are some options for a semantic URL:
The first is simple, but it doesn't distinguish between editorial content and member-contributed content. The second does this by adding a PersonID, but it introduces a mixed case URL. The third does this by adding a userid, which will normally be lowercase. One advantage of using the PersonID over the UserID is that this is what is used in the Item table to identify the author, whereas the UserID would have to be looked up from the Person table after it was retrieved from a row in Item. Furthermore, writing a mixed case PersonID in lowercase still works. So, for the sake of avoiding an extra step, PersonIDs may be preferable.
Whichever is used, there is one catch to putting the author's id first, and this is that someone could use an id that matches a directory name. So it may be preferable to frame the semantic URL in a pseudo-directory that doesn't match the name of any existing directory. The last three do this with different names for the pseudo-directory. If inventor is used, the PersonID used would be the InventorID instead of the AuthorID.