According to the specification, a link, when represented as an object, contains the properties href and meta. Can it also include a title property as well?
I’d like to be able to do that because sometimes it can carry information in a simple and elegant manner. In HTML5 title is a global attribute and many people use it in a elements, a fact that has been carried over to other JSON media types.
The note at the end of the link section reads
Note: Additional members may be specified for links objects and link objects in the future…
which I’m having trouble parsing – english is not my first language – and I would really like to stay compliant.
This means that the spec reserves the right to define new members in the future, and one of those may be title. Now it’s unlikely that the spec’s future definition of title would differ much from yours, but it’s possible. It’s also possible that the spec might introduce a similar member in the future - say description - that serves the same purpose that you’ve chosen for title.
These are small risks that you take by introducing your own members in reserved namespaces.
Building off what @dgeb said…while introducing title as a top-level member in the links object would not be compliant (yet) and carries risks, putting a title member in the links object’s meta key is perfectly allowed and, it seems to me, would be a very good, compliant temporary solution. So that’s what I’d recommend.