P3 currently requires ("MUST") that ontology-as-a-whole IRIs (like http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ont.owl) resolve to an artifact (that is, pulls up the ontology file). The same is not true for individual term IRIs. Guidance on the use of term IRIs can be found instead in the ID policy) document referenced by P3. There, it is stated "The URIs should resolve to useful information about a term". Thus, our recommendation up to now has fallen short of a hard requirement that IRIs resolve to a page. Our current wording for term IRIs are consistent with the definition of a 'Web resource' given by w3c:

...
Web Resource
A Resource that MUST be identified by an IRI, as described in the Web Architecture [webarch]. Web Resources MAY be dereferencable via their IRI.
...

Thus, based on strict definition of an IRI, resolving (dereferencing) is not a required part of their use, and our documentation reflects that. However, in the time since our guidelines were put in place, FAIR best practices were developed. One could argue that FAIR practices imply that the ability to resolve an IRI should be elevated from our SHOULD (which is already stronger than w3c's MAY) to MUST.

This issue intends to open a discussion on whether or not we wish to change this policy. If so, the EWG will revise the wording accordingly.