While this is a nice attempt to develop a new markup standard for humor, I think we'll all recognize that it will also be rather limited in capturing the semantic meaning of each of unique collections of witticisms and inside jokes that we regularly see in the museum community.
So before we all jump on the H-XML bandwagon, I think we should seriously consider the alternatives - such as RDF (ribauld description format), OWL (Witty Ontology Language), along with the efforts already invested in community specific XML standards, such as CDWS Lite (Categories for the Description of Works of Sarcasm). Richard rjurban at uiuc.edu On Sep 19, 2007, at 12:17 AM, Amalyah Keshet wrote: > In my haste to get the news flash out, I failed to notice the > Slashdot comment most obviously appropriate for the MCN constituency: > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > ---------- > > The emoticon is dead... long live XML! > Thankfully, we no longer need to use this outdated technology of > "emoticons" to denote humorous sentiments in email and online > postings. Some have historically proposed the use of a "sarcasm" > tag littered among ordinary text to convey the sarcastic emotion > more accurately. I propose going one step further, and am proposing > the Humour-XML standard, which will provide a much richer way to > fully denote sentiments on the web. For instance, consider the > sarcastic exprssion: > > I'll get right on that ;-) > > > Even in this simple expression, the smiley face does not convey > enough information to the reader to properly discern the mood of > the poster. It is left ambiguous whether the poster is completely > sarcastic, and will not "get right on that", or if the poster was > merely in a humorous mood and implying that they will "get right on > that" in a cheerful way. This failure to communicate is costing the > American economy untold billions in lost productivity, rivaling > that of "sick days" and movie piracy. The following is a rough > draft of an XML standard I am proposing to completely eliminate our > dependence on this obsolete form of communication. > > I propose a full XML schema devoted to conveying emotion in email, > web postings, and Usenet "flame" messages. For instance, the > previous message would be written in Humour-XML as: > > <?xml version="1.0"?> > <posting> > <message mood="sarcastic" level="highly"> I'll get right on that > <smiley deprecated="yes" symbol=";-)" /> > </message> > </posting> > > > The message now contains no ambiguities ? the reader understands > that the poster is "highly sarcastic" , and does not actually > intend to "get right on that" > > The Humour-XML schema provides numerous benefits to users such as: > enhanced text-to-speech renderings of postings (the speaker's voice > could convey emotion, etc.), backwards compatibility with obsolete > emoticons, UTF-8 support, building the Semantic Web from the ground > up, and other benefits too numerous to enumerate here. Without > extolling the virtues of this fantastic language too greatly, I'll > touch on one more gold mine of usability: using XSLT > [wikipedia.org] to transfrom Humour-XML to other forms, such as > emoticon-text or even SVG graphics. For instance, we can define an > XSLT stylesheet like so: > > <?xml version="1.0" ?> > <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"; > version="1.0"> > <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/> > > > <xsl:template match="posting"> > <emoticon_text> <xsl:apply-templates/> </emoticon_text> > </xsl:template> > > <xsl:template match="message"> > <xsl:copy> <xsl:apply-templates> </xsl:copy> > </xsl:template> > <xsl:template match="message"> > <xsl:text> <xsl:value-of select="symbol" /> </xsl:text> > </xsl:template> > </xsl:stylesheet> > > > The example XSLT spreadsheet provided here should provide posters > eager to try this amazing technology a head-start. I am in the > process of carefully constructing a DTD for Humour-XML, as well as > several more very useful XSLT stylesheets. I hereby disclaim all > patents on said technology, and promise that Humour-XML is free for > the world to use royalty-free, forever. > > by schmiddy (599730) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `yddimhcs'> on Tuesday > September 18, @08:59PM (#20662575) > (http://slashdot.org/) > http://slashdot.org/articles/07/09/18/2313232.shtml > _______________________________________________ > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum > Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
