Hi all I've just subscribed to this list, so I hope I'm not repeating any previous discussions. Anyway, I first heard about microformats at WWW 2005, and heard much more at WWW 2006, including meeting Brian Suda, Ryan King and others at a microformats BOF in Edinburgh. I am a national Web adviser to UK Universities (HE) (and the cultural heritage sector). I'd like to help to support the takeup of microformats across the HE sector. We have an advantage in the UK with a sector which works well together with many Web managers in the community subscribed to the same mailing lists. In addition we have an additional 3 day event aimed at institutional Web managers. This year's event (the tenth in the series) attracted over 190 delegates (we have about 160 universities). We also made use of microformats on the event's Web site - see http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2006/microformat s/
I'd like to tap into the enthusiasm which the event generated by developing a strategy for deployment of microformats within the sector. My plans are three-fold: 1 Education: what are microformats; what are their limitations; etc. 2 Demonstrators: provide examples of uses of microformats; encourage others to engage in similar examples for themselves; look at ways in which third parties can exploit our microformats in ways which benefit the community. 3 Work with the wider micoformat community As part of (1) I've written an Introduction To Microformats briefing paper - see http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/briefings/briefing-100/ In addition Phil Wilson (who is based here at Bath University) ran a workshop session on microformats - http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2006/sessions/wi lson-1/ As part of (2) I've been exploring the potential for using hCalendar microformats for my forthcoming events: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/ However I've encountered a number of irritating problems: Problems with British Summer Time (Daylight Saving Time). I've been told that this is a well-known problem in handling date and time information, and is not directly related to microformats or the software which processes microformats. However it strikes me that we will need to ensure that end users (and microformat maintainers) are aware of such limitations. It also strikes me that there's a need for consistency across the software vendors - which then leads on to (a) more rigorous documentation regarding what should be done and (b) test cases. Is anyone working on this? Whilst trying to resolve the problem with BST I also spent some time playing with the various date and time formats (i.e. using 2006-01-01T12:00:00+0100) with and without hyphens; with UK and US conventions for separators in time strings; etc. I understand that the ISO spec if flexible (is this correct). However, even if this is the case, there will still be a need to ensure software vendors implement the standard correctly - again a need for a test suite. As well as the issues regarding the spec and the hCard converters there are also the issues about limitations in the calendaring tools. I've read some messages about Outlook, for example, not processing telephone numbers in hCards correctly. In this case, I think there's a need for documentation on bugs in well-used software such as Outlook. There is also a need to define what hCard tools should do if they encounter multiple occurrences of hCards. I understand that Brian Suda's Web-based XSLT service processes the first occurrence on a page, whereas Tails displays all occurrences in a sidebar. Should the spec mandate what the software should do in such circumstances? I feel that these issues should be addressed when seeking to encourage takeup of microformats - so I've welcome comments. Once the educational aspect has been addressed, I'd like to look into recommendations for demonstrators which will best demonstrate the capabilities of microformats and encourage wider takeup. However I'll leave this to another posting. Thanks Brian --------------------------------------- Brian Kelly UK Web Focus UKOLN University of Bath BATH BA2 7AY Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ Phone: 01225 383943 FOAF: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/b.kelly/foaf/bkelly-foaf.xrdf For info on FOAF see http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/b.kelly/foaf/ _______________________________________________ microformats-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
