Tantek,
1. Mark up your content as semantically as possible. Certainly if
you relax
this, you can decide to only use geo and not markup the names of
locations
etc. But the reasons why are even bothering with microformats is
that a lot
of us have walked the path of semantic XHTML, then semantic class
names, in
the pursuit of marking up our content as semantically as possible,
without
compromising the content and presentation.
I do indeed believe in making content up as semantically as possible.
I guess my concern here is whether the use of hCard is appropriate,
given the "contact information" aspect of the specification (and its
association with vCard)
2. Minimum reinvention. There is no need to (and it is in fact a
bad idea
to) invent a new format for named locations, when hCard solves that
problem
perfectly well.
I suppose my concern is that hCard is specifically associated with
vCard, and also restates its purpose as being for "contact
information" - and not all uses of place names or geo locations are
going to be that. For example, the summit of Everest, or the
splashdown location of Apollo 11.
Thus there is no other logical conclusion other than to use hCard
to markup
named locations.
Except the semantics of hCard is not for capturing locations
generally, but in the specific circumstance of contacting people
That being said, if you have a concrete alternative to propose, you
may have
thought of something better.
No, not at all. On the one hand, I do agree totally that we have a
specification for location, hCard, and it makes sense to reuse that.
But as mentioned above, there is a tension between the idea of
contact information, and the idea of location ore generally. But I
think your proposal to generalize hCard is an excellent one, just not
one I would have had the courage to make :-)
In essence, hCard works well as a semantic construct to represent any
instance of a person or organization or for that named locations.
Some of
this has certainly evolved through usage and experience since I first
drafted hCard, and perhaps it is time to revise the hCard to
reflect this
expanded semantic usage, in order to reduce pedantic worrying. ;)
Precisely :-) It would somewhat decouple hCard from the semantics of
vCard, but that would be evolutionary, so in keeping with uf principles
So your proposal might be to loosen or remove the association between
hCard and contact information specifically, and have something along
the lines of
"hCard is a simple, open, distributed format for people, places,
companies, and other organizations. Although its origins lie in
vCard, from which it takes its name, practical use has demonstrated
that a more general format may be required for encoding information
about places, people or organizations which is not specifically
contact information."
(just taking a fist stab at that)
Thanks as always Tantek,
john
John Allsopp
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