[microformats-discuss] RelPayment: Requesting comments

[Tantek Ç elik]

Joshua,

This is some very good background and analysis.

(And in general, I'm optimistic about rel="payment" or something similar.
It has a nice simple feel, and has clear applications)

I'd recommend documenting this background and analysis on the wiki, perhaps
on a page like:

 http://microformats.org/wiki/payment-link-brainstorming

To get things kicked off in a persistent (i.e. more than email thread)
manner.

Thanks,

Tantek


On 8/8/05 2:04 PM, "Joshua Kinberg" <jkinberg at gmail.com> wrote:

> Re: difference b/n "payment" and "tip jar":
> - tip jar = pay *me*
> - payment = more general form of contribution
> (which I do see as financial support, so I disagree with Andreas there)
> 
> I've included rel="payment" links in the last three entries on my
> weblog (http://joshkinberg.com). None of them are specifically to pay
> *me*.
> 
> One is to donate to someone else's theater project, another is to
> purchase a CD on Amazon of music that was included in the video i
> posted (I could have used an affilliate link here but didn't), the
> other is to support NPR and encourage viewer to buy something at the
> NPR shop (I posted an audio interview from NPR).
> 
> None of these use cases would make sense as a "tip jar".
> All of them make sense as "payment".
> 
> My 2 cents.
> 
> -Josh
> 
> 
> On 8/8/05, Ryan King <ryan at technorati.com> wrote:
>> On Aug 8, 2005, at 12:17 PM, Andreas Haugstrup wrote:
>>> On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 20:08:10 +0200, Ryan King <ryan at technorati.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> From the bottom:
>>>> Andreas- please dont' take my criticism as harsh, I want to see
>>>> this format succeed.
>>> 
>>> I don't. :o)
>>> 
>>>> 1. The name - the referenced url isn't really a "payment," but a
>>>> place for someone to make a payment. Perhaps "tip jar" would be a
>>>> better metaphor. I think this also helps to communicate that the
>>>> payment is not required, but a donation. Additionally, the spec
>>>> says: "RelPayment is meant as a general way to facilitate acts of
>>>> support, and thus this specification makes no assumptions on the
>>>> type of support." So why not have a more general name?
>>> 
>>> I don't think the name is a problem. Payment doesn't imply
>>> financial payment, and the fact that content is visible without
>>> paying makes it quite clear that payment isn't mandatory. A
>>> 'tipjar' on the other hand has a strong connotation of a financial
>>> donation.
>> 
>> Right. And isn't that what's going on here?
>> 
>>> A more general term like 'support' just seems weak to me (and in
>>> that instance 'support' probably has a stronger connotation of
>>> 'help' rather than 'give me some money here').
>> 
>> I don't see anything wrong with the 'help' connotation.
>> 
>> I have a feeling there's others who dislike the name 'payment' here.
>> Any thoughts?
>> 
>>>> 2. Visbible metadata++ :)
>>> 
>>> Thank you. That was my working. :o)
>>> 
>>>> 3. Is there anyone, anywhere who's done anything similar?  I
>>>> honestly don't know and I don't know that anyone else has done the
>>>> research.
>>>> You see, a very important part of the microformat ethos is the
>>>> principle of reuse (or principle of non-invention)- meaning that
>>>> we reuse as much as possible and only invent new markup/semantics
>>>> when necessary.
>>> 
>>> This was something I knew someone was going to point it out, but I
>>> was sort of hoping they wouldn't. I'm not one of the concept guys -
>>> I'm just a loud voice - but it's my understanding that the idea for
>>> a RelPayment didn't grow out of the microformat idea of "Making the
>>> data that people *are already publishing* on the *web* more
>>> useful". It came from people writing RSS readers for videoblogs who
>>> wanted to help their content creators.
>>> 
>>> Videoblog aggregators suck a lot of bandwidth (especially the ones
>>> that download everything automatically), and when people read/view
>>> through the RSS reader any "payment" links that may have been
>>> present are at best hidden in text somewhere at worst removed. The
>>> programmers wanted to give something back to the content creators
>>> by giving them a way to place payment links more prominently.
>>> That's the background on it, and why there's not a whole lot of
>>> 'prior art' research available beyond the "people know how to make
>>> a link".
>> 
>> The important thing is that you guys are trying to solve a real-life
>> problem.
>> 
>>>> I know you guys have already moved as far has having a basic
>>>> specification, but it seems you may have skipped some necessary
>>>> research steps (see my above comments). Perhaps you'd like to
>>>> start a page at one of http://microformats.org/wiki/relpayment-
>>>> research (or pick a more general name than relpayment)?
>>> 
>>> I'll do that then. We've been using the draft writing as a way of
>>> fleshing out what we wanted to create (see my comment above :p).
>> 
>> There's nothing wrong with writing a draft specification early as a
>> strawman proposal that is likely to be changed.
>> 
>> -ryan
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