Blog post format challenge (was Re: [microformats-discuss] Weblog entries and forum posts)

[Tantek Ç elik]

On 8/12/05 8:11 PM, "Ryan King" <ryan at technorati.com> wrote:

>> Isn't RSS already a microformat for blogs?
> 
> I depends.
> 
> You see, I see RSS as merely an envelope format (a way to deliver the
> data) and I'd like a microformat to envelope-agnostic (as all
> microformats are).
> 
>> It's not XHTML, but it seems to have been developed specifically
>> for communicating discrete updates on a website, and covers the
>> three primary characteristics of a blog post: title, permanent
>> link, content.
> 
> Right and that's why my plan for microformating my blog is to re-use
> the atom semantics. I don't want to get into an RSS vs. Atom debate
> here, we'll let the marketplace decide that one.

Agreed on the marketplace deciding that.  That being said, IMHO the Atom
specification provides much better (more well defined etc.) semantics than
RSS, and personally, as a publisher, I've found it easier to write code to
generate Atom from semantic XHTML than to do the same with RSS.


> Also, I have a bias towards XHTML- I think it works and has wide
> support.

Agreed.


> I'd also just like to try this to see how well it works.

There needs to be more of that.


In fact, since the area of working on a blog post microformat is hot
currently, I'm going to issue a challenge to everyone involved:


Prove your commitment to working on a blog post microformat based on valid
semantic XHTML by exemplifying it.


1. Make sure your blog validates.

That's two things actually.  First, start a blog yourself!

There are at least two folks participating in this discussion thread who
themselves do not have blogs!

What are you thinking?

Microformats are based on practical, first-hand experience.  Theoreticians
and academics need not apply.

You've got until your next post on this thread to start a blog and post a
few times before you get called on it.


Second, make sure it validates.  Of all the folks who *do* have blogs who
are participating this thread (self excluded), only *one* of them is
currently valid:

Björn Seibert, I presume this is yours: http://www.bs-markup.de/

Well done.  


The rest of you, who I'm not going to name, but you know who you are..

Clean it up!

2. Once you've got a blog and it's valid, see if you can:
 * eliminate tables for presentation [1]
 * eliminate bed and breakfast markup [2]
 * eliminate anorexic anchors [3]
 * use non-presentational class names (don't worry about using microformat
ready class names just yet) [4]


3. Once you've succeeded with that, *then* see about experimenting with your
thoughts about a blog post microformat, using your blog, and send in a URL
with an example.


This community very much believes in "being real", and in contrast to
self-proclaimed markup experts who can't even publish valid XML nor HTML
themselves but who love to pitch the virtues of XML and and their personal
XML-based standards (you know who they are), we're very much going to be
living up to our own standards with our actions and publications, not just
our talk.


Thanks,

Tantek