[microformats-discuss] Evaulating RSS per the microformats principles.

[Andreas Haugstrup]

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 18:33:06 +0200, Michal Migurski <mike at stamen.com>  
wrote:

> So: I'm not arguing that RSS perfectly fits the bill, but I do wonder  
> whether it fits the bill *well enough* to make a blog mf unnecessary for  
> now. You point out that some participants in this thread do not  
> themselves have blogs, which makes me think this is an academic desire  
> not rooted in actual potential use.

But RSS is a subscription format, but an archive format. It's nice if I'm  
only interested in the latest 10 entries, but apart from that it's  
useless. HTML *is* in wide use - everyone uses it for their archives.

I can tell how I use a meta data profile for my blog. I started to create  
a profile for blogs last December. In the past 8 months I've made one  
revision, and I want to do some major revisions, but I thought I'd lurk on  
this list a bit before I jump in and change my blog around again. I've  
been taking a long break from this idea to do other stuff. Lately I've  
become interested again because Technorati reliably marks my entries with  
the *wrong* title (it's one off). With a blog MF Technorati might get my  
titles right. :o)

XHTML is my archive format. I don't save my blog entries in a database.  
They're saved as XHTML pages I parse as I need to. The decision to set up  
my blog like that was half idealistic experiment, half realities (I don't  
have SQL on that hosting account). Overall it's been treating me nice -  
it's not giving me any trouble fetching the data I need.

My blog is at <URL: http://www.solitude.dk/ >
The profile document is at <URL: http://www.solitude.dk/blogprofile/011/ >

My expiriences:

  - The invisible <meta> data should go. I'm not using it, and I can't  
really see what others would use it for. Author, copyright, description  
should be changed to being visible metadata. Then my readers can use it.

  - I use class="entry" for my entries, and the title is the only <h1>  
inside "entry".

  - I use <p class="datestamp"> for the time. I'd like to change that to  
use the <abbr> way of expressing times. That way machines can read my  
dates as well as my readers.

  - I use rel="permalink" for my permalinks. I know some blog engines use  
rel="bookmark", but it doesn't feel right to me. As far as I can tell  
rel="bookmark" is meant for single documents, not multiple resources.

  - I use rel="cite" for links to citations. I have been pondering whether  
I should change this to <cite><a></a></cite>. So far I've opted against  
because I use the reverse relationship (rev="cite") to mark links to  
trackbacks and pingbacks.

  - The rel="enclosure" needs to be more detailed. With bloggers using  
Yahoo's Media RSS the same kind of enclosure structure should be available  
in the HTML. There needs to be a way to describe enclosure groups  
(multiple versions of the same enclosure).

  - I'm worried about citations (whether it's rel="cite" or <cite>) and  
enclosures. Changes are needed in the blogging engines for these to work.  
Their UI needs to handle this for the writer. Right now Wordpress  
generates enclosures for almost anything making the whole thing very  
painful. I can't link to a video file without it being added as an  
enclosure. That's a very uncool way to handle things (a link does not in  
itself imply that the video is a part of the entry).

  - I use the enclosure and citation data on my archives. Under each entry  
the enclosures and citations are listed. E.g. <URL:  
http://www.solitude.dk/archives/2005_08.php >

- Andreas
-- 
<URL:http://www.solitude.dk/>
Commentary on media, communication, culture and technology.