[microformats-discuss] [admin] before posting new pages to the wiki...

[Tantek Ç elik]

On 8/26/05 5:33 AM, "Dimitri Glazkov" <dimitri.glazkov at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 8/26/05, Tantek Çelik <tantek at cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>> There have been a couple of new pages posted to the wiki recently that were
>> quite premature:
> 
> Apologize for that.
> 
>> 2. http://microformats.org/wiki/controllable-collection-fomat
>> 
>> The problem description makes this sound like a theoretical protocol, not a
>> practical format.  This is certainly not a microformat.
> 
> Is it ... a picoformat? Make that picofomat :) Seriously, maybe I am
> struggling with the "inner circle" lingo here, but the proposed spec
> is certainly not a theoretical protocol. What's theoretical about it?

It lacks real world examples of *content* taken from the web and linked
accordingly.  See the process document.


> Oh, well. We learn from our mistakes. I will try to put something
> together for the list to see in a short while.

I hold extreme skepticism about any kind of "container" or "collection"
format.  These are very generic concepts that essentially already provided
by XHTML.  Most elements are "containers".  And a simple collection can be
represented by <ul>, with <li> as items in the collection.

I strongly suggest that you study up on semantic XHTML before trying to be
"creative" with microformats (nevermind names for things), otherwise you
will only end up wasting time reinventing the wheel.


>> Both of these pages could have been avoided by at least *trying* to follow
>> the process document:
>> 
>>  http://microformats.org/wiki/process
> 
> Again, sorry about that. I tried. I really did. I was working on
> putting something together so that I could put it out on the list,
> just like the process page states. I am still not sure where I went
> wrong. Tell me.

Frankly, you ignored or skipped the first half of the process document
completely.  


>From the process document:

1. "Why?" right there at the top.

"ask around on the web."

"post something to the microformats-discuss
(http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss/) mailing
list or any other public channel (see http://microformats.org/discuss/) "

As far as I can tell, you didn't do either of these.

The point is to ask about the problem area *before* creating pages on the
wiki.  From there it would have been made clear that what you began
discussing on the wiki page is a *protocol* not a format.


2. "Document Current Behavior"

"Your documentation should be a collection of real world sites and pages
which are publishing the kind of data you wish to structure with a
microformat. From those pages and sites, you should extract markup examples
and the schemas implied therein, and provide analysis."

There were no markup examples, and no links to sites with examples.  If
you're unable to find any examples of content on the web for the problem you
are trying to solve, that should be another red flag.


3. "Propose a Microformat"
"
Actually, DON'T!!! 

There are other things to try before developing a microformat. First, ask
yourself these questions:

 1. Is there a standard element in XHTML that would work?
"

In this case, as I pointed out above, the answer is yes.


I'm very open to hearing suggestions for how we can make the process
document more clear on these points, but as far as I can tell, they were
simply ignored completely in this case.


Tantek