[uf-discuss] Show Microformat Brainstorming

[Tantek Ç elik]

On 12/16/05 9:31 AM, "Charles Iliya Krempeaux" <supercanadian at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 12/16/05, Charles Iliya Krempeaux <supercanadian at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello Tantek,
>> 
>> On 12/16/05, Tantek Çelik <tantek at cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>>> Charles,
>>> 
>>> I am emailing you directly on this because it appears you have not received
>>> earlier email sent on this subject.
>>> 
>>> Regarding:
>>> 
>>> On 12/13/05 4:19 PM, "Charles Iliya Krempeaux" <supercanadian at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hello,
>>>> 
>>>> On 12/6/05, Charles Iliya Krempeaux <supercanadian at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> [...]
>>>> 
>>>>> If you look at my weblog -- http://changelog.ca/ -- you can see a
>>>>> couple XOXO lists where I list (some of) the shows I watch, and (some
>>>>> of) the channels I watch.
>>>> 
>>>> I've created a wiki page for showrolls at:
>>>> 
>>>>   http://microformats.org/wiki/showroll-brainstorming
>>> 
>>> and
>>> 
>>>> Hello,
>>>> 
>>>> I've started a page for the "show brainstorming" on the wiki.  You can
>>>> get to it via:
>>>> 
>>>>   http://microformats.org/wiki/show-brainstorming
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> First, please take a closer look at the microformats process.
>>> 
>>>  http://microformats.org/wiki/process
>>> 
>>> 
>>> A few comments in particular.
>>> 
>>> 1. Jumping straight to a *-brainstorming document is premature.  There
>>> should first be a *-examples document where *real* *existing* examples of
>>> the content being published on the Web are documented.
>> 
>> The "show-brainstorming" page contained strawmen of examples I found.

First of all, examples are not strawmen.  We need to be VERY clear about
this.

Examples are *actual* examples you have found on the Web.  With URL to the
example so that others can verify that it is a *real* example not a
*theoretical* example.


>> I was hesitant to give links to the examples I found because most of
>> them were from Adult sites.  (Although my motivation is for non-adult
>> material, adult examples are easier to find.)

I'm confident that you can find sufficient non-Adult examples so let's focus
on those so we can have links.


>> If people are OK with me posting links to that kind of material (for
>> examples) I'll do so.  But I (perhaps wrongly) suspected they
>> wouldn't.
>>
>> Let me know though.
>> 

I think your guess makes sense.  There is a broad variety of folks working
on microformats, and there's just less to worry about if we keep it kid-safe
/ work-safe.



>>> Second there should
>>> be a *-formats document where previous/current *formats* that attempt to
>>> solve the problem are documented.  Neither of these have been created, and
>>> the process page is quite clear about this.
>> 
>> I'll admit that I should have read the process page more closely.  But
>> I have been documenting what I've been seeing in the wild on the
>> show-brainstorming page.  (In the section titled " Current Practice".)
>>  Would it be sufficient to just move these to a page called
>> "show-formats"?

Yes, except that there is the larger problem that "shows" are just one type
of media, and there is a lot of overlap.  It's not clear that there should
be something special just for "shows".


>>> 2. As far as I can tell, this is nothing but a link to a piece of media, in
>>> particular video.  This is ignoring (since it doesn't even mention it),
>>> several existing standards and microformats:
>>> 
>>>  a. To indicate that the type of data being linked to is video, use the
>>> appropriate mime type, e.g. <a type="video/mpeg" href="show.mpg">...</a>
>>> 
>>>  b. rel-enclosure handles the "download this" semantic already.
>>> 
>>> There is nowhere near enough justification for a new microformat for this.
>> 
>> The motivation behind a "show microformat" is to.... (1) tell you how
>> to play the media file(s).  (This is especially important when there
>> is more than one file, or alternatives.)  (2) attach (more) metadata
>> to the show (and not just the individual media files).  (But most
>> importantly, it's about telling you how to "play" a set of media
>> files.)

That "play a set" is very different from just information about one media
item.


>> It's not just about pre-downloading stuff.  It's more about "how to
>> play it".  (If you look at some of the previous stuff I've written in
>> reference to this type of thing, I mention <a>'s type attribute and
>> rel-enclosure.  In fact, I did expect them to be important parts of a
>> "show microformat".)

Ok.


>>> 3. AFAIK, there has been no attempt to work with this within the current
>>> media-metadata or video-metadata work/research.
>> 
>> I'm a little unclear about what you mean by this -- what you mean by
>> "work within".  (Do you just mean put all this stuff on one of those 2
>> pages?)

I mean that there is a lot of overlap, and rather than creating pages that
solve a slightly different problem, it makes more sense to figure out how
your work fits into the existing work.  This is not always easy, but the
alternative is that everybody creates their own slightly different page to
work on their own slightly different microformat which is much worse.


>> I referenced those works.  And mentioned that it should be
>> used for its "metadata" work.  None of those pages seemed to say
>> anything about "playing" (which is what I was trying to work on with
>> the "show-brainstorming" page.)  (But perhaps "playing" information
>> could be considered "metadata".  I didn't think it would be.)

"playing" information could even be considered different from the list of
things to play.

For example, you might have a list, and you might have shuffle vs. once in
order, vs. repeat etc.


>>> Rather than inventing a
>>> new media related microformat, please first understand existing work towards
>>> media microformats, and work within that research.
>>> 
>>>   http://microformats.org/wiki/media-metadata-examples
>>> 
>>> This has been requested several times in this thread.
>> 
>> I never received any of those messages.  (I don't even seem them in
>> the Microformats mailing list archive.)

Hmm... Look for previous emails in the archive with "Show Microformat
Brainstorming" in the subject. There were quite a few.


>>> Rather than creating new pages for a specific type of media microformat,
>>> please instead work on the media-metadata-* pages.  There has been a lot of
>>> thinking by a lot of smart folks put into trying to figure out
>>> media-metadata (even just links), and ignoring that is blatant violation of
>>> the process -- don't ignore nor reinvent earlier work.
>> 
>> Given that what I'm trying to address is "playing" of media, do you
>> still feel that I should be going at this from those pages?

Yes.  At a minimum, they are sufficiently related that you should be making
sure they both make sense together.

Initially your examples looked more like media metadata than something about
"playing".

As pointed out in the previous message, we (all of us interested in media
related microformats) need to clean up the media-metadata-examples page.  If
you put your name on the contributors list, please jump in and help.  Worst
comes to worst, I can try reformatting/reorganizing it like other
microformats' pages.

Thanks,

Tantek