[microformats-discuss] Re: [Geowanking] geo microformat BOF session at Where 2.0

[Ryan King]

On Jul 7, 2005, at 2:26 PM, Bud Gibson wrote:
> My main point in raising this was actually to try to push  
> discussion forward on this list, particularly in a direction that  
> real people could use.  While I appreciate (and in some sense even  
> like) the idea of geographic precision and the data it would bring,  
> I have to ask myself the real question of how achievable it is.

This is why our solution is 'address primary and geo secondary.' Geo  
is not achievable for uses (one of the reasons why geourl has a good  
deal of inaccurate data), but should be accommodated.

> Also, you get an issue of coverage.

?

> Whether the effort needs to be split or not is a question I'll  
> leave to the group.  Personally, I could see splitting it because I  
> believe the precise place location coordinates are most likely to  
> come from some source other than the users as is indicated by this  
> tell tale interchange between someone named "bewest" , Ryan, and  
> myself on IRC last night:
>
>> budGibson
>> Who's going to fill in all of this information?  I imagine  
>> geowankers all out there with their GPSs, but what about the rest  
>> of us.
>> bewest
>> well it's not necessary for humans to fill out lat long computers  
>> can do it if it's a part of the standard
>> kingryan
>> right, bewest, but microformats are for humans first
>> budGibson
>> right on ryan baby

Just a note of clarification- I think bewest was arguing for geo-only  
and I was trying to point out that street address is just as important.

> Ryan, let me hit a few of your points:
>
>> This idea has come up several times before and was actually my  
>> original idea (in f2f conversations with Tantek and Kevin). It has  
>> also come up as  a current practice on http://microformats.org/ 
>> wiki/location-formats and come up during the BOF.
>
> I remember raising it during the BOF as something akin to what I  
> now describe as bdgeotag (brain dead geotagging).  There's a  
> difference between a URL representation of a place and a tag that  
> represents a place.
>
> bdgeotag is meant to allow people latitude in describing place  
> names while tying them to having their tag actually resolve to  
> something.  My point is that the tag only need to resolve to  
> something via some transformation.  The ultra lazy method of  
> achieving this transformation is to say its gotta work in a geo  
> search service.

I was talking about the "ultra lazy method." You're right these two  
schemes are different and were getting confused here. (maybe "use  
lazy methods when possible should be added to the microformats  
principles" :-))

So we really have to proposals here:

1. tagging using named places
2. tagging with address info

They could certainly be used together, but would lead to different  
applications.

> <snip>
> To some extent, I am just shaking the tree here.

Shake away. Hopefully someone else will speak up.
-ryan