communications log, "tel" microformat? (was Re: [uf-discuss] Paving the cowpaths?)

[Benjamin Carlyle]

Tantek,

On Thu, 2005-11-24 at 10:25 -0800, Tantek Çelik wrote:
> In the mean time, as Ryan King as pointed out, there is nothing stopping you
> from simply marking up your phone calls using semantic class names, which
> you could re-use from hCard, to note the phone number in particular, e.g.:
> <span class="tel">+1.415.555.1212</span>

I know there are various groups on the Internet, all wanting to encode
the information of the world into their scheme. This is a neat
microformat approach, but an alternative might be to use a telephony
URI[1]. The number above might be represented instead as something like:
<a href="tel:+1.415.555.1212">+1.415.555.1212</a>

There are URI schemes for a variety of identifiable things. It may save
effort on the microformat side of the fence to make use of these where
available. Of course, the function of the scheme and the class may
differ. While it is clear that I'm identify a telephone number in my
href, it isn't clear what the telephone number means. Having a
microformat that indicates whether the telephone is for home or business
use and who it belongs to may be a more important focus.

To possibly rub you guys up a little bit more of the wrong way, perhaps
it is even worth reexamining the geo and addr microformats in favour of
developing URI-based alternatives.

Thoughts?

-- 
Benjamin Carlyle <benjamincarlyle at optusnet.com.au>
[1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3966.txt