admins, prefix exceptions (was Re: [admin] Declaring end of thread (was Re: [uf-discuss] Comments from IBM/Lotus rep about Microformats))

[Tantek Ç elik]

On 12/9/06 12:11 PM, "Andy Mabbett" <andy at pigsonthewing.org.uk> wrote:

> In message <C1A04F53.8242C%tantek at cs.stanford.edu>, Tantek Çelik
> <tantek at cs.stanford.edu> writes
> 
>> I am ending this thread of >50 messages now
> 
> That's interesting - with what authority do you "declare end of thread".
> Isn't this supposed to be a community, and isn't that or the community
> to do?
> 
> If there is an autocracy (or some other non-community based management
> system) here, then surely it should be openly and honestly documented?

I am an admin on this list/site as is Ryan King.


<parsing discussion snipped because it is off topic for this list>


<theoretical worries also snipped because they are not a priority for
microformats>


>> 3. Prefixing (e.g. "vcard-") has already been considered and rejected for
>> microformats in general.  There have been deliberate exceptions made for one
>> microformat (hAtom).  I'm not going to spend the time re-arguing this now -
>> I have added an item to my to-do list on the wiki to better document this.
> 
> Thank you for making clear that it's currently not (well) documented.
> 
> Are we to understand also, that every decision, once made, even if
> ill-documented, is irrevocable?

No.


> Or should we deduce that, if deliberate exceptions can be made in one
> case, it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that deliberate exceptions
> be made in another?

Yes exceptions can be made but only with exceptionally good reasons.

In the case of hAtom, you can read through the archives for the reasoning in
depth, but in summary: since we were reusing the semantics of the IETF Atom
standard, we very much wanted to reuse the vocabulary as well to minimize
confusion and mean precisely the same semantics as defined in the Atom RFC
4287, and thus a few of the hAtom properties appear to be prefixed
(entry-title, entry-content, entry-summary) in order to literally reuse
those terms from the RFC (title, content, summary).

Perhaps that would be a good hatom-faq entry.

Thanks,

Tantek