[uf-discuss] Principles of Microformats?

[Andy Mabbett]

In message
<8ad71be30612131647r453a90e0n561039eabcd8bf81 at mail.gmail.com>, Benjamin
West <bewest at gmail.com> writes

>Mike, interesting list.
>>
>> 1.) Includes visible-only
>Yeah, microformats only represent visible data.

There are exceptions to that, as has been pointed out, but also
including the "rel-" based uFs.

>> 6.) Recognition is exclusive
>Yes, a microformat exclusively refers to the product of the
>microformats process.  I honestly don't know why other usage has
>cropped up.

Because not everyone lives in an idealised world where everything has a
binary classification; and where language is fixed by its originators.

>> 12.) Centralized control and approval authority
>Controlling what? Authority of what?  Some resources are secured by a
>few for the health of the community, eg the mailing list, the wiki,
>the domain name...

That, as recently evidenced, is somewhat disputed.

>> 14.) No delegation of decision authority
>Decisions are spread throughout the community.

Likewise.

>> 17.) Inspired by needs of Bloggers and blog-related services
>Use cases involving bloggers are easy to come up with, however I
>started working on microformats before I had a blog!  Anyway, I
>suspect blogger-based use cases are good because they are so
>user-centric.  It is certainly not the focus of microformats, I think.

There's certainly nothing wrong with being /inspired by.../, but it's my
perception that there's a tendency in some quarters to think only in
terms of blogs, and blog-like behaviours.

>> 20.) Aims to avoid changing publishing behavior

Claiming to aim to is all well and good, but, again, there has recently
been evidence posted to show that that is not being achieved.


-- 
Andy Mabbett
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