wiki-thon? Re: [uf-discuss] Microformats.org usability review

[Mark Rickerby]

On 2/3/06, Tantek Çelik <tantek at cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> We want far more use of existing microformats than invention of new
> microformats.
>
> Using microformats should be as easy as possible.
>

This is exactly what prompted me to start looking at the way that the
website communicates to new users... hCalendar, hCard, hAtom, and
hReview, cover a staggering range of possibilities, and I feel there
is a need for basic, beginner level explanations of how to get
started.

I'm sure that some people intuitively breezed through the transition
from the table based paradigm to semantic HTML (I learned pure CSS
layouts when the original IE/Mac came out, so went through a little
less pain than some), but for many designers, this has been a
difficult and uncertain process of relearning. I feel that with
microformats.org, there is a real chance to smooth the next stage of
this transition, and deliver something of great value.

Wiki hackathon sounds like a good idea, but I think that the overall
process is best served by concrete suggestions and actions, which can
be placed on the to-do list, and then ticked off at any point when
people have free time to jump in and make something happen.

I'm in the NZ timezone, and damn busy at the moment, so probably won't
be able to make too much happen until mid next week. I enjoy writing,
so it's no problem really - it's fun to see just how much progress can
happen in a short space of time through iterative evolution in 5-30
minute editing jumps.

I have several interesting web projects on the go right now, which I
hope to use as case studies for several of these formats discussed
above, and I think eventually spending more time on this will be more
productive for everyone than me just editing the wiki, but for now
there is great momentum, I'll try to keep it going...

Regards,
Mark