[uf-discuss] Re: one citation microformat use case (Michael McCracken)

[Ryan Cannon]

I agree that the use of hAtom + citation, or even Atom + citation  
(hCite?) would be a good method to syndicate citation formats. The  
discussion of citations has been kicking up and then dying a number  
of times, and I take some of the blame as one of the people who'd  
like to push the format along not taking enough initiative.

I think the most difficult part of the hCite discussion is framing  
our 80/20. Most bloggers and less formal writers only define  
references to other web sites as a single link, without much in the  
was of data to be marked up by a Microformat, where as academics seem  
to be looking for a locator and authenticity-validator not unlike MLA  
or Chicago, while librarians and others have been talking about  
including even more data in order to form a complete (pardon the  
jargon pun) framework for resource description.

I think the problem that hCite would be trying to solve, however,  
would be the current inability to create a reference (hyper- or not)  
to another work in a way that comports validity information to the  
reader *without viewing the work*. hCite would be an attempt to  
standardize that process and therefore allow both people and tools to  
better understand the information.

-- 
Ryan Cannon

Interactive Developer
MSI Student, School of Information
University of Michigan
http://RyanCannon.com/


On 11 Feb 2006, at 3:00 PM, microformats-discuss- 
request at microformats.org wrote:

> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 19:25:48 -0800
> From: Michael McCracken <michael.mccracken at gmail.com>
> Subject: [uf-discuss] one citation microformat use case
> To: microformats-discuss at microformats.org
> Message-ID:
> 	<d4fa3cf70602101925s7bf082e4g809156385807e47e at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Hi, I just found the recent conversations about a citation  
> microformat, and
> saw that the discussion slowed down around the same time someone  
> asked about
> what problem we're solving. I'd like to add my two cents:
>
> I have a particular use case in mind: I would like to have my  
> publications
> list on my home page have enough detail to reconstruct at least a  
> BibTeX
> entry from it, and ideally something richer. I'd also really like  
> to be sure
> that there's an element that's a link to a hard-copy of the  
> referenced item
> for download, if available.
>
> Given such a microformat, I'd add support to BibDesk to generate it  
> from
> BibTeX (and our upcoming database format), and support to add items  
> from a
> web page directly to a database in BibDesk. I would also like to be  
> able to
> subscribe to a page with data in this format, so I'd know when new
> publications were added.
>
> So, I'd like to hear opinions (since I'm new to the idea of  
> microformats) on
> how to support subscriptions with the citation format, and whether  
> or not
> it'd be best done by also using hAtom.
>
> I've been wanting to add this kind of support to BibDesk for years,  
> and the
> number of citation metadata formats has made it difficult to decide  
> on a
> good path to take.
>
> Thanks,
> -mike
>
> --
> Michael McCracken
> UCSD CSE PhD Candidate
> research: http://www.cse.ucsd.edu/~mmccrack/
> misc: http://michael-mccracken.net/blog/