[uf-discuss] Using hCalendar to Create History Timelines

[brian suda]

We discussed briefly the issues with ISO Dates on the Dev  List
http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-dev/2005-December/000045.html

Recently, at reboot 8, which was all about the 14th century renaissance,
there has been use of vevents to describe events that took place
hundreds of years ago[1,2].

Because hCalendar uses ISO Dates we are limited. We can't switch easily
between gregorian and julian, as well as describe BCE dates, or circa 1492.

-brian

[1] - http://adactio.com/articles/1132/
[2] - http://adactio.com/journal/1141/

Jeremy Boggs wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm new to the list and new to microformats, so I hope the list
> doesn't mind an newbie inquiry.
>
> I'm a web designer at the Center for History and New Media
> (http://chnm.gmu.edu) at George Mason University, where we build
> scholarly, educational, and exhibit-based websites related to history,
> as well as a number of tools for educators and historians. One tool
> we're creating is called Timeline Builder, which will be a simple way
> for anyone to create and display historical timelines. The hCalendar
> microformat seems perfect for this kind of tool. We're thinking of
> making something like the hCard creator, where a teacher or student
> could go fill out a form, adding events, and generating a timeline
> they could use on their own website or save in a user account.
>
> A few questions:
>
> 1. Is marking up events that happened decades or centuries ago with
> hCalendar an abuse of the spec and/or the spirit of the hCalendar
> format? I know the wiki page says its good for "writeups of past
> events", but I'm wondering if events hundreds of years in the past is
> what the spec has in mind.
>
> 2. Has someone does this already, or discussed it already? I've done a
> few searches with no luck.
>
> 3. Is this something worth pursuing, and a good application of
> microformats, or so problematic to make it futile?
>
> My biggest concerns involve date parsing in general, various changes
> in calendars and dating in the past (e.g. the switch from Julian to
> Gregorian calendar in the 16th century), and accounting for dating
> systems in other regions and cultures, present and past.
>
> I've got lots more questions for the list, depending of course on the
> answers to the questions I've posed above and related specifically to
> how to mark up different kinds of historical events with hCalendar.
>
> Thanks!
> Jeremy Boggs
>
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