[uf-discuss] Citation: display-first?

[Michael McCracken]

On 3/28/06, Bruce D'Arcus <bdarcus.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/28/06, Michael McCracken <michael.mccracken at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ...
>
> > Basically, what I'm wondering is: if I'm marking up a citation, why
> > does it matter if I sometimes need to do something like this:
> >
> > <a class="title url"
> > href="http://www.library.yale.edu/scilib/modmodexplain.html">eprint
> > Moderator Model</a>
> > <span class="author vcard">
> > <a href="http://pantheon.yale.edu/~dstern/dsbio.html" class="url
> > fn">David Stern</a>
> > </span>
> >
> > and sometimes this:
> >
> > <a class="title url"
> > href="http://www.library.yale.edu/scilib/modmodexplain.html">eprint
> > Moderator Model</a>
> > <span class="author vcard">
> > <a href="http://pantheon.yale.edu/~dstern/dsbio.html" class="url
> > fn">David Stern</a>
> > </span>
>
> I've not yet had my morning coffee, but aren't the two above the same?

Ah, yes - I should probably have waited for my morning coffee.
I meant to change the second one to put the title after the author.

> Also, what is it about the above that you think is different than the
> dominant thrust of the existing discussion?

If you mean what is different about my example, nothing. I just wanted
to ask about the problems raised in the 'orignal hBib discussion' -
where data ordering might be needed to be reworked for display, and my
question was basically whether that was actually a problem for the
design of the microformat.

> > Because allowing that seems more in step with the humans-first
> > microformats methodology - we don't need to define a data format that
> > can represent everything, we *do* need to give people a way to mark up
> > citations they already produce in a way that provides more structure.
>
> I think it's critical to get the basic structure of the modeling
> right, and that will achieve what you ask for above.
>
> The wrong approach is to just use a series of flat key-values, and to
> borrow those from BibTeX.
>
> The right approach is to define a basic set of relations, and a list
> of properties.
>
> Alf Eaton and I were discussing this just yesterday, in fact, and the
> example he sent me (hope he doesn't mind if I post it here!) is close
> to what I'd advocate:
>
> <div class="bibliography" id="x-JMIR-v7i4e49-bibliography">
>     <ol class="reference-list">
>         <li class="citation reference book chapter" id="x-JMIR-v7i4e49-ref15">
>                 <a class="uri" href="urn:isbn:45346327"/>
>                 <span class="title">Advanced interactive video design: new
> techniques and applications</span>.
>                 <span class="author name">Duppa N</span> and
>                 <span class="author name">Anderson K</span>.
>                 <span class="container">
>                         <span class="year">1988</span>.
>                         <span class="title">Book Title</span>
>                         <span class="editors">
>                                 <span class="editor">Jane Doe</span> and
>                                 <span class="editor">Simon Smith</span> (Eds)
>                         </span>
>                         <span class="publisher">
>                                 <span class="location">New York</span>
>                                 <span class="name">ABC Books</span>
>                         </span>
>                 </span>
>                 <span class="pages">
>                         <span class="page-start">33</span>-
>                         <span class="page-end">56</span>
>                 </span>
>         </li>
>     </ol>
> </div>
>
> My only complaint is that the "book" class really out to be on the
> "container" span. I also think there are some other details to
> address.  But I like it, and I think it's critical that the MF
> recognize that bibliographic metadata is not flat, and that BibTeX
> fields like "journal" are thus too limiting.
>
> > Does anyone think I'm way off base here? I've started a use-case
> > section on citation-brainstorming, and added my personal axe to grind
> > - I'm interested to see other takes on what specifically a citation
> > microformat would be used for.
>
> To me your first use case is the most compelling. I think RSS/RDF
> already does a better job at handling syndication than can be
> reasonably achieved with microformats.

A citation microformat would be an excellent choice to use as the
content of RSS items, however - that's something I'd been trying to
find a solution for for some time.

> An aside:
>
> I am on the OpenDocument Technical Committee. We've recently created a
> metadata subcommittee, whose task is to add enhanced metadata support
> to the file format.
>
> It is highly likely we will be using RDF in some form. So for me, an
> important requirement of any microformat is that it be easy to
> transform to RDF (and back).


--
Michael McCracken
UCSD CSE PhD Candidate
research: http://www.cse.ucsd.edu/~mmccrack/
misc: http://michael-mccracken.net/wp/