[uf-discuss] Citation format straw proposal on the wiki

[Scott Reynen]

On Mar 29, 2006, at 1:53 PM, Alf Eaton wrote:

> I just think it would be hard for a processor to process a  
> microformatted citation if it didn't know what type it was and thus  
> which elements to look for. If looking for a class="type" inside  
> the citation and getting the information from there is easier than  
> looking for a classname in the parent then fair enough.

It's not any easier.  Any microformat parser must be able to read  
class names.  The question is whether "book" is data or metadata in  
the context of a citation.  If no one is publishing it, the answer  
would seem to be metadata.  But a lot of what we would normally  
consider data is implied by strict citation formatting rules, and  
XHTML doesn't have the same constraints.

> To distinguish the people from editors or other contributors? You  
> could add that information into each person's hcard instead, but it  
> seems better this way. It could have an effect on the display  
> formatting too.

hcard's "role" was made for this type of labeling.  The display  
formatting could be handled by the include pattern:

<span class="vcard">
     <span class="role" id="#a">Author</span>s:
    <span class="n"><span class="family-name">Hochstein</span>, <abbr
title="Lorin" class="given-name">L</abbr></span>
</span> and
<span class="vcard">
     <span class="n"><span class="family-name">Smith</span>, <abbr
title="Jane" class="given-name">J</abbr></span>
    <object data="#a" class="include" type="text/html"></object>
</span>

That would display just like the <div class="authors"> container, and  
it would have the added benefit of producing more descriptive  
vcards.  I don't yet see any advantage in not using hcard to describe  
people and organizations in citations.

Peace,
Scott