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

[Ross Singer]

On 3/30/06, Bruce D'Arcus <bdarcus.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/30/06, Tim White <tjameswhite at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I understand the desire to capture "type" metadata - I wanted to
> > include it for the longest time. But - from a microformats point of
> > view - we have to keep two things in mind:
> >
> > 1) Humans first, machines second.
>
> At what point does this become mere dogma?  It sounds like what you're
> advocating in fact suggests "human first, who cares about machines";
> as if the one can't support the other in any case.


I can't agree with Bruce enough on this.  If it's easy to include, would
enable more functionality, but is not intended for display purposes, what is
the harm?  Having an arbitrary line drawn in the sand serves no purpose and
will be problematic in the future.

> This means keeping everything visible, not trapped in metadata. If you
> > really want to note that it's a photo then include that:


You know, this refrain keeps popping up and I'm just not buying it.  hCard
has a non-displaying 'tel' span (which would be similar to the
'journal|book|photograph|etc' we're discussing here.

"Vote Links" has non-displaying metadata.  XOXO as well.

> 2) "Adapted to current behaviors and usage patterns."
> > Microformats are suppose to be modeled on what people are currently
> > doing (80/20) on the web. I think of it in terms of the Everyman/woman.

"Everyman/woman" has no idea what microformats are.


Not only that, I think it's completely off-base as to where your 80/20 are!
If you look at the /vast/ majority of citations that are available via HTML,
they are /are not/ from Everyman/woman and frankly never would or could be.
Think of the potential of Google Scholar or Scirus or MSN's upcoming
Academic Live Search (esp. since, you know, MS invented microformats and
everything ;) if they adopted microformats and there are actual things you
could do with each citation result.

The potential of that is so much greater than any benefit of keeping it
confined to book reviews in blogs and CVs (although both can and should be
acheived).

In fact, I am meeting with MS about the Academic Live Search in a couple of
weeks to talk about, among other things, the possibility of including COinS
or mfs in their results.

While I agree, that unneeded complexity or overanalysis of use cases is bad
and should be avoided, making this good and useful and for more than just
hobbyists is critical at this point.

-Ross.
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