[uf-discuss] CFP microformat?

[Tantek Ç elik]

Hi Mike,

While this is starting to feel less like a general (80%) and more like a
vertical (20%) application/use case, having had to deal with CFPs myself,
I'm certainly sympathetic.

I'd say to start with, compile a list of URLs to examples of CFPs on the web
so we can start to document the actual common elements in use in real-world
CFPs.

Whether or not we end up with a microformat, documenting common CFP
publishing behaviors is likely to be beneficial.

Thanks,

Tantek


On 5/19/06 5:24 PM, "Michael McCracken" <michael.mccracken at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all, I'd like to start some discussion into a call-for-papers microformat.
> 
> Here's the problem to solve:
> 
> Publications at conferences are important for many academics' careers.
> Keeping track of submission and event dates and locations - and time
> zones - is important. Doing that  with less effort would be a big
> improvement. Right now most CFP's are distributed by email and posted
> on the conference web site in a lightly marked-up version of the
> email. Possibly the most common way to find out about conference
> details is to forwarded a CFP email by one's advisor, who gets spammed
> regularly with those emails. There are problems with that system -
> email loss, no good filter (there are bogus conferences), checking for
> deadline updates is common, and manual.
> 
> A microformat to mark up calls for papers could make it easier for
> authors to find conferences they're interested in, keep track of them,
> and plan publications. It could make it much easier to publicize
> conferences, which now involves manually* submitting to various
> databases and finding appropriate mailing lists to spam.
> 
> I already have a few examples and some notes on what they have in
> common - it's not too complex - but I wanted to put this idea out
> before I went ahead and created a wiki page, in case someone can
> suggest a more general solution that would work better.
> 
> One note is that it certainly isn't just an hEvent - a CFP usually
> contains at least a description, a list of related topic keywords, at
> least two date ranges, and information about several people and
> institutions.
> 
> So, what do you think, folks?
> -mike
> 
> * "manually" in this context may just mean "manually telling your grad
> students to do it", but still...