[uf-discuss] Need for plain-language intros for each microformat

[Brian Suda]

On 8/29/07, Manu Sporny <msporny at digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
> Andy Mabbett wrote:
> > I think it's time we moved the specs to *-spec or *-specification, and
> > used the "root" page for each microformat, such as the above, for a
> > plain-language introduction, taking care to avoid jargon as much as
> > possible.

--- moving the specs would break links from all over the web and in
dead tree books that say "you can view the hCard spec at ..." Cool
URIs don't change. It is probably a better idea create new pages about
each format and point people to those instead and link the specs to
them.

> There have been several times where I've pointed
> somebody to a uF specification page to give them an overview and they
> just come back claiming that the page didn't really tell them
> anything... or worse, it confused them.

--- while i agree that a good explication of what hCard, et al are,
the specs are not always the best place too put this.

"... I've pointed somebody to a uF specification page to give them an
overview ..."

The simple answer would be to create another overview page and point
interested people there. When you want to learn more about HTML, do
you look at the w3c spec or do you look else where? what is that else
where? sometimes it is a primer, or info, or examples, or explanation,
or about pages, sometimes they are w3c controlled sometimes not.

http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-overview
http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-about
http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-primer
http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-my-thoughts
http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-info
http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-explained

could all be candidates for better explaining what an hCard is... as
well, it doesn´t have to be hosted here. As was pointed out, the
wikipedia entry is also a good place to explain the explanation and
tell people they can read that as well.

Microformats are all about bottom-up, we don´t need a central silo for
"all things microformats". It is OK to have discussions, definitions
about formats NOT on our wiki.

I´m all for cleaning things-up and giving more explanations, but this
shouldn't be to the detriment of the specs and existing links,
especially when it is so easy to create new pages on the wiki.

-brian

-- 
brian suda
http://suda.co.uk