[uf-discuss] Should microformat features (like rel-tag) have explicit scope?

[Derrick Lyndon Pallas]

> My point is that rel-tag doesn't have any scope, and I'm sort-of
> arguing it doesn't need it.
Except it does need it. Say you put your del.icio.us (or otherwise) feed 
on your page and want to include it and the associated tags as xFolk 
entries. How can a generic rel-tag parser know that the xFolk entires 
don't apply to the current page without knowing about xFolk. That's the 
scoping problem.

> However, a generic rel-tag parser doesn't need to know "don't look
> inside hAtom and hCard", as you seem to be suggesting.  Any rel-tags
> it finds may be applied to the page itself quite fairly, and so a
> rel-tag parser would say 'this page contains something relevant to FOO
> and something relevant to BAR.
False. The example above demonstrates that there is a use-case for 
having an explicit scope. In fact, the issue was brought up on the 
rel-tag-issues page 20060404 and has never been resolved. The problem is 
not that they "may be applied to the page" it's that they "are applied 
to the page" and there are reasons that is inappropriate, i.e.  we need 
to indicate scope. My solution (to indicate scope with a generic rel-tag 
counterpart and then allow specific parsers to override the scoping rule 
if they understand the containing element) is both general and powerful.

Take the example of a dead relative: there is no way to put a family 
tree with relatives you need to tag as "deceased" on your own page 
without a document level parser concluding that you are dead.

~D