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

[Ciaran McNulty]

On 2/2/07, Derrick Lyndon Pallas <derrick at pallas.us> wrote:
> 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.

The tag applying to the page just means that there's something on the
page relevant to that tag.  And there is - the del.icio.us feed!

> The problem is
> not that they "may be applied to the page" it's that they "are applied
> to the page"

I meant 'may' as in 'yes, the parser can go ahead and apply them' - my
ambiguity sorry.

> and there are reasons that is inappropriate,

Can you expand on the reasons?

Basically, if a page has a blog entry about Cats and an hCard in the
category 'Dogs' on it, why can't that page validly be tagged with
'cats' and 'dogs'?

> 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.

I haven't looked at the different scoping proposals and certainly I'm
not saying yours is bad, I'm questioning the need to complicate what
is after all an incredibly simple format.

> 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.

That doesn't make any sense to me.

All a rel-tag parser would take from it would be that the page had
something on it about someone who's 'dead', surely.  I don't know
where it starts making inferences about me.

-Ciaran