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

[Derrick Lyndon Pallas]

Ciaran McNulty wrote:
> 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 tag applies to the link; not the content, and certainly not the 
whole contents of the page. If I search for "pages with tag foo" and a 
page with a link to something tagged foo comes up, that's not what I wanted.

> 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'?
It can be. But xFolk and hReview, etc., specifically change the 
semantics of rel-tag in their definitions. The problem is that there is 
no way to tell where that semantic shift ends (i.e. what scope it has) 
without understanding xFolk and hReview. Are we going to require all old 
microformat parsers to understand all new microformats?

> 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.
"Consistency - the design must not be inconsistent. A design is allowed 
to be slightly less simple and less complete to avoid inconsistency. 
Consistency is as important as correctness." 
<http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html>

~D