[uf-discuss] Hidden metadata no microformats

[Benjamin West]

On 7/2/07, Patrick H. Lauke <redux at splintered.co.uk> wrote:
> Benjamin West wrote:
> > http://tantek.com/log/2005/06.html#d03t2359 "Principles of visibility
> > and human friendliness".
> >
> > One question invisible metadata raises is if it's not worth seeing,
> > why is it worth publishing?
>
> Because tools/extensions expose them to end users in a way that is far
> more user/human friendly than merely making the raw metadata visible.
> Whether or not authors "forget" to update the metadata, or purposely try
> to game it, if it's not visible is an authoring/policy issue, not a
> technical issue that should be solved by a language's specification
> ("because some bad people tried to do bad things with it, we're just not
> giving you the opportunity, full stop").
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke

I'm not sure what you mean.  We aren't talking about raw data.  We are talking
about data that has been marked up.  In addition, no one has said there is
some kind of mutually exclusive relationship between authors of visible vs
invisible data.  FWIW, nothing in microformats actually prohibits invisible
metadata.  It's certainly possible to set display:none.  In fact, the
phrasing quoted by Andy was "visible data is much better for humans than
invisible metadata".

-Ben