[uf-discuss] Scraping or parsing?

Sun Mar 4 13:06:58 PST 2007

On Mar 4, 2007, at 3:14 AM, Mike Schinkel wrote:
> Danny Ayers wrote:
>> if adding a profile
>> attribute is hard for webmasters, the right answer is to
>> make it easier rather than working around its absence.
>> The <head> of a HTML document is an important part of the
>> chain of authoritative metadata [1].
>
> ... Taking such a position is completely impractical because of the
> proliferation of blogs, wikis, and cms that empower users to  
> publish content
> with no access to the <head>.  Access may be denyed because the  
> content
> publisher [for a number of legitimate reasons].
>
> You could say "Well the answer then is to get all the developers of  
> all
> those apps to provide the content publishers access to the <head>  
> and then
> get all the existing apps in the field replaced with the new  
> versions!"
> However, I think you'll agree that requiring such an approach is  
> impractical
> when it is possible to craft a workaround.

Adding an @profile attribute to he <head> element is far less  
technically
demanding than, say, creating a tag space, which we also require.  
Especially as
the addition also has no performance or usability impact.

I also think that authoring microformats with the intent that they be  
usable
to the CMS-using/WYSIWG masses is a pipe dream. Users should *not* be  
encouraged
to publish HTML markup they cannot read. Robust microformatted content
will always require either an understanding of how to hand-code HTML  
or a tool
to help generate it--is it unreasonable to think that the meeting of  
either
condition implies the ability to add an @profile as well for 80% of  
cases?

-- 
Ryan Cannon

Interactive Developer
MSI Student, School of Information
University of Michigan
http://RyanCannon.com