[uf-discuss] Regarding POSH and misuse of the microformats logo

[Chris Messina]

I agree with Ben on this, and much of the other sentiment raised so
far. To simplify this discussion, I think POSH is useful as a
conceptual tool for reifying the definition of microformats:

POSH Patterns: semantic practices resulting in meaningful markup
Microformats: HTML-based data formats

I believe that POSH should actually become it's own parallel effort to
microformats -- and that the microformats wiki should link to external
resources, documentation and best practices for all things POSH. Now,
that doesn't have to happen right away, as we are still building out
the foundational corpus of information related to POSH, but I think
conflating microformats and POSH could end up confusing folks new to
either concept -- and as such needs a logical and geographic
delineation if we're to squeeze the most value out of this.

To that end, I think that whatever POSH-mark we come up with shouldn't
relate to the  microformats mark, either in color or typeface. While
the terms are siblings, the way we market them should be radically
different -- as should be the audiences of either term.

The audience of POSH is generally anyone who writes HTML, who works
with people who write HTML, CSS and AJAX developers, bloggers,
designers, hybrids, framework builders, language writers and so forth.

The microformats audience is similar, but should also include
standards folks, browser developers, and so on. Nor are the members of
these audiences mutually exclusive, but we must maintain
audience-specific priorities for each effort.

Finally, as to the POSH brand, I think there's still much to be done
to come up with a mark to represent the effort that is as cool or sexy
as the microformats icon itself. Dan Cederholm set the bar pretty high
on this one and I've already got a few designer-friends coming up with
something that I think you'll like, playing on the idea of "semantic
salt"...

So, it's something of a matter of time before we find a proper home
for POSH, but agree that long-term, the goal should be to separate out
the two efforts as distinct community efforts.

Chris

On 5/5/07, David Mead <davidjohnmead at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have to agree, and have cast my vote, that the use of the
> microformats logo with POSH isn't a good idea straight out of the
> gate.
>
> I do like Jon's badges so if I were to ever use one I'd be happy with
> one of those.
>
> Maybe I'm missing something but if you want to promote "plain old
> semantic HTML" then wouldn't you have that first and then add
> microformats to it?  So the POSH badge should be designed first and
> then an alternative to show you are using POSH with uF's.  Didn't the
> W3C have badges (I'm going back a bit now) for HTML, one for CSS and
> one combined?
>
> Maybe this is the way to go.  Get the foundation (POSH), add CSS,
> uF's, RSS what-have-you afterwards.
>
> I'm not a big one for badges anyway :-)
>
> Dave
>
> On 5/5/07, Jon Tan <microformats at gr0w.com> wrote:
> > Ben Ward wrote:
> > > Now the whole point of this is to differentiate semantic HTML from
> > > microformats, discourage the further ambiguation of the terms. So to
> > > be honest I'm a bit put out by the badges that have been added to
> > > http://microformats.org/wiki/posh#POSH_Bling_for_your_Blog which
> > > include the microformats logo.

> >
> > I've provided a plain HTML / CSS  alternative without the microformats logo:
> >
> > http://jontangerine.com/silo/microformats/posh-badge/
> >
> > Please feel free to use / adapt as you like.
> >
> > All the best,
> > Jon Tan
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > microformats-discuss mailing list
> > microformats-discuss at microformats.org
> > http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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> microformats-discuss at microformats.org
> http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
>


-- 
Chris Messina
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