[uf-discuss] what is a microformat? (was: Regarding POSH and misuse of the microformats logo)

[Andy Mabbett]

In message <463D9F00.1040701 at gmail.com>, Keith Alexander
<k.j.w.alexander at gmail.com> writes

>I think (at least) 3 distinctions need to be made:
>
>- 'vanilla' semantic HTML (using non-presentational html markup
>appropriate to the content it describes)
>- HTML-based data formats (actually, this is what I was looking for a
>term for when I suggested 'POSH')

How can something be "semantic HTML" but not be "plain old semantic
HTML"?

>- Microformats (HTML data formats that have gone through the
>Microformats Process - a canon of html data formats )

I see that more of a continuum than three distinct phases, and I think
that, over time, people will some to see the progression from the second
to the third of your stages not so much as requiring compliance with
what is, after all an arbitrary process, but as depending on community
uptake.

If many thousands of publishers start using the same "HTML data format"
and many parsers start to recognise that format, it's gong to be called
a microformat, whatever is said here. If it walks like a duck and quacks
like a duck...

Indeed, there are already microformats, such as "nofollow", which we
recognise as such, but which do not appear to have followed that
process.

-- 
Andy Mabbett
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