[uf-discuss] what is a microformat?

[Scott Reynen]

On May 6, 2007, at 9:32 AM, Keith Alexander wrote:

>> Indeed, there are already microformats, such as "nofollow", which we
>> recognise as such, but which do not appear to have followed that
>> process.
>>
> Given that, I'd perhaps redefine a 'Microformat' as  an HTML  
> convention (can something like 'nofollow' be called a 'data  
> format'?) endorsed by the Microformats community.

(I've never much liked rel-nofollow, so I'm largely biased when I say  
this:) I think it would be a mistake to redefine microformats such  
that rel-nofollow doesn't stand out.  The open issues in rel-nofollow  
[1] strongly suggest it's not really a microformat at all.  The  
issues are, basically: 1) the semantics are wrong, 2) the name is  
wrong, 3) it doesn't solve a real problem, and 4) it creates new  
problems.  I'd say that makes it almost the antithesis of a microformat.

[1] http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-nofollow#open_issues

Peace,
Scott