calendar (and other) items aren't always tidy (was: Re: [uf-discuss] using microschema)

[ken]

On 11/26/2007 10:21 AM Ben Ward wrote:
> ....
> 
> Additionally, and I mean this more generally, everyone proposing
> anything into syntax must remember that microformats operate in HTML,
> not just XHTML. Any solution dependent on XML, such as self-closing
> elements which are not self-closing in HTML4, is not appropriate for
> microformats.

The idea of a semantic web is absolutely cool and I'm really looking
forward to the day when we have some standards agreed upon and we can
all start implementing them.  At the same time, I want those standards
to represent enough forward thinking that we don't end up
un-implementing them in favor of something else.  So...

Maybe I'm thinking too far outside the box, but it looks like the
formats proposed thus far all assume that the (html) content we'll be
"semanticizing" is going to written in such a way as to accommodate the
format, that all the information going (ultimately) into, say, the vCard
for one person will be presented discretely from the vCard information
for another person.  For example, suppose we have the following text in
a (fictitious local sports) webpage:

"Bobby and Billy are on the same football team and on Sunday they're
playing against the Falcons, whose coach is Ron Smith.  Ron Smith is
Bobby and Billy's father.  The brothers are also the star quarterback
and star fullback at Pittsfield High."

In short, in this paragraph the information on one person is
interspersed with information about the others.  Moreover, though the
paragraph doesn't say explicitly, we know that the brothers' last name
is Smith.  In realworld texts, the information on people is seldom
separated out in a way convenient for the sort of formatting which has
been proposed, i.e., with beginning and end tags and all relevant in
between and with no other semantically-desirable information between the
opening and closing tags.  I would think, too, that a lot of the work
that will arise after semantic formatting is implemented will be in
older, already published texts, stuff that can't be rewritten with
semantic formatting in mind.


best,
ken

-- 
Thou shalt not molest a stranger, nor afflict him: for
yourselves also were strangers in the land of Egypt.
		--Exodus 22:21