[uf-discuss] hCard to represent simple entities

[Andy Mabbett]

In message <48329468-2E3F-422F-8288-C6C3634CC158 at eatyourgreens.org.uk>,
Jim O'Donnell <jim at eatyourgreens.org.uk> writes

>He may well have signed personal letters simply as "James".

In which case:

        <span class="vcard">
                <abbr class="fn" title="James Cook">James</abbr>
        </span>

Though presumably your pages would have an introduction, or at elast a
heading, giving his name as "James Cook".

>> As explained previously, hCard is not /just/ for contact details;
>>it's "for representing people, companies, organizations, and
>>places". That's quoted directly from its spec. And that's how it's
>>already being used, "in the wild".
>>
>Are there any examples where it's being used for something other than
>social networking?

Many:

        <http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-examples-in-wild>

here's one:

        <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook>

>> Indeed - and the appropriate class, in the latter case, would be
>>"vcard", with "fn, "honorary-prefix" and "given name" around the
>>content as per the hCard spec. Why would you want to invent a new
>>set of classes?
>
>
>I don't, if hcard will do the job. But I also have to be able to mark
>up the phrase 'William Hamilton's wife' with the name 'Emma  Hamilton',
>using the same set of classes, to indicate that she's also  a person.

If her name is elsewhere on the page,; use the "include-pattern".

If not, you're introducing "hidden metadata".

> hcard applies to one very specific subset of reference  strings, those
>which are the exact names of people, but not to  reference strings in
>general. A solution that doesn't apply to all  references to people may
>not be very useful to this particular problem.

Well, for your particular problem you can use hCards *and* tagging for
names:

        <span class="vcard">
          <a class="fn" href="/tag/james_cook" rel="tag">
            James Cook
          </a>
        </span>

and just tagging for more oblique references (hidden metadata issues not
withstanding):

        <a href="/tag/emma_hamilton" rel="tag">
          William Hamilton's wife
        </a>

The desire to use the latter does not render the former invalid, nor
superfluous. You can add a class of, say, "person" to each, if that
suits your needs.

-- 
Andy Mabbett