[uf-discuss] Microformats search engine: virel

[Brian Suda]

2008/7/7 Angus McIntyre <angus at pobox.com>:
>
> Christian Heilmann wrote:
>> That's got nothing to do with microformats ...
>
> With due respect, I don't completely accept that. A case could be made
> that factors that influence people's adoption of microformats are
> legitimate topics for discussion. Uneasiness about the 'spammability' of
> addresses published in hCard is a deterrent to full adoption of that
> microformat for many users.

--- the argument is orthogonal to microformats because this is not
unique to microformats. Any time you add more semantic information to
your data it potentially increases the 'spammability' of it. This goes
for RDFa, eRDF, RDF, POSH, microformats, RSS and anything else might
come along in the future.

>> ... This is about unearthing information we already publish and
>> make easier to access and re-use it, which is the opposite of
>> obfuscating.
>
> OK, so there's an implicit challenge here. For users who are unwilling to
> expose their email address through hCard, what alternative mechanisms can
> microformats support? Many website owners use mail forms instead of
> publishing their email addresses. Is there a need for something like a
> simple 'rel=contactform' microformat to signal the availability and
> location of a mail contact form?

You could simply use class="URL" with a new rel-value. You can also
mark-up your Chat profiles with their specific protocols, aim: msn:
jabber: etc. Other people only vend the data after someone has
authenticated themselves, so the microformats are NOT available to the
general public, but instead to a white-list of contacts.

-brian

-- 
brian suda
http://suda.co.uk