[uf-discuss] RE: Microformats and RDFa not as far apart as previously thought

[Guillaume Lebleu]

Belov, Charles wrote:
> I feel it is unreasonable to ask a non-technical person to produce 
> ISO-format dates/times, so microformats do not produce an acceptable 
> solution at this time for marking up meeting announcements.
I agree that only an editor extension would make writing ISO-format 
date/time practical by humans, which I never felt was compliant with 
"designed for humans first, machine second".

What about the idea of a plain old English microformat ("POEM"?) based 
on well-known practices in various languages [1], in the tradition of 
"paving the cows path": these practices are pretty-well established IMO 
and used by authors in the newspapers, magazines, etc. For instance, in 
English:

<span class="dstart" lang="en-us">October 5, 2004</span>
<span class="dstart" lang="en-us">10/5/2004</span>
<span class="dstart" lang="fr">5 Octobre 2004</span>
<span class="dstart" lang="fr">5/10/2004</span>

The locale could be specified locally (lang="en-us") or inherited from 
the HTML document or a containing div.

Granted it would make the parsing more complex, but it would comply with 
"designed for humans first, machine second".

Also, additional class would be required to distinguish the date part 
from the time part in something like:

<span class="dstart" lang="en-us"><span class="date">October 5, 
2004<span> at <span class="time">6PM</span></span>

Just an idea,

Guillaume

[1] http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/vocabulary/date/written