[uf-new] Re: Re: Tweaking hListing for microphilanthropy

[Michael Everett-Lane]

Thanks Alexandre for your input on this project!


>Hello michael and congratulations for trying to adopt microformats fo
your organization.

>I do not believe it's needed anything extra to be created in order to
fulfill what you want. Everything can be >>acoomplished using hListing

>> -- So an organization seeking a donation would format it Listing
Type:
>> Wanted, Listing Action: Donate, Listing Item: Cash

>I would simply use
>Listing action: Wanted
>item: money
>description: Donate money to my organization!


So to seek a donation for a project, I should mark it up as:

Listing action: Wanted
Item: Money

Is "money" the standard term here, rather than "cash" or "specie" or
"legal tender"? I haven't delved into hCurrency but I want to be sure
that "money" is the standard here, since we want it to be standard
across all microphilanthropy sites.


>>
>> -- Someone looking to donate an old PC would format it Listing Type:
>> Offer, Listing Action: Donate, Listing Item: Product
>>

>Listing action: Offer
>item: Old PC
>price: free

Again, should the standard be "free" or "zero" or "$0" ?

>> -- An organization trying to find a volunteer would have Listing
Type:
>> Wanted, Listing Action: Donate, Listing Item: Service

>Listing action: Wanted
>item: volunteers
>price (salary): none

"none", "free" or "zero" or "$0" ?


>> * Some organizations (like Kiva) are doing microloans, instead of 
>> microphilanthropy. So in addition to Sell, Rent, Trade, Meet, 
>> Announce, and Donate, "Loan" would be useful as a Listing Action. 
>> (Could also be useful for facilitating borrowing relationships of 
>> items.)

>that maybe true. But you can only loan money. The best action would be
Borrow. So this way it can be expanded to other >
things: borrow a book, borrow a cd, borrow a car.

"Loan" works for things other than money -- I can loan you my car, my
book, etc. Loan and Borrow are just inverse, I believe, so the
Microformat Powers That Be would just need to select one. Or should it
be both? I think "Loan Needed" is easier on the ears than "Offer To
Borrow" but that's just me.


>>Listing action: Offer to borrow
>>item: money
>price: mm tricky.. would this be interest rates? maybe the money
quantity?

>>
>> * One other addition to hListing that might be useful in this context

>> is "Cost" (in addition to "Price"). In a commercial setting (say, 
>> you're trying to sell a used item on eBay), Cost would represent what

>> you paid for the item. So Price - Cost would get you the markup (or 
>> markdown). In a philanthropic context, Cost would represent the cost 
>> to make a project happen. If the project were already partially 
>> funded, then Price < Cost, and Price / Cost would give you the % 
>> remaining to completely fund that project. (Many microphilanthropy 
>> sites bundle lots of donations to make up one project.) That's 
>> probably the least important tweak but I thought I'd put it out there
while I was thinking about it.
>>

>maybe changing the term price to cost might be interesting, but for
other reasons. Theprice of something on ebay maybe one but the total
cost of owning it (including taxes and shipping) may be higher. But to
add this to the microformat, i don't know.

>I would descirbe it more like a:

>Listing action: Offer
>item: Shares of my project / Microsponsorship / Filanthropic Membership
>price: xUS$ for each 1% share

I think that "Cost" *could* be useful in a commercial context (is this
item being marked up or marked down?) but there is sufficient confusion
about the difference between "Cost" (what it cost to make the item) and
"Price" (what you pay for the item) that it would not be worth changing
the standard for it. Too many buyers would assume that "Cost"
represented the "cost" to the buyer, not to the seller. 

Thanks for your help!

-- Mike Everett-Lane