[uf-new] microformat granularity: currency and measure

[Scott Reynen]

On Jul 19, 2007, at 1:23 AM, Andy Mabbett wrote:

>>   * Occurrence of dated money amounts is judged rare: See
>> http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2006- 
>> September
>> /005802.html
>
> ...for some value of "rare". I have provided evidence of widespread  
> use f historical monetary values. "Five dollars" today does not  
> have the same value as "five dollars" did a hundred, or even  
> twenty, years ago.

For what it's worth (I don't expect much), I share Guillaume's  
impression that historical values are not necessary for a useful  
simple-as-possible baseline version of currency.  Also, have we  
explored alternative means of capturing this information, e.g. hCal?

>> "symbol" suffered the same lack of consensus, possibly due to a  
>> lack of understanding of the benefits. Maybe a more detailed  
>> explanation of the benefits of such a class name would be worth  
>> writing. If I understood correctly, the main value would be for a  
>> user agent to be able to replace it with the symbol of the  
>> currency that the amount is converted to. If that's the case, I  
>> would argue that a user agent may not want to replace the content,  
>> since it may fool the user into believing that these amounts are  
>> guaranteed by the publisher/merchant, where in fact, they would be  
>> mere estimates, which may differ from the actual rate charged by  
>> the merchant or the financial intermediary.
>
> That's  hypothetical argument backed with no evidence.

As is the value of "symbol," which I gather was Guillaume's point,  
and a larger concern.  Until that value is explained more  
convincingly and gains more consensus, is there any harm in moving  
forward with the smaller set of properties everyone already  
supports?  We can always add "symbol" later, right?  Or is "symbol"  
so important that a currency microformat is useless without it?  If  
so, that importance isn't yet apparent.

--
Scott Reynen
MakeDataMakeSense.com


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