[uf-new] ISBN, ISSN and the case for moving forward now

[Brian Suda]

ISBNs are special cases of unique identifiers. We do NOT need to
invent a system specifically to ISBNs, ISSN, ISBN-10, ISBN-13, etc....
microformats solve a GENERAL problem, not a specific one.

We have a mechanism already for unique identifiers, it is called UID!

Before any goes and proposes hISBN or hIdentifer, PLEASE, PLEASE,
PLEASE look at existing formats and technologies before proposing
anything, creating wiki pages, asking applications to support
something without looking at prior work!

The Citation format has discussed how to handle ISBNs with the UID and TYPES
http://microformats.org/wiki/citation-brainstorming#Outstanding_Issues

The UID brainstroming page has suggestions to re-use the abbr-design pattern:
http://microformats.org/wiki/uid-brainstorming#abbr_pattern

The UID examples page has examples from the wild, how they are marked-up
http://microformats.org/wiki/uid-examples#Real-World_Examples

There is also an ISBN RFC:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3187.txt

The creation of the wiki page for ISBN
http://microformats.org/wiki/isbn should be re-worked to incorporate
OLD examples and the use of UID NOT as a proposal for a new format.
The ISBN page should be a redirect to http://microformats.org/wiki/uid
and not a seperate microformats!

-brian