[uf-new] hAudio ITEM/TRACK debate resolution

[Brian Suda]

On 10/20/07, Scott Reynen <scott at makedatamakesense.com> wrote:
> The above seems to be based on a brand new idea of how we determine
> the difference between an album and a track.  We've been assuming
> until now that hAudio is a track by default.

--- fair enough, the problem then is that we seem to have a problem
with focus on what we are trying to achieve. This thread is called
"ITEM/TRACK debate" if hAudio is track by default, then what is the
debate? in the examples the author seems to be rolling metadata about
an album into haudio and therefore a new class had to be made to
corner off data about the ALBUM from data about TRACKS. If we are NOT
talking about album metadata, then things get alot easier, but i don't
get the feeling that is what we are discussing. The example:

<span class="haudio">
   <span class="fn album">Best Before 1984</span>
   <span class="contributor">Crass</span>
   <span class="item haudio">Hokkaido Dream</span>
   <span class="item haudio">Tokyo Groove</span>
</span>

to me says "haudio" is about an object with some metadata and 2
tracks. If haudio is ONLY about tracks, then the base haudio would be
incorrect. If haudio is more about collections of multi-media, then
the ITEM is where the TRACK info exists (what we assumed haudio was
all about in the first place)

> This seems to be
> supported by the examples, in which there are many more tracks than
> albums.

--- if that is the case, then we should NOT use haudio as the root
class name to mean a collection of audio stuff, too me the examples
provide looked like Albums being marked-up with haudio

> The above seems to assume the opposite, that hAudio is
> always an album.

--- this would be correct.

> I see no reason to make such an assumption.  Could
> you maybe explain why the above is preferable to the individual track
> model we've been working with

--- there seems to be two ways we COULD represent albums. #1 assuming
all tracks are in an album and use /haudio/item/fn for just tracks
that way we COULD have /haudio/fn and /haudio/item/fn to give an album
name and a track name.... or #2 we could invert the relationship, and
use /haudio/fn to be the track name an have /haudio/collection to
associate an track to an album or podcast or something. I thought the
second idea was shot-down because if you have multiple tracks on a
page in the same album, you would need to explictly list the album
name for each track.

> This seems to me analogous to hCard's treatment of organizations and
> individuals.  Individuals are more common, so we assume individuals.

--- right, ORG would be analigous to option #2 where you explicitly
list the ALBUM. The downside is that if there are 2 track (like 20
people) the (ORG or ALBUM) would have to be repeated 20 times. Where
as option #1 assumes we are talking about an ALBUM (or an
ORGANIZATION) and everything in it is part of that container (ORG or
ALBUM)

> Tracks are more common, so why shouldn't we assume tracks?

--- i would think so, but the examples in this email seems to suggest
otherwise. I think we need a clarification of the goals.

On a side-note, ID3 tags works like #2, each TRACK includes data about
the ALBUM, not ALBUM with TRACK data.

I have re-read the audio-info-proposal:
http://microformats.org/wiki/audio-info-proposal
to try and find more direction on what we are attempting to model. The
Intro and Scope aren't very clear, it mentions AUDIO alot, but not
TRACK or ALBUM.

I think we should make it more explict on the wiki, this could be as a
result of the analysis of example collected.

I'm happy to make the default assumption TRACK rather than ALBUM. Then
i would say the original examples in this would have to be:

Album with two tracks, simple example:

<span class="haudio">
   <span class="fn>Hokkaido Dream</span>
   <span class="collection">Best Before 1984</span>
   <span class="contributor">Crass</span>
</span>

<span class="haudio">
   <span class="fn">Tokyo Groove</span>
   <span class="collection">Best Before 1984</span>
   <span class="contributor">Crass</span>
</span>

Album with two tracks, more detailed:

<span class="haudio">
   <span class="fn>Hokkaido Dream</span>
    <abbr class="duration" title="PT3M24S">3:24</abbr>
   <span class="collection">Best Before 1984</span>
   <span class="contributor">Crass</span>
</span>

<span class="haudio">
   <span class="fn">Tokyo Groove</span>
   <span class="collection">Best Before 1984</span>
   <span class="contributor">Crass</span>
    <abbr class="duration" title="PT4M46S">4:46</abbr>
</span>

They would need to be two distinct haudio items because haudio models
TRACKs not albums. The duplicate data could be solved with the
include-pattern.

-brian

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