hreview-faq

hReview FAQ

This page is for documenting Q&A about hReview. If you have a new question to ask, Please consider first asking your question on the microformats irc channel (preferably) or the microformats-discuss list.

Q&A

1. What is the purpose of the hReview microformat (i.e. why is it important for it to exist)?

1. What are the advantages of using the hReview microformat?

1. How do you specify more detail for the 'type' field, e.g. for an item of type "product" that is a book, or a movie (on DVD or in a theater), or a music CD? -- paraphrased from Dougal Campbell 11:54, 21 Jun 2005 (PDT)
   • The 'type' field was kept delibrately coarse and simple. Any attempt to build a thorough and meaningful taxonomy of all specific types of things that can be reviewed would be futile. Instead, the set of reviewed item types is kept small and fairly generic. Specific "typing" information about the item being reviewed should be published as tags as defined in hReview. E.g. a review of a book would be tagged with a book tag: <a rel="tag" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book">book</a> . Similarly a movie that was a DVD should be tagged with both: <a rel="tag" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie">movie</a> <a rel="tag" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD">DVD</a> . Or a music CD: <a rel="tag" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/music">music</a> <a rel="tag" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD">CD</a> .
2. What is the difference between the 'website' and 'url' type? --Dougal Campbell 11:54, 21 Jun 2005 (PDT)
   • A 'website' presumably includes everything located on that site, whereas 'url' refers only to the particular page located at the given 'url'.
3. What if I want to use hReview to review a podcast? Which type should I use?
   • As a podcast is typically a specific URL (often ending with ".mp3") the "url" item type should be used when publishing an hReview of a podcast.
4. What is the proper 'type' to use for a restaurant?
   • A restaurant is a "business".
5. Is there a standard way to add information that isn't in the default list of fields? It seems like book reviews should include the author's name, but there's no obvious way to add it to the markup. The example reviews include it in the text, but it's not part of their markup. Chris Hibbert
   • See email answer on microformats-discuss - Tantek
6. How do I state the scale of the rating field? Kal Ström
   • Please read the rating field description. The default scale is 1 (worst) to 5 (best) and either can be changed by the author. See the multidimensional restaurant review for an example of this. - Tantek
7. Is there some recommendation as to the url for movies, imdb perhaps? - Judson Dunn 12:40, 17 Dec 2005 (PST)
   • Many users use imdb.com URLs to refer to movies. Others use amazon.com or other DVD etc. product URLs to refer to movies. Some even use the URLs to specific movie sites themselves, e.g. whatisthematrix.com. Some also use URLs to movie traliers on movie trailer sites. You should use whatever you think best represents the specific item you are reviewing. Microformats.org does not make a recommendation to use one of the above in particular. - Tantek
8. Can the item being reviewed have more than one photo?
   • Yes. In general if the specification does not explicitly forbid it, a property may take multiple values (or be specified multiple times).
9. Is there a recommended way to use hReview to "rate" stocks?
   • Typically what you are rating is not the stock, but the company behind the stock, which would simply be an item of 'type' 'business', and you would include an hCard for the company. If you are actually rating a specific stock (for example in the case where a company has more than one type of stock for trade), then in essence you are reviewing a 'product' which is bought and sold. In that case, you can specify the item 'type' to be a 'product', and then use a standard stock market name for the stock symbol, e.g. "NYSE:T" for AT&T stock, "NasdaqNM:MSFT" for Microsoft stock, "DJI:^DJI" for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. More such scoped names for stocks can be found by looking them up on Yahoo! Finance, and you could even use a stock's Yahoo! Finance URL as the item's 'url' in the hReview, e.g. as linked from the examples listed.
   • In addition, see the FAQ#1 above. As a "stock" is a particular kind of product, you should probably tag the item in the hReview with a set of tags, e.g.:
     • <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/stock" rel="tag">stock</a>
     • <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/msft" rel="tag">msft</a>
     • ... etc.
10. Should rated tags show up alongside other tags in an hReview?
    • Both rated tags and normal tags apply to the item being reviewed, and thus both are in the total set of tags for the item. As far as where they should show up, that is up to the user interface of the software or service that is displaying the hReviews.
11. Are decimal-number ratings allowed? (ie 4.5)
    • One decimal point of precision is added in hReview 0.3 based on analysis of common rating behaviors on the Web.
12. How do you markup a page for an item that has multiple reviews on that page (without having to repeat the information about the item in each review? Ning could use this, specifically in their default http://reviewit.ning.com/ , see also http://hreviewit.ning.com
    • Possibly use the object inclusion method from resume-brainstorming.
13. For a music review, is there a standard for designating/tagging the Artist name separate from the Album name or Track name etc?
    • It depends on what specifically you are reviewing. If you are reviewing the Artist as a whole, then the Artist is the item. If you are reviewing a specific Album, then the Album is the item. If you are reviewing a particular Track, then the Track is the item. You can then just use tags for the rest of the information.
      1. Is there a standard way of specifying what the tag is addressing semantically? That is, say I were reviewing the album OK Computer from Radiohead - the item is of course OK Computer - and I can have a tag to Radiohead - but is there an accepted practice as marking it as an "artist" tag?
         • The short answer is no, tags are a relatively flat set of "aspects" of the item, and you can't give tags a "type" like that. The longer answer is, you could tag it Radiohead using a tagspace (see rel-tag for details) that specifically defined Radiohead as an artist, e.g. perhaps the Wikipedia page for Radiohead.
14. Does anyone have a examples of hReview documents? I.e. both valid and invalid examples to test a parser against?
    • Please see hReview Examples in the Wild.

Related pages

• hreview
• hReview-aggregate - microformat for specifying summary information from a collection of reviews about a product or service
• hReview creator (feedback) - create your own hReview.
• hReview authoring - learn how to add hReview mark-up to your existing contact info.
• hReview brainstorming - thoughts for improving hReview.
• hReview cheatsheet - hCard properties.
• hReview examples in the wild - an on-going list of websites which use hReview.
• hReview FAQ - If you have any questions about hReview, check here, and if you don't find answers, add your questions!
• hReview feedback - Feedback is encouraged!
• hReview implementations - websites or tools which either generate or parse hReviews.
• hReview issues - Please add any issues with the specification to the issues page.
• hReview parsing - Normatively details of how to parse hReviews.
• hReview profile - The XMDP profile for hReview.
• hReview tests - a wiki page with actual embedded hReviews to try parsing.
• hReview advocacy - encourage others to use hReview.
• review-examples
  • hreview-examples
• review-formats
• review-brainstorming - where we brainstormed about review formats before coming up with hReview.
• currency - proposal for marking up amounts of money (e.g. prices of reviewed items).
• Aggregate reviews - examples - formats - brainstorming