vcard-suggestions

vCard suggestions

As a result of experience using hCard to markup people, organizations, and contact information in general on real world websites, we have discovered a few aspects of RFC 2426 vCard that could be improved. Thus we are documenting suggestions for improving vCard here as we find them, organized by RFC 2426 section number for improvements to current properties, and a "new" section for new properties.

Authors

Tantek Çelik, Andy Mabbett

Suggestions for Existing Properties

Suggestions for improvement could include new features and other such more major changes to the specification, organized under headings that reflect RFC 2426 vCard section numbers and heading. For documentation of errors, corrections, errata for vCard, please see vcard-errata.

3.3.1 TEL Type Definition

• The "type" for "TEL" lacks a "textphone" option (for the devices used by, e.g., people who are deaf or have speech difficulties. Example: Birmingham City Council (303 1119). It may be good to consider adding a "textphone" value to the "type" for "TEL".

Suggestions for New Properties

Gender

• There is no Card property for gender.
  • workaround: add the tag/category "male", "female", etc.
  • (see earlier discussion)

Deceased

• There is no way to mark up a person as being deceased - either by a "deceased" flag or date-of-death.
  • workaround: add the tag/category "deceased"
    • See mailing list post on tagging for 'deceased'

Note

On 2006-11-24, Paul Hoffman of the Internet Mail Consortium, responsible for the development and promotion the vCard standard, wrote in response to an e-mail informing him of this web page:

There has been almost no interest in revising the vCard standard. This is due to lack of momentum, not the lack of good suggestions.

See Also

• vCard errata
• hCard
• vCard mailing list - a place to raise these issues, and where similar issues can be found.