"uid" microformats? (was Re: [uf-discuss] ISBN mark-up)

[Tantek Ç elik]

On 4/25/06 8:04 PM, "Edward Summers" <ehs at pobox.com> wrote:

> On Apr 25, 2006, at 6:47 PM, Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
>> FWIW, I like Xiaoming's suggestion.
> 
> I'm glad Xiaoming expressed the case for URI so well.

Me too.


> I just added it  
> to the uid-brainstorming [1] page. I have to admit I've seen the need
> for a  identifying URIs elsewhere and when Tantek pinged microformats-
> discuss with a straw proposal [2] that would help the LiveClipboard
> and upcoming.org folks I saw an opening to sneak in functionality for
> marking up URIs more generally.

But I think there are two questions here.

1. Marking up URIs more generally.
2. Marking up *the* URI for an item (this is what I believe is meant by
UID).

The UID microformat discussion is attempting to solve the latter, though it
is reasonable to at least document our thoughts on the former.


> The naming 'uri' vs 'uid' aside, would it be reasonable to RECOMMEND
> that a URI is used (thus including URLs) and leaving the door open to
> less useful ids should people want to use them?

Yes, and I have just added similar details to uid-brainstorming, preferring
URLs first, then URNs.


> This would allow the
> current hCard behavior to be preserved:
> 
> "UID in vCard simply becomes another semantic applied to a specific
> URL (or EMAIL) for an hCard."

Agreed.


> As Xiaoming suggests both 'http' and 'mailto' are valid URI schemes
> in RFC4395. Allowing a UID this flexibility would mean a UID could
> serve as a module that hCard and hCalendar (and perhaps an hCite and
> others) reference.

Agreed.


> //Ed
> 
> [1] http://microformats.org/wiki/uid-brainstorming#Proposals
> [2] http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2006-
> April/003726.html

Thanks especially for writing this up on the wiki Ed, and helping clarify
these matters.  This discussion has been *very* useful.  Thanks to everyone
who has braved this passionate thread to help move things forward.

Tantek