[uf-discuss] "Behavior" and microformats

[Ryan King]

On Mar 28, 2006, at 1:53 AM, Michael Stillwell wrote:

> On 3/27/06, Chris Messina <chris.messina at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Funny, I was actually discussing this with Tantek and David weekly
>> about how Microformats + Behavior + Wikis are the next frontier...
>
> Will robots parse Javascript-generated microformats?

Short answer: no, never.

> I was thinking
> of writing some Javascript to generate rel-tag from the <meta
> name="keywords"> elements that have been embedded in my pages all
> these years, but decided that there's not much point since only humans
> will see it.
>
> I thought briefly about doing it server-side in PHP, but I eventually
> gave up on the idea because: (a) doing it in PHP was going to be more
> of a hassle and; (b) I don't see how rel-tag is going to endure any
> more than meta keywords ever did.
>
> What's the thinking on rel-tag survivability versus meta keywords?
> The wiki page says that in being visible, rel-tag will be "somewhat
> more resilient" than meta keywords.  This is probably true, but it's
> not particularly reassuring.  (Have there been any sightings of tags
> being hidden via CSS/Javascript?

yes.

> )  I not having much luck finding
> anything about this in the mailing lists either, though I imagine this
> must have been discussed at some point--any pointers?

This is a case of the power of defaults. By default, rel-tag keywords  
are visible. This means that hiding them is an intentional act. So,  
one of the problems with rel-tag, neglect, is reduced dramatically.

On the other hand, there's always room for abuse, but that will  
always be the case in open ecosystems.

-rk