[uf-discuss] Process to handle decentralized creation of new microformats?

[Scott Reynen]

On Oct 1, 2006, at 9:44 AM, Costello, Roger L. wrote:

> What happens when creating microformats becomes decentralized; that  
> is,
> when communities go off and create their own new microformats?

I'd guess what happens is it doesn't work.  By analogy, what happens  
when communities go off and create their own dictionaries?  I'm not  
sure, but I suspect they end up with a dictionary that's not very  
descriptive of how people actually use language.

> For example, one community might create a microformat for aquarium
> tanks.  The "tank" microformat might be used in something like this:
>
>      <div class="tank">
>          ...
>      </div>
>
> A separate, independent community might create a microformat for
> artillery tanks.  Their "tank" microformat might be used in something
> like this:
>
>      <div class="tank">
>          ...
>      </div>
>
> Alas, we have two tank microformats with totally different semantics.

While we're not defining microformats for such specific data  
currently, the problem of defining exactly what is meant by given  
markup is already solved by profile URIs:

<http://microformats.org/wiki/profile-uris>

> In general, as microformat creation becomes decentralized there  
> will be
> a proliferation of microformats with identical names but differing
> semantics.  Clearly this will be big trouble for microformat  
> aggregator
> tools.

This isn't clear to me at all.  Why will microformat creation become  
decentralized?  Why do we need a proliferation of microformats?  Why  
wouldn't we use specific names (e.g. class="artillery-tank") to  
prevent overlap from every becoming a real problem?

Peace,
Scott