[uf-discuss] Dated currency examples?

[Scott Reynen]

On Sep 24, 2006, at 2:19 PM, Andy Mabbett wrote:

> In message <56374A8B-7B98-45E2-9C0C-CD3F8498C3DC at randomchaos.com>,  
> Scott
> Reynen <scott at randomchaos.com> writes
>
>> In the currency-brainstorming [1] page, I see a few straw man
>> proposals with dated currency.
>
> No you don't; you see two real, albeit simplified for clarity,  
> examples
> [3], [4], marked up according to the straw-man proposal (and  
> subsequent
> suggested modifications).

If I'm understanding this, the examples on the -brainstorming page  
are taken from real-world examples not yet detailed on the -examples  
page.  What's not clear to me now is how it was decided which  
sections of those real-world examples are relevant to the currency  
microformat and which are out-of-scope.  Dates look out-of-scope to  
me.  If I'm right about this, then the straw man proposals should  
reflect this.  But assuming I'm wrong, I think it's safe to also  
assume other people will be similarly wrong, and so it would be good  
to have a clear explanation of why dates are included while other  
loosely related information (e.g. tax, discounts, accepted forms of  
payment, etc.) are not, in the wiki where everyone can find it.  If  
such an explanation is in there already, I've missed it.

>>  I think I understand the general  idea, that currencies change value
>> over time, but in what currently  published HTML would such date  
>> markup
>> be used?
>
> Any page which says "used to be worth", "was paid" "used to earn",  
> "then
> valued at", etc., etc.
>
> It could also be used to mark up current prices, on pages which are  
> not
> likely to be updated when the value referred to changes (e.g. reviews
> [5]), or simply devalues through inflation (e.g. news stories [6],  
> [7]).

As I said before, my suspicion is that /relatively/ few pages on  
today's web are actually publishing a date for the currency values  
(which may or may not be the same as the publication date), but I'd  
be happy to see this suspicion of mine clearly contradicted by /more/  
specific examples in the currency-examples page.

>> I'm sure there are  examples of dated currency published on the web,
>> but I suspect they  are far under 20% of the currency values  
>> published.
>
> So?

When fewer people are publishing something, we have a smaller pool of  
potential adopters of a microformat.  Microformats face a chicken-egg  
problem because publishers are hesitant to start publishing something  
with few tools to consume it, and tool developers are hesitant to  
develop new tools to consume microformat data that isn't yet widely  
published.  And without both publishers and tool developers using a  
microformat, it's not really helping anyone.  For this reason, we  
first target types of data that are being widely published, to  
maximize the likelihood of success for a specific microformat.  This  
is my take on what many refer to as simply "the 80/20 rule," as  
mentioned on the process page in the *-brainstorming section.  I'm  
sure someone else can explain it better, as I wasn't around when this  
rough number system was adopted as a decision-making standard in this  
community.  I mention the (suspected) lack of published dated  
currency because I'd like to see a currency microformat adopted, and  
I suspect removing the dates from an initial version would make that  
adoption more likely.

>> I'm interested  in seeing this microformat completed and adopted and
>> I'd hate to see  unnecessary complexity prevent that from happening.
>
> There is absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be completed and  
> adopted;
> there is no "unnecessary complexity".

I think you might be underestimating the difficulty of convincing  
people to use microformats.  But I'll be happy to find I was wrong  
come adoption time.

Peace,
Scott