[uf-discuss] Marking Up Personal Profiles

[Lachlan Hunt]

Andy Mabbett wrote:
> In message
> <6991f8e00609300653u1c3fb35aq97c4155d662da42d at mail.gmail.com>, Stephen
> Paul Weber <singpolyma at gmail.com> writes
> 
>>> publishing personal profiles to help you meet others
> 
>> Sounds like hCard... possibly with a few new fields.
> 
> Or a form of hListing.

Yeah, I'd agree it's also related to hListing, but hListing seems to be 
more well suited to products and services.  Although, it does mention 
personals as one of the use cases, it seems quite generic by design and 
there's a whole heap of personal information that's still missing from 
hListing and other formats.

Let me illustrate with an example profile that I've pieced together from 
various sites (filled in with made up info), then describe how it could 
be marked up with existing formats and point out the limitations.


*Name and Contact Details*

   Given name:     John
   Family name:    Doe
   Preferred name: Jane Doe
   Photos: (images)
   Address, location, and/or other contact details...

   * This section could be marked up as using the hListing lister and
     item info properties.
   * All of this information can be marked up with hCard
   * No known limitations.


*Age*

   Birth date: 1983-03-07
   Age: 23 (some sites just publish your age, not your actual birth date)
   Star sign: Pisces

   * Can use <abbr class="datetime"> for marking up the date
   * Limitation: Represents the value of the date, not its purpose.
     e.g. hListing has dtlisted and dtexpired for representing
          listed and expired dates, I couldn't find anything
          that represents a birth date.

   * Limitation: couldn't find any existing format for age

   * Could use rel-tag for star sign
   * Limiation: how do you identify that this tag represents a star sign?
     (see rel-tag limitations below)
     - Maybe this component would be best solved with an astrology
       format, designed for astrologists to publish horoscopes and then
       incorporated into this.


*Physical Attributes*

   Gender (biological): Male
   Gender (appearance or surgical): Female
   Build: Obese
   Eye colour: Blue
   Hair colour: Black

   Height: 1.77m or 5'10"
   Weight: 139kg

   * Most of these could use rel-tag
   * Limitation: How do you identify specifically what each tag
     represents? (see rel-tag limitations below)
   * Limitation: I couldn't find a way to markup measurements/distances
     for height and weight.
   * Limitation: Even with a measurements format how do you identify that
     it specifically represents the persons height and weight?

*Cultural Background*

   Culture: None
   Ethnicity: White
   Nationaliaty: Australian
   Religion: Athiest

   * All of these could use rel-tag
   * Limitation: (see rel-tag limitations below)

*Personal Habbits*
   Drinking: Alcoholic
   Smoking: Chain-smoker
   Diet: Vegan

   * All of these could use rel-tag
   * Limitation: (see rel-tag limitations below)

*Relationship/Life*

   Marital status: Single
   Have children: No childred
   Want children: Want 2-3 children
   Pets: dog, fish

   * These could use rel-tag
   * Limitation: (see rel-tag limitations below)


*Professional*
   Occupation, Education, etc.

   * All of these could use hResume
   * No known limitations


*Descriptions*

   Summary
   Hobbies, music, sport, reading, general interests, etc.

   * This section could make use of the hListing summary,
     description and item tags properties.


*General Markup*

This same type of profile markup can be used to describe both yourself 
and your ideal partner.  Perhaps you could use the hListing listing 
action "meet" for describing your personal profile and "wanted" for the 
profile of your ideal partner.

Having the ability to markup 2 (or more) seperate profiles like that 
handles the additional information that is usually requested, about what 
type of relationship your looking for (short-term (fling, 
one-night-stand), long-term (marriage), friendship, pen-pal, etc.), 
partners gender, ideal physical appearance, background, etc.


*Rel-tag Limitations*

The recurring problem with the use of rel-tag in most of these is that 
we're trying to represent name:value pairs, whereas rel-tag only really 
represents the value.

e.g. <a href="/tags/blue" rel="tag">Brown</a>

That doesn't indicate whether it represents hair colour, eye colour, 
favourite colour or something else entirely.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/