[uf-discuss] RE: Microformats and RDFa not as far apart as previously thought

[Ben Ward]

I'd like to make a very important point.

On 30 Jun 2008, at 10:38, Breton Slivka wrote:

> if you violate #1, Tantek steps
> in and says you can't do that. Since it's difficult to overcome the
> influence and authority of Tantek in this community, comprimising #3
> is the only way you can go. Otherwise the argument is just going to go
> around in circles forever.

To quote the wiki:

   “Microformats are not controlled by any individual or organization”
		— http://microformats.org/wiki/microformats#microformats_are_not

Disagreement within community members is always likely, such is the  
nature of community. At this point in this community's life, no one  
person is more important than another, and if that were ever to be the  
case, the community and the effort of microformats generally will  
suffer greatly.

When someone says you ‘can't’ do something, it's likely in the context  
of the microformats principals. Someone saying ‘no’ cannot be backed  
up only by their reputation and stature. ‘Citation needed’, is perhaps  
the most succinct requirement.

The most worrying thing about this message is that anyone should  
perceive the direction of this community as being dictated by one  
personality's viewpoint. That is not the case, and the microformats  
effort will fall apart if it ever was. To make decisions pre-emptively  
out of this misperception is not going to lead us to the best solutions.

Additionally, it may well be that we're dealing with a problem right  
now calls for an exception to a principal. I'm not aware that we've  
ever consciously made exceptions before, so there's no precedent. As  
such, the justification for and the scope of such exception needs to  
be _very clearly documented_ and approached thoroughly. The  
justification for making an exception needs to be held to very careful  
scrutiny.

B