Microformats Wiki - User contributions [en]

User:NicoFroidure

2007-08-06T14:12:50Z

NicoFroidure:

Nicolas FROIDURE
From France, [http://www.elitwork.com/ Elitwork founder], [http://bbcomposer.elitwork.com/home.html BBComposer] & [http://www.elitwork.com/kgen.html Kgen] developper.
Tests microformats on [http://www.hotel-restaurant-nord.com/ Hotel-restaurant-nord.com]

vcard-suggestions

2007-08-06T12:16:50Z

NicoFroidure: /* 3.3.2 EMAIL Type Definition */

<h1> vCard suggestions </h1>

As a result of experience using [[hcard|hCard]] to markup people, organizations, and contact information in general on [[hcard-examples-in-wild|real world websites]], we have discovered a few aspects of RFC 2426 vCard that could be improved. Thus we are documenting suggestions for improving vCard here as we find them, organized by RFC 2426 section number for improvements to current properties, and a "new" section for new properties.

; Authors
:[[User:Tantek|Tantek Çelik]]
:[[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]

== Suggestions for Existing Properties ==

Suggestions for improvement could include new features and other such more major changes to the specification, organized under headings that reflect RFC 2426 vCard section numbers and heading. For documentation of errors, corrections, errata for vCard, please see [[vcard-errata]].

=== 3.3.1 TEL Type Definition ===

* The "type" for "TEL" lacks a "textphone" option (for the devices used by, e.g., people who are deaf or have speech difficulties. Example: [http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/contact Birmingham City Council (303 1119)]. It may be good to consider adding a "textphone" value to the "type" for "TEL".
** +0 Tantek: I think a rethinking of the taxonomy of TEL types is merited, but I am uncertain whether it is worth growing the existing limited taxonomy or instead permitting user defined TEL types and thus allowing for natural evolution of a folksonomy of TEL types.
** +1 [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]: There are a limited number of types. Note also the cell vs. mobile issue.
* The "type" for "TEL" lacks a "freephone" option. It may be good to consider adding a "freephone" value to the "type" for "TEL". Usually freephone numbers are not accessible from outside the country so it could help parsers with something?

=== 3.3.2 EMAIL Type Definition ===

* The "type" for "EMAIL" lacks distinction for various types of email, e.g. '''work''' or '''home'''.
* The "type" for "EMAIL" lacks dinstinction for give an alternative to the e-mail like a contact form.

=== 3.3.3 Suggestion for Types Definition ===

We can't have a generic type name cause we have to localize in french. so, for us, hCard work phone number is :
<nowiki><div class="tel">
<span class="type">Travail</span> :
<span class="value">0321596224</span>
</div></nowiki>

How will a bot recognize that type ? We cannot specify every types in every languages in the specification. That's why i think something like this would be better :
<nowiki>Travail : <span class="telwork">0321596224</span></nowiki>

Please, use class and id attributes ONLY for micro formats specifications ! XML #cdata and #data are localized ! Thanks !

== Suggestions for New Properties ==

===Gender===
*There is no Card property for gender. A workaround: add the tag/category "male", "female", etc. See also [[hcard-faq#How_is_gender_represented|earlier discussion]] and [[genealogy-brainstorming#Gender]].
** -1 Tantek: I think tags/categories are good enough for now.
** +1 [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]:Tags are often not appropriate, as per the cited discussion.

====Gender evidence====
*most social network sites (see [[profile-examples]]) publish the gender of the individual
*Many pages publish implicit gender information, not easily machine parsable - using names (Andrew, Andrea), titles (Mr, Mrs, Miss), relationships (husband, brother), pronouns (he, she), etc. See also [[genealogy-brainstorming]]

===Deceased===
*There is no way to mark up a person as being deceased - either by a "deceased" flag or date-of-death. A workaround: add the tag/category "deceased". See also [http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2006-November/007324.html mailing list post on tagging for 'deceased']
** -1 Tantek: I think tags/categories are good enough for now.
** +1 [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]: Tags are often not appropriate, as per the cited e-mail. DoD is more specific (and often used in real life biographies and obituaries e.g [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh van Gogh on Wikipedia]). Note also Wikipedia's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Persondata Persondata] which aligns very closely with hCard, but has additional date and place of birth & death fields. [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]] 13:06, 28 Jan 2007 (PST)
** +1 for date-of-death [[User:CiaranMc|Ciaran McNulty]]: Date-of-death is useful information in some applications (specifically genealogy).
** -1 for 'deceased' flag [[User:CiaranMc|Ciaran McNulty]]: Tagging can cover this sort of binary flag.

====Date of Death evidence====
*All 56,000+ entries in the [http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/lotw/ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]
*Most Wikipedia biographies of dead people, e.g. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney Walt Disney], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bonham John Bonham] (most of those on Wikipedia-EN already use hCard)
*[http://www.findagrave.com/ Find-a-Grave] e.g. [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=680 Karl Marx], [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=676 Chico Marx]
*Used in obituaries, e.g [http://www.westmidlandbirdclub.com/obituaries/norris.htm Tony Norris (WMBC)]; [http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1725211,00.html Ivor Cutler (Guardian)]; [http://www.britarch.ac.uk/BA/ba8/ba8obit.html Grahame Clark (British Archaeology)]
*Used on war memorial pages, e.g. [http://tinyurl.com/2ddlvq Captain Ronald Wilkinson]
*Used in biographies e.g. [http://www.biography.com/ Biography.com]'s ([http://www.biography.com/impressionists/monet-bio.jsp Camille Monet])
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_saints List of saints on Wikipedia]

===Instant Messaging===
*See [http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4770.txt RFC 4770].

===Subject differentiator===
The use of "fn" and "fn org" differentiate between hCards for people and for other entities, but we perhaps need some further differentiator, between, say, organisations and venues (including buildings, governmental divisions, waypoints, etc.) at a level of granularity to be determined. [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]] 14:30, 11 Jul 2007 (PDT)

===Elevation===
*See [[geo-extension-elevation]]

== Suggestions for handling encodings ==
The vCard standard specifies that US-ASCII is assumed to be the encoding in the absence of a MIME content type header or a CHARSET parameter that indicates otherwise. This was an unfortunate choice. vCard .vcf files stored on a local filesystem do not contain a MIME header and the only way to reliably use an encoding other than ASCII is to tag each field with the "CHARSET=" label. This makes the vCard stream more complicated than necessary. This could be simplified by a revision of the standard that specifies UTF-8 as the default encoding. This could work safely with existing vCard .vcf files, which do not contain a MIME content header. The first vCard VERSION field would be the same encoded as either ASCII or UTF-8, so readers could easily determine which encoding to default to.

Furthermore, those creating vCard readers should be encouraged to support vCard .vcf files that begin with a UTF-8 BOM sequence. If the first three bytes of the file are 0xEF 0xBB 0xBF, the text file is UTF-8 encoded, and the vCard reader should assume UTF-8 is the default. Unfortunately many readers today fail to recognize the UTF-8 BOM and view the file as a corrupt vCard.

==Note==
On 2006-11-24, Paul Hoffman of the [http://www.imc.org/ Internet Mail Consortium], responsible for the development and promotion the vCard standard, wrote in response to an e-mail from [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]] informing him of this web page:
<blockquote>
There has been almost no interest in revising the vCard standard. This is due to lack of momentum, not the lack of good suggestions.
</blockquote>

However, see [[events/2007-09-18-calconnect-vcard-workshop]] for an event with vCard modification on the agenda.

== See Also ==

* [[vcard-errata|vCard errata]]
* [[vcard-implementations]]
* [[hcard|hCard]]
* [[hcard-brainstorming#Post_vCard_additions]]
* [http://www.imc.org/imc-vcard/ vCard mailing list] - a place to raise these issues, and where similar issues can be found.
* [[events/2007-09-18-calconnect-vcard-workshop]]

vcard-suggestions

2007-08-06T11:51:50Z

NicoFroidure: /* Suggestions for Existing Properties */

<h1> vCard suggestions </h1>

As a result of experience using [[hcard|hCard]] to markup people, organizations, and contact information in general on [[hcard-examples-in-wild|real world websites]], we have discovered a few aspects of RFC 2426 vCard that could be improved. Thus we are documenting suggestions for improving vCard here as we find them, organized by RFC 2426 section number for improvements to current properties, and a "new" section for new properties.

; Authors
:[[User:Tantek|Tantek Çelik]]
:[[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]

== Suggestions for Existing Properties ==

Suggestions for improvement could include new features and other such more major changes to the specification, organized under headings that reflect RFC 2426 vCard section numbers and heading. For documentation of errors, corrections, errata for vCard, please see [[vcard-errata]].

=== 3.3.1 TEL Type Definition ===

* The "type" for "TEL" lacks a "textphone" option (for the devices used by, e.g., people who are deaf or have speech difficulties. Example: [http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/contact Birmingham City Council (303 1119)]. It may be good to consider adding a "textphone" value to the "type" for "TEL".
** +0 Tantek: I think a rethinking of the taxonomy of TEL types is merited, but I am uncertain whether it is worth growing the existing limited taxonomy or instead permitting user defined TEL types and thus allowing for natural evolution of a folksonomy of TEL types.
** +1 [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]: There are a limited number of types. Note also the cell vs. mobile issue.
* The "type" for "TEL" lacks a "freephone" option. It may be good to consider adding a "freephone" value to the "type" for "TEL". Usually freephone numbers are not accessible from outside the country so it could help parsers with something?

=== 3.3.2 EMAIL Type Definition ===

* The "type" for "EMAIL" lacks distinction for various types of email, e.g. '''work''' or '''home'''.

=== 3.3.3 Suggestion for Types Definition ===

We can't have a generic type name cause we have to localize in french. so, for us, hCard work phone number is :
<nowiki><div class="tel">
<span class="type">Travail</span> :
<span class="value">0321596224</span>
</div></nowiki>

How will a bot recognize that type ? We cannot specify every types in every languages in the specification. That's why i think something like this would be better :
<nowiki>Travail : <span class="telwork">0321596224</span></nowiki>

Please, use class and id attributes ONLY for micro formats specifications ! XML #cdata and #data are localized ! Thanks !

== Suggestions for New Properties ==

===Gender===
*There is no Card property for gender. A workaround: add the tag/category "male", "female", etc. See also [[hcard-faq#How_is_gender_represented|earlier discussion]] and [[genealogy-brainstorming#Gender]].
** -1 Tantek: I think tags/categories are good enough for now.
** +1 [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]:Tags are often not appropriate, as per the cited discussion.

====Gender evidence====
*most social network sites (see [[profile-examples]]) publish the gender of the individual
*Many pages publish implicit gender information, not easily machine parsable - using names (Andrew, Andrea), titles (Mr, Mrs, Miss), relationships (husband, brother), pronouns (he, she), etc. See also [[genealogy-brainstorming]]

===Deceased===
*There is no way to mark up a person as being deceased - either by a "deceased" flag or date-of-death. A workaround: add the tag/category "deceased". See also [http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2006-November/007324.html mailing list post on tagging for 'deceased']
** -1 Tantek: I think tags/categories are good enough for now.
** +1 [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]: Tags are often not appropriate, as per the cited e-mail. DoD is more specific (and often used in real life biographies and obituaries e.g [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh van Gogh on Wikipedia]). Note also Wikipedia's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Persondata Persondata] which aligns very closely with hCard, but has additional date and place of birth & death fields. [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]] 13:06, 28 Jan 2007 (PST)
** +1 for date-of-death [[User:CiaranMc|Ciaran McNulty]]: Date-of-death is useful information in some applications (specifically genealogy).
** -1 for 'deceased' flag [[User:CiaranMc|Ciaran McNulty]]: Tagging can cover this sort of binary flag.

====Date of Death evidence====
*All 56,000+ entries in the [http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/lotw/ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]
*Most Wikipedia biographies of dead people, e.g. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney Walt Disney], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bonham John Bonham] (most of those on Wikipedia-EN already use hCard)
*[http://www.findagrave.com/ Find-a-Grave] e.g. [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=680 Karl Marx], [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=676 Chico Marx]
*Used in obituaries, e.g [http://www.westmidlandbirdclub.com/obituaries/norris.htm Tony Norris (WMBC)]; [http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1725211,00.html Ivor Cutler (Guardian)]; [http://www.britarch.ac.uk/BA/ba8/ba8obit.html Grahame Clark (British Archaeology)]
*Used on war memorial pages, e.g. [http://tinyurl.com/2ddlvq Captain Ronald Wilkinson]
*Used in biographies e.g. [http://www.biography.com/ Biography.com]'s ([http://www.biography.com/impressionists/monet-bio.jsp Camille Monet])
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_saints List of saints on Wikipedia]

===Instant Messaging===
*See [http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4770.txt RFC 4770].

===Subject differentiator===
The use of "fn" and "fn org" differentiate between hCards for people and for other entities, but we perhaps need some further differentiator, between, say, organisations and venues (including buildings, governmental divisions, waypoints, etc.) at a level of granularity to be determined. [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]] 14:30, 11 Jul 2007 (PDT)

===Elevation===
*See [[geo-extension-elevation]]

== Suggestions for handling encodings ==
The vCard standard specifies that US-ASCII is assumed to be the encoding in the absence of a MIME content type header or a CHARSET parameter that indicates otherwise. This was an unfortunate choice. vCard .vcf files stored on a local filesystem do not contain a MIME header and the only way to reliably use an encoding other than ASCII is to tag each field with the "CHARSET=" label. This makes the vCard stream more complicated than necessary. This could be simplified by a revision of the standard that specifies UTF-8 as the default encoding. This could work safely with existing vCard .vcf files, which do not contain a MIME content header. The first vCard VERSION field would be the same encoded as either ASCII or UTF-8, so readers could easily determine which encoding to default to.

Furthermore, those creating vCard readers should be encouraged to support vCard .vcf files that begin with a UTF-8 BOM sequence. If the first three bytes of the file are 0xEF 0xBB 0xBF, the text file is UTF-8 encoded, and the vCard reader should assume UTF-8 is the default. Unfortunately many readers today fail to recognize the UTF-8 BOM and view the file as a corrupt vCard.

==Note==
On 2006-11-24, Paul Hoffman of the [http://www.imc.org/ Internet Mail Consortium], responsible for the development and promotion the vCard standard, wrote in response to an e-mail from [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]] informing him of this web page:
<blockquote>
There has been almost no interest in revising the vCard standard. This is due to lack of momentum, not the lack of good suggestions.
</blockquote>

However, see [[events/2007-09-18-calconnect-vcard-workshop]] for an event with vCard modification on the agenda.

== See Also ==

* [[vcard-errata|vCard errata]]
* [[vcard-implementations]]
* [[hcard|hCard]]
* [[hcard-brainstorming#Post_vCard_additions]]
* [http://www.imc.org/imc-vcard/ vCard mailing list] - a place to raise these issues, and where similar issues can be found.
* [[events/2007-09-18-calconnect-vcard-workshop]]