rel-directory

This document represents a draft microformat specification. Although drafts are somewhat mature in the development process, the stability of this document cannot be guaranteed, and implementers should be prepared to keep abreast of future developments and changes. Watch this wiki page, or follow discussions on the #microformats IRC channel to stay up-to-date.

Draft Specification 2005-08-24

Editor

Ryan King

Author

Blaine Cook (Odeo)

Ryan King (Technorati)

Concept

Tantek Çelik (Technorati)

Kevin Marks (Technorati)

Acknowledgments

Thanks to everyone who helped with brainstorming and feedback: Dorion Carroll, Josh Kinberg, Chris Messina, Evan Henshaw Plath (Rabble), Derek Powazek, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar, David Sifry, David Weinberger, and many others.

Copyright

This specification is (C) 2005-2024 by the authors. However, the authors intend to submit (or already have submitted, see details in the spec) this specification to a standards body with a liberal copyright/licensing policy such as the GMPG, IETF, and/or W3C. Anyone wishing to contribute should read their copyright principles, policies and licenses (e.g. the GMPG Principles) and agree to them, including licensing of all contributions under all required licenses (e.g. CC-by 1.0 and later), before contributing.

• Tantek: I release all my contributions to this specification into the public domain and I encourage the other authors to do so as well.
  • When all authors/editors have done so, we can remove the MicroFormatCopyrightStatement template reference and replace it with the MicroFormatPublicDomainContributionStatement.

Patents

This specification is subject to a royalty free patent policy, e.g. per the W3C Patent Policy, and IETF RFC3667 & RFC3668.

Abstract

Rel-Directory is one of several microformats. By adding 'directory' to the rel attribute of a hyperlink, a page indicates that the destination of the hyperlink is a directory listing containing an entry for the current page.

<a rel="directory" href="http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/">Computers/Internet</a>

the author indicates that the page http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/ is a directory listing for the referring page.

This assertion will typically apply to just the referring page, though it may in some cases refer to a larger work, such as a blog or podcast.

Additionally, in the case that the directory page is a taggable url (follows the rel-tag microformat), these

<a rel="tag directory" href="http://odeo.com/tag/arts/">arts</a>
<a rel="tag directory" href="http://technorati.com/blogs/evolution">evolution</a>

can be used to show that the referred page is both a directory listing and a tag for the current page.

Scope

rel-directory is specifically designed for building a directory in a distributed manner and for making links to any directory listing explicit.

XMDP profile

<dl class="profile">
 <dt id="rel">rel</dt>
 <dd><p>
   <a rel="help" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#adef-rel">
     HTML4 definition of the 'rel' attribute.</a>  
   Here is an additional value.</p>
  <dl>
   <dt id="directory">directory</dt>
   <dd>Indicates that the referred resource serves as a directory listing for the referring page.</dd>
  </dl>
 </dd>
</dl>

Implementations

This section is informative. The following implementations have been developed which either generate or parse rel-directory links. If you have a rel-directory implementation, feel free to add it to the top of this list. Once the list grows too big, we'll make a separate wiki page.

• Technorati Blog Finder is a blog directory that is organized and constructed by bloggers who themselves choose which categories their blog belongs in, using either a user interface, or by simply using a rel-directory tag link from their blog to the page for a particular category in a directory. See Technorati Blog Finder Help for more info.

References

Normative References

• HTML 4
• XHTML
• XMDP
• Rel-Tag
• RFC 3986 specifies URL syntax

Informative References

• This document was originally cloned from the rel-tag specification.
• directory-inclusion-examples
• directory-inclusion-formats
• directory-inclusion-brainstorming

Commentary

• http://www.aef-dmoz.org/blog/index.php/2005/09/07/39-rel-directory-rel-tag-directory

See also

• rel
• existing rel values
• rel examples
• rel FAQ
• rel design pattern
• rel values issues
• rel-registry