exploratory-discussions

<entry-title>Exploratory Discussions</entry-title>

Per the microformats process: research and analysis of real-world examples, existing formats, and brainstorming to motivate the microformat. Please check rejected-formats before making additions.

Sort each section alphabetically. Group similar efforts.

active

New: microformats 2 has sufficiently stabilized to start using on public web pages and developing parsers and applications. Current exploratory microformats should switch to the microformats-2 syntax for further development.

The following exploratory discussions are being actively pursued, generally, edited in the last month, and/or being utilized/experimented with by multiple sites in the wild.

• activity-streams
• citation: citation examples, citation formats, citation brainstorming, h3988 proposal and citation FAQ
• comment (comment problem, comment examples, comment formats, and comment brainstormingnew! (Some stuff needs to be extracted from comments-formats, hcomment and mfcomment))
• figures figure, figure examples, figure-formats, figure brainstorming
• group: group examples, group-formats, group brainstorming
• listing / hListing hListing proposal, and hListing feedback
  • based on listing examples, formats, and brainstorming
• measures and measurement units measure, measure-examples, measure-formats
• mfo: mfo-examples
• page - what does a page represent?
• product - product-examples, product-formats, product-brainstorming.
• projectnew!, project examplesnew!, project formatsnew!, project brainstormingnew!
• recipe recipe examples, recipe-formats, recipe-brainstorming
• rel-shortlink new!
• representative-hcard - see also uid

media related

Media related efforts are very active in the microformats community and thus have been grouped here for convenience

• xrate new! - marking explicit content
• audio-info (examples, formats, brainstorming, proposal, issues, specificationnew!) - Marking up information and metadata related to audio (speech, music, and sound in general).
  • music music examples
• audio-album (see audio-info pages for examples, formats, brainstorming. audio-album-proposal, audio-album-issues) - Marking up information and metadata related to audio albums/collections.
• broadcast: Internet Radio & TV: broadcast-examples, broadcast-brainstorming
• media-info (media-info examples, media-info formats, media-info brainstorming, media-info Proposal)
• photo note photo note examples
• video-info (examples, formats, brainstorming, proposal, issues) - Marking up information and metadata related to video (video clips, movies, television, and video multimedia presentation in general).

other

The following explorations are fairly inactive, though they may just be waiting for folks with sufficient interest and use cases to help further their development. Some of them could probably be consolidated, or even rejected with suggestions of re-using existing microformats.

• alternates (alternates examples, alternates-formats, alternates brainstorming)
• attention
• book book examples, book formats, and book brainstorming
• chat chat examples, chat formats, and chat brainstorming
• code code examples, code-formats, code brainstorming
• collection description - for describing collections in libraries
• definition-examples
• depend-examples: examples of dependency graphs, especially as they relate to software
• digital-signatures: incorporation of digital signatures in Microformatted data; (digital-signature examples, digitalsignature-formats, digital-signatures brainstorming)
• directions directions examples
• downloads downloads examples, downloads formats, downloads brainstorming
• error-message error message examples, error-message-formats, error message brainstorming
• file-format (examples, formats, brainstorming) - for the mark-up of file format information (size, type, codecs, bitrate, etc.) - should this be merged with downloads ?
• forms forms examples
• genealogy genealogy-examples, genealogy formats
• grouping (examples, formats, brainstorming, proposal) - Metadata markup of items that should be grouped together.
• hash hash examples (see also downloads)
• items items examples, items-formats, items brainstorming
• journal-brainstorming
• last modified last modified examples, last modified formats, and last modified brainstorming
• metalink metalink examples
• operating-hours: operating-hours-examples ..of stores, restaurants, etc.
• page-summary page-summary-examples, page-summary-formats
• payment
• question-answer, question-answer-examples, question-answer-formats, question-answer-brainstorming
• requirements testing requirements testing overview, and requirements testing examples
• REST examples (see also rest)
• search results search results example
• species - for the marking up of the scientific names of living things: species-examples, species-formats, species-brainstorming
• table examples
• transit table transit table examples
• widget, widget examples, widget-formats, widget brainstorming
• wiki formats
• work of art work of art overview, work of art examples, work of art formats, and work of art brainstorming
• xpn-examples - proposal to extend (or replicate) XFN for business (or professional - hence XPN) relationships
• wa-page-view-examples - proposal for declaring web analytics page view variables in HTML

blogging related

• blog description blog description examples
• blog info blog info examples
• distributed conversation distributed conversation overview, distributed conversation examples, distributed conversation formats, distributed conversation brainstorming
• tagspeak tagspeak examples
• tagcloud tagcloud examples, tagcloud-formats, and tagcloud brainstorming.

education related

• higher education academic information
  • hied-course-examples, hied-course-formats, hied-course-brainstorming - an academic course activity
  • course-catalog; course-catalog-examples
• learning (examples, formats, brainstorming, people, proposal, issues) - a microformat for microlearning
• howto new! how-to-examples, how-to-formats, how-to-brainstorming - microformat for authors and publishers to markup solutions to common problems

productivity related

• task effort, task examples, task formats, task brainstorming, and task FAQ
• to-do-examples
• meeting minutes meeting minutes examples, meeting minutes formats, and meeting minutes brainstorming
  • meetings usually aren't very productive, yet, hopefully if meeting minutes are captured, meetings aren't a complete waste of time.

commerce products listings related

• bank account bankaccount-brainstorming, bankaccount-examples
• currency; currency-examples; currency-formats; currency-brainstorming; currency-proposal; currency-issues
• job listing: job listing examples, job-listing-formats, job listing brainstorming
• receipt (examples, formats, brainstorming, proposal) - Marking up information and metadata related to purchase receipts.
• wishlist, wishlist-examples
• proposal for selling commercial services

completed

The following exploratory discussions resulted in a microformat.

• blog post examples, blog post formats, and blog post brainstorming (yielded the hAtom draft)
• directory inclusion directory inclusion examples, directory inclusion formats. (yielded the rel-directory microformat)
• location location-examples, location formats. (see also adr, geo, hCard)
• resume resume-examples, resume formats, resume brainstorming yielded the hResume draft.
• review review examples, and review formats yielded the hReview draft

solo pursuits

The following are primarily pursued by a single individual and thus have not generated widespread interest in the community yet. In general, solo pursuits are discouraged.

The goal of a format is to help human communication, the exchange of information between two people. Thus if only one community member is really interested in pursuing it (enough to work on it in the community), it's not important as a format. While a list of contributors or supporters helps demonstrate some broader interest, it is still insufficient if a format is only really being worked on in the community by a single individual.

• geo extensions (Andy Mabbett)
  • geo-elevation-examples, geo-elevation-formats - extend geo for representing altitude
  • geo-waypoint-examples, geo-waypoint-formats - extend geo for representing routes and boundaries, using waypoints
  • geo-extension-examples, geo-extension-formats, geo-extension-brainstorming, geo-extension-strawman - extend geo for moons, other planets, etc.
• OFF
• hJoke a microformat used to delineate jokes/humor
• itinerary (Luís Nóbrega), itinerary-examples.

failed to follow process

All too often it seems people propose a new microformat without following the process (most often not even reading apparently), nor creating the proper research pages first (and doing the research), nor sometimes even reading the introduction and how-to-play pages. Such proposals are relegated to this section to make it clear that they are worse than mere solo pursuits, they are (most of the time) solo pursuits by people who haven't even read the process page!

In short, if you, the proposer, don't even bother to spend the time reading and attempting to use existing microformats (as the Main_Page, introduction, AND process page ask you to do so), how can you expect anyone else to bother to read and consider your proposal?

• directory-proposal
• realestate-propertydetail, realestate-propertydetail-examples, realestate-propertydetail-formats, realestate-propertydetail brainstorming
• show show-examples, show-formats, show brainstorming
• showroll showroll-examples, showroll-formats, showroll-brainstorming
• syllabus syllabus-examples, syllabus-formats, syllabus-brainstorming
• web-page

did not read main page

Even worse, proposals by people who apparently didn't even bother to read the rest of the Main_Page! These are proposals that failed to follow the process and were added by the author to the Main_Page where it explicitly says to follow the process (often right next to where they added the link to their brainstorm proposal).

• hWiki
• rel-ecolabel