why-are-content-standards-hard

From Microformats Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.

Why are content standards hard?

A brainstorm of the problems/distractions that plague typical content standards efforts. -Tantek

  • completeness
    • based on platonic ideals of content (as opposed to human behaviors)
    • edge cases
    • scope/feature creep - general purposeness
    • extensibility
  • ego
    • reinvention - web and modern search engines have reduced excuses for this, but we will still have NIH behaviors even when ignorance isn't a problem.
    • desire to be the "outside container" (we'll put all other stuff inside us)
  • self/community-design bias
    • designed by technologists for technologists (as opposed to for authors)
    • note: it was an *accident* that HTML was easy to learn for non-technical authors, designers, artists etc.: http://tantek.com/log/2003/0813t1158.html#handauthoring
    • localization / internationalization issues (first/last name are different in some countries)
  • legal issues, copyrights, patents etc.
Retrieved from "http://microformats.org/wiki/index.php?title=why-are-content-standards-hard&oldid=36312"