RE: WG Decision to remove Microdata from HTML 5.0, remove JS API, continue HTML Microdata as a separate spec

I've combed through the current CR Draft spec of HTML5.0. The bulk of the Microdata definitions, etc., seem to already be removed, but I did find these vestiges:

(1) HTMLDataElement
* Mentions microdata in conjunction with microformats (giving it equal footing) in relation to the value attribute of that element. This seems fine to leave in.

(2) HTMLTimeElement.dateTime (code example)
* Provides a code example using microdata. However, this code example is paired with 4-5 other code examples illustrating how the datatime attribute is used for the <time> element in a variety of formats such as microformats (ex. 1), schema.org microdata (ex. 3), ISO8601 (ex. 4), and some other normal date and timezone+date examples (5 & 6). I think it's OK to leave these references to microdata in the spec within the context of exploratory examples of this sort.

(3) HTMLMeterElement
* A one-liner about how to interpret meter's value in the context of Microdata. This is a good candidate to remove as it is specific to microdata.

(4) Drag-drop processing model
* Step 6, puts some Microdata into the clipboard if the dragged nodes contain microdata. This entire step can be dropped to avoid the microdata reference without compromising the integrity of the algorithm.

(5) Acknowledgements
* A special thanks callout to folks of the Microdata usability study for helping guide the design of Microdata. While it feels a little cold to strip this out, leaving it in could lead someone to reason that there should be a feature called Microdata in this spec, which there will not be. Therefore, I think this should be removed as well.

So to re-cap, my plan is to remove occurrences 3-5 above from HTML5.0 CR, and I think that will satisfy the Chair's CfC.

From: Travis Leithead
Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 4:41 PM
To: Paul Cotton
Cc: Robin Berjon; Michael[tm] Smith; public-html-admin@w3.org
Subject: RE: WG Decision to remove Microdata from HTML 5.0, remove JS API, continue HTML Microdata as a separate spec

As an editor, and when making edits to the CR draft, I prefer to make the changes in the 5.1 branch and then port them into the CR branch to avoid diverging 5.1 from CR as much as possible (and especially in light of Robin's recent major CR draft update for prose consistency with 5.1).

>From that point of view, also updating 5.1 at the same time to exclude Microdata would seem appropriate. However, we may want to wait on that until we have a separate extension spec for Microdata to avoid the appearance of just dropping it altogether.

So my proposal is to only remove it from CR at the moment and wait until we can have it extracted from 5.1 and into an extension spec before it's officially pulled out of 5.1 (if we end up doing that).

From: Paul Cotton
Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 11:16 AM
To: Travis Leithead
Cc: Robin Berjon; Michael[tm] Smith; public-html-admin@w3.org<mailto:public-html-admin@w3.org>
Subject: RE: WG Decision to remove Microdata from HTML 5.0, remove JS API, continue HTML Microdata as a separate spec

> This only applies to the CR draft, right-not to HTML5.1 nightly?

The original CfC stated:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-admin/2013Jul/0019.html

>Finally, as we don't have consensus on what to do with 5.1, we suggest that this work be allowed to proceed via editors' discretion for now."

Since no one objected to this element of the CfC,  the Chairs would like the Editorial team to decide/propose how to handle this in HTML 5.1.

/paulc

Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada
17 Eleanor Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K2E 6A3
Tel: (425) 705-9596 Fax: (425) 936-7329

From: Travis Leithead
Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 1:35 PM
To: Paul Cotton; public-html-admin@w3.org<mailto:public-html-admin@w3.org>
Cc: Robin Berjon; Michael[tm] Smith
Subject: RE: WG Decision to remove Microdata from HTML 5.0, remove JS API, continue HTML Microdata as a separate spec

I filed bug https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=22783 to capture this action.

This only applies to the CR draft, right-not to HTML5.1 nightly?

From: Paul Cotton [mailto:Paul.Cotton@microsoft.com]
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2013 6:13 PM
To: public-html-admin@w3.org<mailto:public-html-admin@w3.org>
Cc: Robin Berjon; Michael[tm] Smith
Subject: WG Decision to remove Microdata from HTML 5.0, remove JS API, continue HTML Microdata as a separate spec


No one objected to the CfC to remove Microdata from HTML 5.0, remove JS API, and to continue HTML Microdata as a separate spec by the Wed Jul 17 deadline.

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-admin/2013Jul/0019.html



Therefore, the HTML Working Group hereby resolves to handle the Microdata discussion as specified in the above referenced CfC.



The Editors are requested to carry out the directions of the CfC:



a) to remove all references to Microdata from the HTML 5.0 CR draft,

b) to remove the Javascript API from the Microdata spec, and

c) to publish the separate "HTML Microdata" document as an extension spec (iff editorial resources can be found).



/paulc

HTML WG co-chair

Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada
17 Eleanor Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K2E 6A3
Tel: (425) 705-9596 Fax: (425) 936-7329