[Bug 13468] Support Microdata values that are HTML snippets

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=13468

Paolo Ciccarese <paolo.ciccarese@gmail.com> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
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                 CC|                            |paolo.ciccarese@gmail.com

--- Comment #10 from Paolo Ciccarese <paolo.ciccarese@gmail.com> 2011-08-04 17:29:43 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #9)
> (In reply to comment #8)
> > There are lots of places where markup is relevant, but when are those places
> > relevant to microdata?
> 
> Maybe I'm just missing the point of microdata. If you want to reuse this data
> elsewhere (e.g. search results), you're losing some important piece of
> information during the microdata parsing. I don't get why you would not want
> this (HTML) data to be available in the microdata output, and let the end user
> decide whether they want to use them or strip them out.

Here is another use case. I develop software for creating annotations on online
scientific resources. Typically scientists can write comments related to a
resource or a fragment of it. For instance, if we are looking at the following
text: 

"The function of full-length APP is undefined, and it is likely that
full-length APP performs distinct roles from any its cleavage products"

The author of this piece, or another scientist, could comment - using an online
rich text editor that our users like very much - including a link:

"I am referring to the full-length <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyloid_precursor_protein">APP</a>"

or, if she prefers to use a term from an ontology:

"I am referring to the full-length <a
href="http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/PRO_000004168">APP</a>"

When you republish the comment with Microdata, if you strip out the HTML, the
comment is useless as APP can be many different things (related and not related
to the topic). The only way to understand the comment is referring to the APP
protein is to look at the link that gets 'lost in translation'. The same
considerations apply when scientists attach references or evidence in their
comments. Something like:

"<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2659208/">[Hoe et
al.]</a>

Of course there is always the alternative of forcing users to use plain text -
with an old style textarea instead of a rich text editor - or to develop
software translating users' HTML into a wiki like format. However this would be
a big limitation and an additional burden

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Received on Thursday, 4 August 2011 17:29:49 UTC