Re: Itemref on parent entities within the same scope should not inherit itemprop value of the target

Hello Jarno van Driel and thank you for your helpful reply,

First of all I'd like to note that linking to other entities is an
important and basic feature for the schema that a lot of functionality will
be built upon.

Up to now it was possible to mark an existing html document with schema
just by adding properties on existing tags without adding additional tags
or mingling with properties used already for html (other than “id”).
Doesn’t adding a link tag or href property break this foundation?

Let’s say that you want to add a CommunicateAction to a button that
references its parent entity as in this models list
<http://modelisto.com/Models/>. I believe this process should be as
transparent as possible so that developers can “upgrade” existing html
without adding additional tags (such as Link/href) that is uncertain how
browsers/programs would interpret visually. Simply by just embedding new
properties to existing dom elements. Moreover the href property is already
being used and is conceptually bound to the specific action of moving to a
new url. Even if you had something like <span itemprop="affiliation"
href="#AcmeCorp"> that still would be awkward if not problematic.

Shouldn’t there be a way of linking transparently in parallel?

Like:
<span itemprop="recipient" itemhref="Model-Artist-ID">

Or more specifically:
<div itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/CommunicateAction">
<a itemprop="recipient" itemhref="Model-Artist-ID"
href=”Actual-Url-To-Go-To-Communicate”>Contact</a>
</div>

This way microdata can be operated separately and more efficiently