Re: Redefine and reuse?

Thad, perhaps I was too flip. We cannot assume that everyone will read 
everything on the schema.org site before marking up some HTML. And we 
can't assume that everyone adding markup to a Web page is a "developer." 
The more apparent and accessible the schema information is, the more 
likely it is to be used. Expecting people to look for and make use of 
additional documentation in their particular area may not be a 
successful model.

It looks to me like the medical community model is that experts will 
create the data, and everyone from the public to experts will consume 
it. They may be able to assume that those creating the data will be 
trained to do so. Bibliographic data is widely created by people who are 
not experts in bibliographic data creation, and who get no training in 
that area; this includes most authors, many readers (LibraryThing, 
GoodReads), and lot of merchants. (For the bibliographic skills of the 
latter, look at data provided by Amazon's third party booksellers.)

I'd rather not expect that users of bibliographic data need to go 
further than users of, say, event information, in order to make use of 
schema.org. I actually want rank amateurs to be able to contribute in 
this area (unlike medicine, which for good reasons may wish to 
discourage amateurs). It may be a small barrier, but it could still be a 
barrier.

kc

On 7/23/13 1:15 PM, Thad Guidry wrote:
> Actually Karen,
>
> Schema.org does indeed ONLY WORK by reading documentation and applying
> it.  And the hope is that everyone does indeed read it, use it, and
> promote it.  It is completely up to users & web developers to
> implement...and something that does not have any effect or have any
> synergy unless web developers and users embrace that documentation we
> call, Schema.org   It means nothing without proper documentation AND the
> use of it.
>
> (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc, cannot force developers to make modifications
> to their sites....as hard as they have tried.  Sure they can apply some
> bot technology to make some assumptions about what we mean given a
> certain tag or string...but that can only get you so far.  Ambiguity
> rears its head often.  And that ambiguity is the basis for Schema.org,
> least I remind you. :-)  )
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 2:48 PM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net
> <mailto:kcoyle@kcoyle.net>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     On 7/23/13 7:43 AM, Dan Scott wrote:
>
>
>         I suspect here one answer is "domain-specific documentation",
>         along the
>         lines of http://schema.org/docs/__meddocs.html
>         <http://schema.org/docs/meddocs.html> - if we don't have an
>         extension mechanism available that allows processors to fall back to
>         "sku" when they encounter "callnumber", then having a
>         "Documentation for
>         bibliographic types" page that says "Here's how you mark up
>         items that
>         you have available for sale or loan using Offer", with examples,
>         should
>         fill the gap reasonably well. Particularly if said documentation is
>         available _from_ the schema.org <http://schema.org> site.
>
>
>     Dan,
>
>     While not opposed to documentation or "best practices," given human
>     nature I am wary of developing anything that only works if the users
>     have read the documentation. ;-)
>
>
>     kc
>
>     --
>     Karen Coyle
>     kcoyle@kcoyle.net <mailto:kcoyle@kcoyle.net> http://kcoyle.net
>     ph: 1-510-540-7596
>     m: 1-510-435-8234
>     skype: kcoylenet
>
>
>
>
> --
> -Thad
> Thad on Freebase.com <http://www.freebase.com/view/en/thad_guidry>
> Thad on LinkedIn <http://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/>

-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet

Received on Tuesday, 23 July 2013 21:34:58 UTC