Welcome

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the HTML data task force. May your stay be a pleasant one.

This task force will only be running for the next couple of months, and we have some very clear outputs to produce, so we will need to get cracking. According to our mission statement [1] we're tasked to create:

 1. a set of use cases for embedding data in HTML
 2. documentation for publishers and consumers that will help them choose which syntax (microdata/RDFa/microformats) to use in each use case
 3. documentation to help publishers and consumers mix syntaxes within their pages
 4. a (sketch of a) generic mapping from microdata to RDF
 5. a (sketch of a) generic mapping from RDFa to microdata JSON
 6. a set of guidelines for vocabulary developers to help them create schemas that can be used across syntaxes

Along the way, we may find that we encounter places where a change to either RDFa or microdata would make things smoother for users. In these cases, we will also need to produce bug reports and possibly change proposals for either HTML microdata [2], HTML+RDFa 1.1 [3] or RDFa 1.1 Core [4].

I think a lot of the raw material for this is out there already in various places -- for example, Hixie collated a set of use cases when designing microdata; Tantek has put together a bunch of guidelines for creating microformat vocabularies that are designed to be general purpose; Gregg and people at DERI have worked on mappings from microdata to RDF. What I propose we do is try to collate this information, along with the results of out discussions, in the wiki [1] and summarise that into a more formal document (or set of documents) after a month or so. I've created some initial pages to structure that.

As we're getting settled in over the next week or so, it would be great if everyone who joins could:

 * introduce themselves
 * raise any questions, issues or concerns about the task force
 * say which products listed above they think should have priority
 * indicate which products they are interested in contributing towards themselves
 * add to the wiki any pointers to relevant existing materials they know of

Just a final word. I am really pleased it has been possible to assemble people from a range of backgrounds for this taskforce. We all know the history around embedding data in HTML and that the different approaches have different philosophies. To be successful we will need to keep focussed on the goal of aiding both publishers and consumers who use these formats. As chair, my aim is to keep the TF firmly directed towards improving users' practical understanding of trade-offs between the different approaches, not indulge in philosophical debates, and I will appreciate your support in helping the TF to retain that focus.

Thanks,

Jeni

[1]: http://www.w3.org/wiki/Html-data-tf
[2]: http://dev.w3.org/html5/md/
[3]: http://dev.w3.org/html5/rdfa/
[4]: http://www.w3.org/2010/02/rdfa/drafts/#rdfa-core
-- 
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com

Received on Thursday, 22 September 2011 09:27:39 UTC