Re: ISSUE-76: Need feedback on splitting Microdata into separate specification

Quoting Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de>:

> James Graham wrote:
>> One point that has not, as far as I can tell, thus far been raised   
>> in favour of keeping Microdata in the spec: Hixie has previously   
>> reported that the amount of feedback on sections that have been   
>> removed has dropped compared to when they were in the main spec   
>> (sorry I only remember this from IRC and don't have a reference   
>> handy). So keeping microdata in the main spec ensures that it   
>> receives the greatest possible amount of input from people   
>> interested in HTML5 but unaware of all the history behind what is   
>> in different documents. Such people exist for sure because they   
>> regularly appear on IRC asking why X is missing from HTML5, where X  
>>  is a feature that has been spun off into a different spec. Having   
>> microdata in the HTML5 spec for Last Call in particular will ensure  
>>  that the attention and wide review that happens during the this   
>> period also focuses attention on microdata, thus helping to improve  
>>  the technology.
>
> That sounds like an argument to add RDFa to the main spec then.

It is, but in the case of RDFa the effect would be mitigated by the  
constraint that RDFa/HTML have the same syntax and functionality as  
RDFa/XHTML. So it is at least not obvious that there is as much scope  
for substantial changes based on feedback from those who happen to be  
interested in HTML5 but have no prior knowledge of RDFa.

In any case it seems that all the people who are advocating RDFa  
prefer it to be in a separate spec. Therefore it seems irrelevant  
whether the reasons in favour of Microdata remaining in the main HTML5  
spec could also apply to RDFa.

Received on Friday, 16 October 2009 21:43:17 UTC