Microdata

Hi,

Microdata is included in the HTML spec, and RDFa Lite (which does the same  
thing) isn't.

There is a proposal to remove it from HTML5 and delay it to HTML 5.1. This  
seems a very bad idea, and we object.

Microdata is the format most heavily promoted by schema.org, and has wide  
implementation. We count it on a significant proportion of sites in  
Russia. We find it far more often than RDFa - presumably because it is  
implemented and promoted by both Yandex (the number one search engine in  
Russia) and Google (the global number one), and therefore considered  
important by developers.

It has been mentioned that there will not be sufficient browser support to  
pass CR. We believe this argument to be flawed because browser support for  
microdata is irrelevant. Browsers are not to the primary target of  
microdata and were not relevant to the broad uptake it has already seen.  
Implementation and interoperability should be measured on usage such as  
schema.org, which has built up a significant set of resources, with  
processors implemented independently by multiple competing search  
providers and content produced by a significant proportion of Web  
Developers.

We are sympathetic to the argument that taking microdata out of HTML5  
improves modularity and is therefore good, and to the argument that  
removing microdata puts it on a more logical level footing with RDFa Lite  
in public perception, reducing the risk of suggesting one is better than  
the other for use with HTML, instead of leaving it to the market to  
determine. Although these are fundamentally political, rather than pure  
technical arguments, they are not incorrect.

Unfortunately we are currently unable to provide significant editing  
resources of the calibre and experience with the HTML specification that  
is already available to the HTML Working group. If those editors are  
really unable to extract the spec and progress it to Recommendation, we  
believe that the next-best option is to keep it in HTML5.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathie Nevile - Consultant (web standards) CTO Office, Yandex
       chaals@yandex-team.ru         Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Monday, 20 May 2013 09:13:49 UTC