Visibility of the data (was Re: Formats and icing)

On 2014-10-02 00:48, Sarven Capadisli wrote:
> On 2014-10-01 21:51, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
>> On 10/1/14 2:42 PM, Sarven Capadisli wrote:
>>> can't use them along with schema.org.
>>>
>>> I favour plain HTML+CSS+RDFa to get things going e.g.:
>>>
>>> https://github.com/csarven/linked-research
>>
>> What about:
>>
>> HTML+CSS+(RDFa | Microdata | JSON-LD | TURTLE) ?
>>
>> Basically, we have to get to:
>>
>> HTML+CSS+(Any RDF Notation) .
>
> Sure, why not!

Actually, I'd like to make a brief comment on this. While I agree with 
(and enjoy) your eloquent explanations on RDF, Languages, and Notations, 
and that "any RDF Notation" is entirely reasonable (because we can go 
from one to another at relative ease), we shouldn't overlook one 
important dimension:

*Visibility* of the data.

Perhaps this is left better as a "best practice" than anything else, but 
in my opinion:

RDFa is ideal when dealing with HTML for research knowledge because if 
applied correctly, it will declare all of the "visible" portions of the 
research process and knowledge. It is to make the information available 
as first-class data as opposed to metadata. It is less likely to be left 
behind or go stale because it is visible to the human at all times.

This is in contrast to JSON-LD or Turtle where they will be treated as 
"dark" metadata, or at least create duplicate information subject to 
desynchronize. While JSON-LD and Turtle have their strengths, they are 
unnecessary when concerning the most relevant parts of the document 
which is already visible, e.g., concepts, hypothesis, methodological 
steps, variables, figures, tables, evaluation, conclusions.

Again, this is not meant to force anyone to use a particular RDF 
notation. Getting HTML+CSS in the picture is a huge win itself as far as 
I'm concerned :) Then applying RDF notation is a nice reasonable step 
forward.

* I am conveniently leaving out Microdata from this discussion because I 
don't feel it is still relevant.

-Sarven
http://csarven.ca/#i