Re: [RDFa] ISSUE-3 @class and @role for rdf:type

A followup.

As much as I'm distraught that we can't go with our unofficial
consensus, I am forced to note that I'm the only one left fighting for
@class. If anyone else out there on the list wants to speak up, it's now
or never, because, even if the issue were closed, the current state of
things would force me to reopen it.

So, unofficial resolution or not, I am reopening this issue for discussion.

My personal take (chair hat off) is that we stick with @class, using
namespaced values only, mostly because the specifics here don't really
matter much technically speaking, but the inertia does. I see an
actively serious problem with using @role, since that has a meaning for
WAI that is clearly not rdf:type (though it can be xh:role, of course).
So, if @class loses, then I favor a new attribute altogether. @role
should have an RDFa meaning, though I don't think it belongs as a core
RDFa attribute and thus shouldn't really be added until XHTML2, IMO.

-Ben

Shane McCarron wrote:
> I have kept quite on this issue, but have been ruminating on it for weeks.
> 
> Steven Pemberton wrote:
>>
>> Let me try and summarise the positions as I see them
>>
>> For class:
>>     Used by microformats in a similar way
>>     HTML Spec allows it
>>     Already there, no new attribute
>>     Implementations already using it
>>
>> Against class:
>>     Special rule for namespaced/non-namespaced values
>>     Confusion/objection by/upset for current class users
>>     Used by microformats in a similar way
> The class attribute does not take QNAMEs as values, it takes CDATA.
> Moreover, CSS2 does not know how to deal with namespace-qualified class
> names at all, so if we introduce this concept we run afoul of the
> community that has, by all accounts, the best claim to the @class space.
> While the similarity with microformats (how I *hate* that term) is both
> good and bad, I do not think that we should attempt to steal the march
> from microformats by co-opting the space they are ad-hoc operating in. 
> We would be much better off working in a separate space and
> demonstrating how much more powerful that other space is.
>>
>> For role:
>>     Clean start, no legacy
>>     No special namespace-prefix rules; can use default namespace rules.
> XHTML is designed to permit the introduction of new attributes.  The
> XHTML working group has already introduced this attribute into the XHTML
> namespace, so it is available for use in this way.
>>
>> Against role:
>>     Potential conflict with WAI use of role needs to be resolved
> I think there is no conflict, but that's from an XHTML / WAI
> perspective.  From an RDF perspective there may be.
> The more I think about this, the more I believe that using @class in an
> XHTML 1.1+RDFa context is just wrong.  Even using it in an HTML4 context
> is wrong.  Having special rules for prefixed vs. non-prefixed values is
> inconsistent with everything else we have done.  @role is a clean
> solution that dovetails nicely with the original intent of the
> attribute.  How it is transformed into RDF (rdf:type vs xh:role) I don't
> understand or care, really.

Received on Thursday, 5 July 2007 19:00:58 UTC