Re: RDFa and Microformats

Hi Martin,

[there are more cuts...]

>>
>> If you want to use microformats *exactly* as is, you have to vary your
>> parsing rules based on the microformat in question, and the best way to
>> do that is, as Toby has mentioned, using GRDDL and @profile. We may
>> eventually be able to use @profile to feed the RDFa tools pipeline, but
>> not yet.
>> What we discussed recently is the possibility of making the prefix story
>> simpler for microformats-*like* markup, but still using @rel, @property,
>> @typeof consistently. We still need to work on that, but note that we're
>> *not* talking about subsuming existing microformats as-is into generic
>> RDFa, as that would make RDFa parsing vocabulary-dependent. That would
>> break a lot of the goodness of RDFa.
>>
>
> Yes and the goodness of GRDDL, In fact I am beginning to believe that
> Microformats And RDFa are not well suited at all and the whole idea was and
> Interesting but pointless discussion. This I think is because Both
> Microformats and RDFa use GRDDL profiles, One or two GRDDL applications
> Redland, ARC that I know of Parse hCards by default without using a
> transformation link, just using the data-view profile see:
> http://librdf.org/parse?language=grddl&uri=http://weborganics.co.uk/demo/hcard.xhtml,
>  so what if I were to mix that with some RDFa, see:
> http://librdf.org/parse?language=grddl&uri=http://weborganics.co.uk/demo/hcard-RDFa.xhtml,
> Triples are repeating themselves but in different contexts, thats not
> exactly a defining "meaning", It only brings myself to ask Why use RDFa in
> my markup when Microformats are easier?

There are a lof of reasons to use RDFa instead Microformats, depending
on context and the meaning of "easier".
Easier for tools and implementations? Microformats have actually more
datas expressed in this way and more tools... but this can be
temporary... and RDFa community is deploying tools and 'cut and paste'
templates. What do You need exactly?

As for my experience - in XHTML writing - RDFa is quite good....
First for accessibility: using the @title on acronyms, screen readers
read the date in ISO format, not suitable for humans... and this is
not good for Microformats.... for other question Steven Pemberton
wrote about BBC and Microformats.
Sencond for code quality: the question is simple... I've a huge use of
@class only for Semantics questions... and using multiple Microformats
(try to use hCard and hCalendar and Geo and RSS-dialect and hDOAP and
eRDF... check the code on the page on my signature for a big example),
I've can have class-names duplicated but with different meaning and if
I add that @class is also used for design (and now there are also a
large use of multiple classes in CSS-design) I can be confused looking
and editing code. Or imagine You pass you're code to a CSS-Designer...
the question is also the right division of work.

>>  You know that's what I always thought, but I have been made to believe
>> RDFa is a General Purpose Syntax used to describe semantics in XHTML,
>> not limited to just RDF,    That would be incorrect, as RDFa maps directly
>> to RDF. There may be
>> syntactic sugars for certain URLs and vocabularies, but it's always
>> triples at the end. What else would it be?
>>
>
> Thank you for confirming That small issue up for me... I never did get to
> the bottom of it, Do you not think RDFa could be used to extract Atom, RSS2
> or even XSPF, I do , its fairly easy with a little xslt in fact I believe
> that Its actually easier to perform  XSL transformations on RDFa because of
> the "extra" properties and their very precise meanings,

XSL can be a great allied in fact with RDFa, using generic XSL (like
XSL by Fabien Gandon) or specific transformations both.

>> Maybe you're not quite seeing that RDF is powerful enough to express
>> everything, in particular all microformats. Its power comes from its
>> generic data model.
>>
>>
>
> No I do see that, Using Microformats as an example was probably a bad idea,
> which seems to have caused some confusion....lets just drop it :-)
>
> I will say I dont believe the RDFa Syntax should be limited to RDF when it
> can be so much more, it CAN be a Generic Syntax to Describe Semantics, not
> Limited to RDF...

RDFa has more power and expressivity, is the same difference between
Lego and normal-games. With Lego you can build and play anything, with
other games you can use it only for the purpose which are created..
not only if you have a Lego car and a Lego ship you can create a
spaceship!

> That again is a rant, Mainly at the would be publishers of RDFa, Do you
> really think that commercial publishers are not going to exploit RDFa and
> not build walled gardens and be anti-social? This suggested to me by an SEO
> I know,   The idea is that every website that he builds for his clients ARE
> going to exist in its OWN namespace He believes this will Increase the Page
> Rank of all his sites because the underlying "Meaning" is unique to the
> site.. it goes a bit further that it basically means instead of creating one
> link to a page you can deliver a hundred different links in a hundred
> different contexts because the namespace that he creates for each site map
> to keywords like http://somesite.com/ns/wood  or
>  http://somesite.com/ns/mahogany


Technology is a tool, you may and can choose the use of it. Technology
itself is not good or bad, it's only technology. Became good or bad
depending on people using it.

So as I see, the question is not namespace - or not only - You can
copy or make links to documents on namespaces or creates a vocabs mix
or simply create your own duplicating others...  for this issue RDFa
is free, is a free technology not linked to a specific site (you can
choose namespaces to use).

I see the problem for publisher is the simple reuse and datas mashup
(but this is good :-). For example take RSS (in it's RDF form of
course :-) or ATOM... People increasing the use of Feed readers to
read the news... ok, good, data is reusable and I can use on my Mobile
phone, PDA... but publisher not generates pageviews and people not see
ads...
In Italy, in the last moths, I see more blogger (professional and not)
using RSS only for summary and a "read all" link for all contents (in
this way you generate pageviews and see ads). If you also consider the
News world (likes professional agency) RSS is a really bad thing, the
only way to get the news is to buy it (and this may be correct) and it
take it via FTP in a proprietary (not well-formed) XML format.

See also the problem of social datas interoperability and exporting...

So, IMHO, SEO and Web Marketing can take a lof of advantages (not
using Black or Gray Hat tactics) with Semantic Web and in particular
with RDFa, I'm prepairing for a conference for October on this
arguments and I'm finding a lot of positive things, but we must think
"out of the box"

Best Wishes,

Simone

-- 
Simone Onofri
http://www.siatec.net/

Received on Sunday, 14 September 2008 00:32:43 UTC