Re: Expected type(s) for email should include URL

On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 4:37 PM, Aaron Bradley <aaranged@gmail.com> wrote:

> The expected type for the property "email" [1], used on the types
> Organization, Person and ContactPoint, is text.
>
> However, an email address is as often as not expressed as a mailto:address.  And, in fact, almost all of the
> schema.org microdata examples that include this property express it as a
> URL, such as this example for Person [2]:
>
> <a href="mailto:jane-doe@xyz.edu" itemprop="email">jane-doe@xyz.edu</a>
>
> Google's Structured Data Testing Tool [3] does not complain if the Person
> example is run through it, but Google's Schema Validator [4] returns this
> warning - as it should, as per the spec:
>
> The property http://schema.org/email expects a value of type Text
>
> Note that it's perfectly possible for a page to legitimately use something
> other than text for the hyperlink anchor:
>
> <a href="mailto:jane-doe@xyz.edu" itemprop="email"><img
> src="gigantic-email-me-now-button.jpg"></a>
>
> Given this, doesn't it make sense to have the expected types for email to
> be set to "Text or URL", as with (for example) the property "menu"?
>

I like this idea of being tolerant on the expected value, and that's more
line with other properties in schema.org like you point out. This is
implied in the documentation about expected types [1], which says:

When browsing the schema.org types, you will notice that many properties
> have "expected types". This means that the value of the property can itself
> be an embedded item (see section 1d: embedded items). But this is not a
> requirement—it's fine to include just regular text or a URL.


I also expect some people will not necessarily always remember or care to
append mailto: in the case for example where an email address would be
displayed without a link, but simply as text in a span element (visible to
the end user).

Steph.

[1] http://schema.org/docs/gs.html#schemaorg_expected


> [1] http://schema.org/email
> [2] http://scheam.org/Person
> [3] http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
> [4] https://developers.google.com/gmail/schemas/testing-your-schema
> [5] http://schema.org/menu
>
>