Re: Inverse Properties in Microdata:, was Re: schema.org update, v1.8: added WebSite type; broadened isPartOf to relate CreativeWorks

On 5 August 2014 13:50, Markus Lanthaler <markus.lanthaler@gmx.net> wrote:
> On 5 Aug 2014 at 14:07, Dan Brickley wrote:
>> On 4 August 2014 18:41, Markus Lanthaler wrote:
>>> May I ask why? I thought the main feature of Microdata was its simplicity.
>>> Reverse properties are not exactly the simplest thing as this thread has shown.
>>> So why add them to Microdata? Why can't we simply recommend people to
>>> use RDFa for such "advanced" use cases? Do we want to evolve both formats
>>> in the future?
>>>
>>> Don't get me wrong, I'm not against adding this feature to Microdata at all. I'm
>>> just curious to understand the motivation and reasoning behind this effort.
>>
>> Imagine you're running a large site, probably with chunks of it built
>> by people whose roles and even employer may have changed. Imagine it
>> has embedded Microdata throughout, and you're wondering whether to add
>> some additional information to match new schema.org vocabulary. For
>> people in this situation, throwing in a few more itemprops (and
>> reverse-itemprops) is a relatively simple, low risk option. Ripping it
>> all out to replace with RDFa (or JSON-LD) is going to be a much more
>> expensive and daunting operation.
>
> Yeah, this is very true and a completely valid concern. Too bad Microdata decided to invent its own attribute names :-P
>
>
>> Hence the desire for a convention on
>> top of Microdata to match this (relatively niche and rarely used)
>> piece of syntax that RDFa and JSON-LD publishers already have.
>
> This is exactly the thing I me that triggered my question. If it is really "relatively niche and rarely used", do we really want to complicate everyone's live by introducing a new feature to Microdata? Or would it be more sensible to require those "few" who need it to invest a little more effort?

The suggestion from Ian Hickson was that we decide what attribute we
want, and he'll make sure it doesn't get used for anything else.
Beyond that we can try it out and see how it goes.

I am glad for the current thread as it is identifying places where
list participants had different expectations. Even if it doesn't
immediately become an official part of Microdata, there's no excuse
not to have the design specified as clearly as possible!

Dan

Received on Tuesday, 5 August 2014 12:55:56 UTC