- From: Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net>
- Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 09:54:10 -0500
On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 8:16 AM, Sebastian Heath <sebastian.heath at gmail.com> wrote: > I endorse Danny Ayers' proposal that HTML/HTML5 use RDFa as found in > the RDFa ?specification [1]. > > I particularly note that the user study and anecdotal evidence that > are an important part of Ian Hickson's objections represent a very > small sample. For my part, I find the flexibility and convenience > offered by prefixes to be an essential factor in my choice to use the > standard. Given that Ian's objections are so anecdotal, I'm confident > that the personal perspective of end user's like myself will have > equal effect in the conversation. I encourage those that wish to contribute to actually join[2] and participate. To start with, any proposal needs to conform to the following and actually be submitted to the working group: http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html#change-proposal If there are multiple irreconcilable proposals, this will likely result in a survey. You can find plenty of examples of completed change proposals and surveys in the right hand column of this page: http://dev.w3.org/html5/status/issue-status.html You can see examples of how surveys are evaluated: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/#events - Sam Ruby > ?-Sebastian > > ?http://sebastianheath.com > > ?[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdfa-syntax/ [2] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/#join > On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 4:35 AM, Danny Ayers <danny.ayers at gmail.com> wrote: >> ISSUE-120 >> Current Status [1,2] : >>> ? We a single change proposal to simplify the HTML+RDFa specification >>> ? by removing prefixes. >>> - We have another change proposal to clarify how prefixes work and >>> ? explain that they are optional. >> >> I'd like to propose that HTML/HTML5 uses RDFa as found in the RDFa >> specification [3]. This includes the use of namespace prefixes. >> >> I'll counter the argument for changing the spec in regards to >> namespace prefixes given (by Hixie) on the WHATWG Wiki [4] >> (statistical evidence is my trump card), and then also offer a >> sub-proposal that may help alleviate the perceived problems (but isn't >> tied to the main proposal). >> >> The Change Proposal summary (regarding namespace prefixes) is: >> Simplify the specification by removing features that are documented to >> be confusing to users. >> >> First, this change is unnecessary as the use of namespace prefixes is >> optional (full URIs can be used inline instead). If this feature is >> actually confusing to users then confusion may be avoided by only >> providing guidance in the HTML documentation on the use of RDFa >> without prefixes. If the facility coverage is adequate, then the user >> won't have any need to consult the RDFa spec for the namespace >> prefixes-based alternative. >> >> Second, the arguments given in the Change Proposal that support for >> namespace prefixes is confusing are mostly anecdotal - i.e. person A, >> B and C say it's confusing. (Given the size of the Web, such material >> isn't in short supply on any issue you wish to choose - given a little >> time with a search engine, arguments that the British Queen is an >> alien lizard can be amassed). Additionally no real distinction is made >> between issues faced by end-user publishers and tool developers. This >> is significant because the only time full knowledge of the namespace >> prefix mechanism is essential is when developers wish to write a >> parser - this seems something of a minority activity. >> >> Statistical evidence [5] would suggest that in reality the existence >> of the option to use namespace prefixes* isn't a barrier to widespread >> deployment of RDFa: "The data shows that the usage of RDFa has >> increased 510% between March, 2009 and October, 2010, from 0.6% of >> webpages to 3.6% of webpages (or 430 million webpages in our sample of >> 12 billion)". >> >> (* It's possible that none of the pages analysed actually used >> namespace prefixes, but that would still mean that their appearance in >> the specs doesn't compromise the use of RDFa as-is) >> >> A usability study is quoted, but as an internal Google study which was >> flawed in design and limited in scope, I don't believe this can be >> considered credible evidence. >> (Personally my biggest issue there was that there were only 7 >> participants, but Hixie has assured me that conclusions can reasonably >> be drawn from such small numbers of participants. On the blog it >> states "people really don't have any problems dealing with URLs as >> property names" - but as also stated there, this wasn't something that >> the study was designed to test. A casual observation is not evidence. >> There are also the issues mentioned in comments on the WHATWG blog [6] >> : "Videos can?t be viewed out of Google. Bias on the part of the >> creators of the study. Lack of outside involvement. No information >> about where the people taking the study are employed. Lack of >> diversity of demographics. Lack of proper, and neutral, oversight. >> Interpretation by person or persons without proper background, and >> neutrality. Single study, only.") >> >> --- >> >> So onto a sub-proposal: a way of removing the need for the widespread >> use of namespaces, and allow the use of short names rather than URIs >> for common terms, would be to put such terms in the HTML namespace. In >> other words, make a registry of terms along the same lines as already >> used for common rel="" attributes. Of course such a registry could >> never completely reflect the range of terms found in the wild, but it >> does seem likely that in the near term at least, HTML developers are >> most likely to predominantly use a limited range of terms, which could >> be catered for in the HTML namespace. >> >> This is akin to the approach taken by Google in their "Rich Snippets": >> common terms are placed in a single namespace. As noted elsewhere, the >> single-namespace approach is "hobbled" [7] and Google's particular >> implemention is severely flawed [8] (the main flaw is >> self-documenting, see http://rdf.data-vocabulary.org/name). But such >> issues could be to some extent alleviated by providing references to >> existing deployed vocabularies in the HTML namespace document, along >> the lines of: >> >> html:Person rdfs:subClassOf foaf:Person, vCard:Person, google:Person ... >> >> (Probably done in RDFa) >> >> Work would be needed in selecting suitable terms (the microformats >> community could probably help there) and care taken in aligning them >> appropriately with existing terms (i.e. where and in which direction >> to use rdfs:subClassOf/rdfs:subPropertyOf, >> owl:equivalentClass/owl:equivalentProperty etc). >> >> Were this approach taken, I'd suggest it was used alongside including >> RDFa as-is. As mentioned above, if the documentation guides the user >> towards the syntactically simpler approach, any potential confusion >> may be minimised. >> >> Cheers, >> Danny. >> >> [1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/120 >> [2] http://dev.w3.org/html5/status/issue-status.html#ISSUE-120 >> [3] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdfa-syntax/ >> [4] http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Change_Proposal_for_ISSUE-120 >> [5] http://tripletalk.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/rdfa-deployment-across-the-web/ >> [6] http://blog.whatwg.org/usability-testing-html5 >> [7] http://blog.iandavis.com/2009/05/13/googles-rdfa-a-damp-squib/ >> [8] http://www.jenitennison.com/blog/node/104 >> >> -- >> http://danny.ayers.name >> >> > >
Received on Friday, 4 February 2011 06:54:10 UTC