Re[2]: rel="nofollow" attribute

Hello,

on 2005-01-20T23:23:09+03:00 Anne van Kesteren wrote:

> Jens Meiert wrote:
>> Rather some alternative solution than this attempt, which in my opinion
>> should be ignored.

> So world wide implementations should be ignored?

First of all, Google Inc., Microsoft Corp.'s MSN division, Yahoo Inc.
and Six Apart Ltd. are not the whole world, despite the fact some of
them are quite large corporations.

Next, some of the world wide implementations should obviously be
ignored. E.g., from HTML: the poorly designed blink or marquee
elements. I mean, if something is available worldwide, it is advisable
to use your brain to at least consider the alternatives.

> If the W3C had proposed
> something for this a while ago, maybe in a single draft, I guess it 
> would have been possible.

Clearly, there is no need for that. Authors who wish to prevent some
search engines from indexing certain parts of their sites can already
use the syntax described at http://www.robotstxt.org/ (which is truly
worldwide, by the way).

> However, since it seems (I may be wrong) that the W3C is currently not
> really looking for what authors need, solutions are find in one way or
> another and implemented in user agents.

Anne, do you really think that these caustic remarks are what authors
actually need?

> This particular thing is/will be implemented in at least 3 major search
> engines and in at least 10 weblog systems[1]. And that is only on day of
> release.

Good news and good marketing. But you're mixing things up. Apparently,
there was an agreement betweeen the above-mentioned companies, *then*
the implementations started to appear. It wasn't like someone shouted,
"Hey, I've great idea! Have a look at my syntax!" and - bang! - on the
next day a major search engine implements the proposal.

> I do not think the W3C can simply ignore such things and say that some
> alternative solution should be made. If the W3C wants some influence on
> where the web is heading it should act before such a thing as this
> happens.

Fortunatelly, you're not a member of the W3C team. Otherwise, we would
have marquee and similar stuff somewhere in the standards, I'm afraid.

> They can easily do this by looking for what authors want and what useful
> extensions would be for HTML and XHTML that authors need today instead
> of in 20 years.

Again, unhelpful critics. Look at what authors want, help the W3C,
send the proposals, join the team, but please don't send "look ma,
what a great piece of code is developed while you're fooling around"
messages.

See, one of the main problems the W3C is solving is standardization.
I'm worried that the things which are likely to affect a lot of people
on the Internet are being developed by some proprietary groups, be
that the Google-MSN-Y!-6A alliance, the so-called WHAT WG or something
else. In my opinion, when these entities suggest suchlike moves they
seek short-term benefits only. As opposed to them, the W3C and similar
organizations more or less successfully develop specifications that
not only satisfy customers but also have a long-term positive effect
on the Internet community in general.

The nofollow syntax seems to be very useful, and I have nothing
against it, since it conforms to the HTML syntax. But that's only a
hack, the effect on a larger scale is vague.

> [1]<http://www.google.com/googleblog/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html>

P.S. Please, don't use the www-html-editor list for discussion.

Alexander
-- 
  Alexander Savenkov                            http://www.xmlhack.ru/
  savenkov@xmlhack.ru             http://www.xmlhack.ru/authors/croll/

Received on Thursday, 20 January 2005 23:50:31 UTC