Re: Geographic Tags in HTML

Well, we did decide to try to come up with a unified data format based on
GML (the OpenGIS language). Generally, embedding stuff in HTML is a quick
fix for what actually is a larger problem. One intention is that the CC/PP
and XML Document Profiles should be usable to contain this stuff. This will
also enable it to be processed as part of the general parametrization of
content, instead of as a separate application, since there are often
several parameters that together enable a contextualization (if "the
weather is nice" and "I am in Miami", then "show me the way to the beach"). 

Johan

At 23:43 2000-04-28 -0500, Dan Connolly wrote:
>Andrew Daviel wrote:
>> 
>> Last year I posted some proposals for geographic tagging of Web pages.
>> It was pointed out that there might be more interest if there
>> was an application.
>> 
>> So, now there is a demo application - http://geotags.com/script/geosearch
>
>Cool service! I have a suggestion about the markup...
>
>> Other changes - the "country" tag has been dropped, merged into "region".
>> "region" now formally uses ISO 3166-2 country subdivision codes, available
>> from http://geotags.com/geo/iso3166 (I think - the 'net's broken 'twixt me
>> and there at present). ISO 3166-2 for the US and Canada is trivial - "CA"
>> or "US" hyphen State/Province e.g. US-NY or CA-BC. ISO 3166-1 alone is
>> allowed for geo.region, e.g. "RU" - the old "geo.country" tag.
>> 
>> geo.position follows RFC 2426 (vCard), which many people are now using
>> (at least, lat;long is in the vCard RFC and many people are using vCard,
>> which is admittedly not quite the same thing as many people using lat;long
>> ...)
>> 
>> Precis:
>> 
>>      <META NAME="geo.position" content="48.54;-123.84">
>> 
>>    describes a resource at position 48.54 degrees North, 123.84 degrees
>>    West.
>
>I was going to suggest you use RDF and sketch a schema, but I see
>you've considered that...
>
>"The tags are described in terms of current HTML practice, which does
>          not preclude them being represented in another manner such as
>RDF or
>          XML. "
>	-- http://geotags.com/geo/geotags2.html
>
>Meanwhile, I highly recommend you ground the terms in your vocabulary
>in the Web using the HTML profile syntax:
>
>	Meta data profiles 
>
>http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/struct/global.html#h-7.4.4.3
>
>for example, just change the HEAD tag to:
>
>	<HEAD profile="http://geotags.com/geo/geotags2.html">
>
>That way (1) if somebody else uses the name "geo.region" for something
>else, you can tell them apart, and (2) if somebody finds an HTML
>document and wonders what the heck geo.region means, they have
>a place to look.
>
>
>
>>      <META NAME="geo.placename" content="London, Ont">
>>      <META NAME="geo.region" content="CA-ON">
>> 
>>    describes a resource in London, Ontario, Canada
>> 
>> These tags are only meaningful, and should only be used, for
>> pages that relate to a specific place. You put geo.position on the
>> page for your walk-in retail store, not on your resume or
>> software manual. (geo.region is OK if the page really does have some
>> regionality, e.g. "CA" on Canadian tax preparation software)
>> 
>> More information at http://geotags.com
>> 
>> Andrew Daviel
>> Vancouver Webpages
>
>And now some notes before I forget...
>
>	-- it should be easy to use XSLT to screen-scrape this markup into RDF
>	http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-interest/2000Mar/0103.html
>
>	-- relationship to dc.coverage?
>	http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.0/coverage
>
>	-- any relevant stuff from the posdep workshop?
>
>W3C - WAP Forum Workshop on Position Dependent Information Services
>INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France, February 15 - 16, 2000
>http://www.w3.org/Mobile/posdep/
>
>I added www-rdf-interest to the cc: list; I hope you don't mind.
>
>-- 
>Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/

************************************************************
                         Johan HJELM
      Ericsson Research, User Applications Group 
         Currently visiting engineer at the W3C
Chair, CC/PP Working Group and WCA Interest Group
             The World Wide Web Consortium
                         hjelm@w3.org
   http://www.w3.org/People/W3Cpeople.html#Hjelm
    Fax +1-617-258 5999, Phone +1-617-253-9630
   MIT/LCS, 545 Tech. Sq. Cambridge MA 02139 USA 
        Opinions are personal, always my own, 
  and not necessarily those of Ericsson or the W3C. 
============================================================

Received on Monday, 1 May 2000 09:54:07 UTC