[uf-discuss] geo and named locations

Sun Jul 23 21:30:59 PDT 2006

Charles,
> My take on hCard's is that they do NOT have to represent "contact
> info". (Although they can be used for that.)
>> So using an hCard for the "Eiffel Tower" (as you mentioned in your
> example) would be OK.

I think this is where microformats and their "reuse [of] building 
blocks from widely adopted standards" can get tricky.
vCard says in its abstract
"for directory information for a white-pages person object"
"The profile is defined for representing and exchanging a variety of 
information about an individual"
hCard extends this to "contact information ... for people, companies, 
and organizations".
At present, we have three microformats associated with location (and 
closely associated with one another, via hCard)
geo
adr
hCard
Now, of course, geo and adr are derived from hCard, but the way I see 
it, they are also independent from it. Clearly a way of marking up 
addresses and geographic locations is required, and it does make 
sense that they be reused from hCard. But adr and geo shouldn't be 
constrained by their role in hCard when used independently, and I 
don't think they are supposed to be - for example, I don't think they 
are restricted to being associated with contact information (though, 
"geo is a 1:1 representation of the "geo" property in the vCard 
standard" leads us to RFC2426 which says "This type specifies 
information related to the global position of the object associated 
with the vCard" - I guess that last bit doesn't apply when it is used 
independently from an hCard :-)
At the moment, we do have the explicit constraints on geo mentioned - 
that named locations MUST use hCard (which is what prompted this 
discussion ;-), and addresses should be used if they exist and are 
known (I take it that the adr format suffices here).
But, imagine you have the following
"Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated outside the Town Hall in 
Sarajevo"
Now, the Town Hall is a named location, for which we have geo 
information. If I wanted to mark this up with a geo microformat, do I 
need to also use hCard? Or is it only in the context of contacting a 
person company or organisation that this requirement exists?
Does it make sense ot use geo in this context at all? I'd say yes, as 
the definition of geo is very broad "a simple format for marking up 
geographic latitude longitude information", so its useful even if not 
in the context of contact information.
I know I am being a pedant, but I'm trying to clarify this as much as 
possible, because I am doing some presentations, workshops and other 
general evangelism of uf and I find geo and adr really good simple uf 
to use as example which go beyond the rel based ones, and I don;t 
want to set anyone down the garden path by giving them misleading use 
cases.
Thanks
j
John Allsopp
style master :: css editor :: http://westciv.com/style_master
blog :: dog or higher :: http://blogs.westciv.com/dog_or_higher
WebPatterns :: http://webpatterns.org
Web Directions Conference :: Sydney September 28-29 :: http://wd06.com