[uf-discuss] eRDF <=> microformats?

Thu Jun 1 17:44:55 PDT 2006

On May 31, 2006, at 10:09 AM, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote:
> I apologize if this might be off-topic, but I'm honestly curious 
> and would like to understand this better:
>> http://www.bnode.org/archives2/58
>> eRDF:
> (+) follows the microformats principles
>> http://research.talis.com/2005/erdf/wiki/Main/RdfInHtml
>> From my admittedly naive perspective, eRDF looks like it *could* be 
> used in a way that is compatible with microformats. That is, not 
> *all* eRDF schemas and documents *are* necessarily microformats, 
> but many of them _could_ be. Conversely, it seems like _most_ 
> microformats could be described using eRDF schemas.

I depends on what you mean by "microformats."
I know the term has evolved and changed over time and that people use 
it with many different shades of meaning. I'm fine with some 
slipperiness, as that's just how human language works.
However, there's one bit of confusion/misundertand that really does 
bother me. There seems to be this mistaken understanding that 
microformats are just "using the class attribute, oh and sometimes 
rel and rev too".
Microformats are more than just semantic class names. They're a 
process, they're a style, they're an approach.
I understand people's desire to microformatted data into RDF, but I 
don't believe that embedding RDF into HTML is the answer, I think 
RDF itself is the problem–
RDF's model is too complex for many people to understand and there's 
nothing wrong with that- most people don't need to understand it.
However, I think there's an easier, more effective, lower-cost way of 
bridging the two groups- GRDDL [http://www.w3.org/2004/01/rdxh/spec].
Let people publish easy, simple microformats, then you guys can 
convert it to RDF. What's so wrong with that? I mean, it *works today*.
-ryan