[whatwg] several messages about XML syntax and HTML5

[Mike Schinkel]

> Yes, visible metadata is far more likely to be kept updated 
> than invisible metadata (a quick look at the Web is enough 
> to demonstrate that).

You are making assumptions based on what has been and not what can be. If
business processes require the data to be maintained in order to continue
making money (i.e. there is a direct causal link), it will be. Earlier I
gave you an example of such need for maintenace of data based on my previous
reseller business. That was serious real world example, and I describe
another spin on it below.

> > 14 characters times every instance. There can be hundreds 
> to thousands 
> > of instances on the page. It makes creating the markup 
> correctly very 
> > difficult, and adds needlessly to page size (often exceeding Google 
> > recommendations for parsable documents.)
> 
> Could you show me an example of such a page?

Certainly.  The following is some of the research I did when discussing
"currency" microformat on uf-discuss (I have more if you need it):

The list is of very large price lists from the web. Some are in PDF and/or
XLS formats, but I would argue one of the things Microformats will hopefully
encourage would be the publishing of these more things in HTML so they could
be processed by machines instead of XLS and PDF (except of course in the
latter case where the content is best in PDF format.)

As I have mentioned before, I ran an catalog/internet retailer that sold
software development tools to software developers for 12 years.  One of the
best things Microsoft could have done for us was to have published their
product and price lists in a well known location with documented
parsability.  Sure we could find them in their ever changing locations and
we could download the Excel files but we didn't have the skill to parse the
info out reliability so we never did it.  I can't tell you just how valuable
it would have been for us if they had just published in an HTML format with
something like Microformats. It would have saved us literally tens of
thousands of dollars over the years.

BTW, publishing it as lots of lists would have made it much harder for us to
get to it. One file would have been best.  And we'd have downloaded it
nightly.

https://partner.microsoft.com/download/US/40018463
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/access_purchase/2007/institution_price_list.ht
ml
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/access_purchase/2007/personal_price_list.html
http://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/Springer%2
0Journals%20Price%20List%202007%20EUR.xls?SGWID=0-0-45-310891-0
http://www.sagepublications.com/INSTPRICELIST.pdf
http://www.oceanoptics.com/Products/pricelist102006.pdf
http://www.hhhh.org/cloister/pricelists/current-magic
http://support.dialog.com/pricing/dialogselect/dsel_prices.pdf
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/cservices/pricelist.pdf
http://www.wiley-vch.de/pdf/Wiley_Pricelist_2007.pdf
http://www.softwarespectrum.com/microsoft/Advisor/docs/EA_Perpetual_Listed_U
S_PriceList.xls
http://www.smalldog.com/SmallDogPriceList.txt

> > > What's wrong with:
> > >    $54.97 (USD)
> > 
> > Uh, no metadata?
> 
> What metadata is missing? The currency and  
> amount are both present. What more do you 
> need?

This was discussed ad-nauseum on uf-discuss.  Ironically, I argued what you
argued, but was overruled. Here's one place where some of the discussions
where captured: http://microformats.org/wiki/currency-brainstorming

If you need more, see: http://microformats.org/wiki/currency-examples and
http://microformats.org/wiki/currency
Also, look for "currency" on
http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2006-October/threa
d.html

-- 
-Mike Schinkel
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/
http://www.welldesignedurls.org/