[whatwg] Ghosts from the past and the semantic Web

[James Graham]

Henri Sivonen wrote:
> On Aug 28, 2008, at 15:00, Russell Leggett wrote:
> 
>> I actually think that using custom microformat-like conventions with 
>> classes or tags is really not as robust a solution as what is being 
>> attempted with RDFa (I honestly did not know much about RDFa before 
>> this conversation). However, while people keep suggesting classes, I 
>> have yet to hear anyone suggest the data- attributes. Maybe it was 
>> said or implied elsewhere, but it seems like a good fit here. Instead 
>> of requiring the addition of "about" or "property" attributes, just 
>> use "data-about" or "data-property". It may not be ideal, but it fits 
>> with the existing spec.
> 
> As Anne and Julian have pointed out, that's not a use of data-* 
> attributes permitted by the spec.

FWIW I think we have a problem in that multiple independent people have seen 
data-* and assumed they are for externally readable metadata. If the bad effects 
of people using it for that purpose are worse than the usefulness of the 
feature, we need to consider removing the feature. If the bad effects are not so 
bad we need to consider legitimizing this as it is clearly something that it is 
clear will happen irrespective of what the spec says.

-- 
"Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?"
  -- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead