Re: [uf-discuss] Bioformats - microformats for biology
André Luís wrote: http://bioformats.org/ Why is this being developed outside of this community? Possibly because they don't quite understand how the Microformats Process works. I know our first impression was that we didn't need to perform any sort of centralized development through the Microformats community. We believed that Microformats could be developed by anybody on the web and there was no stamp of approval necessary to call what you were doing a Microformat. At first blush, it wasn't clear that there was a process behind what this community does... Has anyone heard of this before and/or have contacted the founders of this project? I've notified them of this thread. Bottom line is.. should we care about this? Yes, we should. They have demonstrated buy-in to the semantic web at some level, interest in Microformats, the ability to do some work and publish in a way that is open, and they're backed by an institute - which means that probably have more time and interest than most to work on this stuff. Try to invite them to join the community and discuss the pros and cons of their proposals? Or just leave them be? It would be a mistake to not invite them to join and let them decide if this community is the best avenue forward. We shouldn't assume what the interests of this community are - this mailing list has over 1,000 readers and all you really need is 2-3 highly motivated individuals to push some of these initiatives forward. -- manu -- Manu Sporny President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc. blog: Bitmunk 3.1 Website Launch http://blog.digitalbazaar.com/2009/01/16/bitmunk-3-1-website-launch ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
Re: [uf-discuss] Bioformats - microformats for biology
li...@ben-ward.co.uk wrote: This community very intentionally doesn't try create specifications for everything. Previous pure-science efforts such as species died because it fell way outside the area of active interest of most of this community's participants. I don't think that's the defining reason (Andy's banning, as Toby stated, is probably the primary reason that the species uF is currently not under development). While I do agree that it's important that this community is careful about what it works on, we shouldn't be exclusive and we shouldn't assume that we know where certain community members want to focus their attention. If a couple of people want to come into the Microformats community to develop their vocabularies, we shouldn't say that there isn't a place for them. I, for one, would be interested to see how a bioformats discussion would evolve *ba-dum-bum* =P. We're talking about the bits and pieces that make us who we are! Allowing us to identify and process that information could help us better understand how we're connected to each other as a species. That seems like a fairly noble endeavor. Ever played around with 23andme.com[1]? Being able to mark up your personal genome on 23andme and have the browser cross-link against SNPedia[2] automatically would be really awesome. In short, we could help them work through some of the more subtle language and vocabulary issues while helping an initiative that could very well benefit the human condition. The discussion may come to nothing, but let's give it a chance before shutting it down prematurely. -- manu [1] https://www.23andme.com/about/ [1] http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/SNPedia -- Manu Sporny President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc. blog: Bitmunk 3.1 Website Launch http://blog.digitalbazaar.com/2009/01/16/bitmunk-3-1-website-launch ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
Re: [uf-discuss] Bioformats - microformats for biology
On 24 Jan 2009, at 08:49, Manu Sporny wrote: li...@ben-ward.co.uk wrote: This community very intentionally doesn't try create specifications for everything. Previous pure-science efforts such as species died because it fell way outside the area of active interest of most of this community's participants. Apologies to anyone still working and implementing species work. I'd underestimated the traction. My point about collaborative interest being an important part of a microformat developer stands, but clearly my example was wrong. Sorry about that. While I do agree that it's important that this community is careful about what it works on, we shouldn't be exclusive and we shouldn't assume that we know where certain community members want to focus their attention. If a couple of people want to come into the Microformats community to develop their vocabularies, we shouldn't say that there isn't a place for them. Absolutely *anyone* should be welcome to work within the process of this community on use its resources (both people and tools) to support their work. But, in being welcoming we mustn't be closed to the idea that some groups or subject matter won't fit with us and could be more successfully developed in a different manner. We share the class attribute, and we are but one citizen in HTML semantics. I, for one, would be interested to see how a bioformats discussion would evolve *ba-dum-bum* =P FNAH! Ahem, yes: I'd be interested to read along with it and see the work happen here, for sure. (Aside: Personally I'd have nothing to contribute until later in the process when they reach the point of wanting peer review from the POV of it being a ‘microformat’, and so on, rather than the actual semantics expressed in it, but I would be prepared to offer that sort of input to as many specs as I can afford the time to assist.) Ben ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
