Re: [uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)
On 10/1/06, Scott Reynen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think $ is a unit of measuring currency, and barrel is a unit of measuring oil, which in this case is the product the currency references. I disagree. There are plenty of other things that can be sold by the barrel, and I doubt there are many instances of $/barrel being used without oil being specifically referenced. I think it's fairly clear that $ is a unit of currency, 'barrel' is a measure of volume, and $/barrel is a measure of currency/volume in its own right, similar to other composite measures like m.p.h. -Ciaran ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
Re: [uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)
On Oct 3, 2006, at 4:16 AM, Ciaran McNulty wrote: I think it's fairly clear that $ is a unit of currency, 'barrel' is a measure of volume, and $/barrel is a measure of currency/volume in its own right, similar to other composite measures like m.p.h. Sure we can conceptualize it like that, but if no one is publishing it like that, how will we microformat it? I've never seen $/barrel on the web, so this looks like an edge case to me. I have seen $__ per barrel, and that splits the unit of currency and the unit of measuring the product, just like $__ per share (implied 1 unit) or $__ for 2 widgets. It looks to me like splitting up the unit of currency and the unit of measuring the referenced product would cover 80% of real world examples, so I'm not seeing the value in exploring the edge case where the two are combined. If it's clear that my product is a barrel of oil (which hListing can make clear) and my currency is US dollars (which a simpler currency microformat can make clear), why can't we leave it to a computer to figure out how to most usefully combine those two pieces of information? Peace, Scott ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
Re: [uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)
Here are some additional examples from the Web of currency mixed with measures, some of which differ from the $__ per barrel pattern and a suggested new conceptualization that seems to work with them. http://microformats.org/wiki/currency-examples#Real-World_Examples Here is another suggested conceptualization that seems to match what's on the Web: $ is not a unit, $ is a currency. Dollar Cent are the units of the USD currency. Just like length is not a unit, but meter and foot are. Currency measures have a default unit (for USD, it's the dollar), that is sometimes omitted in the representation of currency amounts. *Example 1* So $25 per barrel is really $25 dollar per barrel, but a computer can figure this out from: span class=priceabbr class=currency title=USD$/abbrspan class=value25/span span class=unitdividerper/span span class=unit title=BLLbarrel/span/span/span BLL is the UNECE code for barrel. See http://microformats.org/wiki/measure-formats#UNECE *Example 2* 25 (USD per barrel) is really 25 $ dollar per barrel, $ is the currency, dollar per barrel is the unit but a computer can figure this out from: span class=price25 (abbr class=currency title=USDUSD/abbr span class=unitdividerper/span span class=unit title=BLLbarrel/span)/span *Example 3* Similarly in $150K per year the currency is $ but the unit is thousands of dollars per year, but the computer can figure it out from: span class=salaryabbr class=currency title=USD$/abbr150abbr class=unitmultiple title=1000K/abbr span class=unitdividerper/span span class=unit title=ANNyear/span/span/span ANN is the UNECE code for year. See http://microformats.org/wiki/measure-formats#UNECE Let me know what you think. I'll put this on the wiki later. Guillaume ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
Re: [uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)
On Oct 3, 2006, at 9:17 AM, Guillaume Lebleu wrote: Let me know what you think. I'll put this on the wiki later. The presence of UNECE codes for various units is encouraging. This proposal is shaping up nicely. Could you think of other client uses for just the measurement format? Already described in this thread were some excellent uses for measurement + currency (e.g. searching job listings). Also, I'm curious to know your thoughts on how this would tie in to the proposed historical uF. Would the entire currency+measure get wrapped in a history? That doesn't seem entirely necessary: the size of a barrel of oil doesn't change (right?). Only the $ currency fluctuates. Good work, -Colin ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
Re: [uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)
On Oct 3, 2006, at 2:17 PM, Guillaume Lebleu wrote: Here are some additional examples from the Web of currency mixed with measures, some of which differ from the $__ per barrel pattern and a suggested new conceptualization that seems to work with them. http://microformats.org/wiki/currency-examples#Real-World_Examples Here is another suggested conceptualization that seems to match what's on the Web: $ is not a unit, $ is a currency. Dollar Cent are the units of the USD currency. Just like length is not a unit, but meter and foot are. Currency measures have a default unit (for USD, it's the dollar), that is sometimes omitted in the representation of currency amounts. *Example 1* So $25 per barrel is really $25 dollar per barrel, but a computer can figure this out from: span class=priceabbr class=currency title=USD$/ abbrspan class=value25/span span class=unitdividerper/ span span class=unit title=BLLbarrel/span/span/span BLL is the UNECE code for barrel. See http://microformats.org/wiki/ measure-formats#UNECE *Example 2* 25 (USD per barrel) is really 25 $ dollar per barrel, $ is the currency, dollar per barrel is the unit but a computer can figure this out from: span class=price25 (abbr class=currency title=USDUSD/ abbr span class=unitdividerper/span span class=unit title=BLLbarrel/span)/span *Example 3* Similarly in $150K per year the currency is $ but the unit is thousands of dollars per year, but the computer can figure it out from: span class=salaryabbr class=currency title=USD$/ abbr150abbr class=unitmultiple title=1000K/abbr span class=unitdividerper/span span class=unit title=ANNyear/ span/span/span ANN is the UNECE code for year. See http://microformats.org/wiki/ measure-formats#UNECE Let me know what you think. I'll put this on the wiki later. I think this is a good example of the benefits of modularization. I think all of these various measurements would be more useful if they were more widely published, and I think the best way to get them widely published is to keep them as separate microformats addressing specific problems. We'll end up missing the most important information related to currency if we attempt an ocean-boiling currency-and-everything-related microformat. For example, two of the above examples have no markup indicating the value of the price. It doesn't do much good to know you're talking about barrels of oil and US dollars if I don't know what the value is. I assume this was just an oversight, but it's the kind of oversight we can avoid by keeping currency focused on currency and relegating everything else to more specific microformats (e.g. history, measurement, hListing). $50 is $50 whether I'm spending it on a barrel of oil or receiving it for an hour of work. Peace, Scott ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
Re: [uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)
Scott Reynen wrote: I think this is a good example of the benefits of modularization. I think all of these various measurements would be more useful if they were more widely published, and I think the best way to get them widely published is to keep them as separate microformats addressing specific problems. We'll end up missing the most important information related to currency if we attempt an ocean-boiling currency-and-everything-related microformat. There are still 2 separate sections for measure and currency, and I intend to keep it this way. But it was useful to look at both right away to see how they could be used as modules. For example, two of the above examples have no markup indicating the value of the price. It doesn't do much good to know you're talking about barrels of oil and US dollars if I don't know what the value is. I assume this was just an oversight, but it's the kind of oversight we can avoid by keeping currency focused on currency and relegating everything else to more specific microformats (e.g. history, measurement, hListing). $50 is $50 whether I'm spending it on a barrel of oil or receiving it for an hour of work. This was an oversight as I was focusing on the aspects at hand. It should have read: span class=pricespan class=value25/span (abbr class=currency title=USDUSD/abbr span class=unitdividerper/span span class=unit title=BLLbarrel/span)/span Although in some simple contexts, I don't think value is required. span class=price25abbr class=currency title=USDUSD/abbr/span What do you think? Guillaume ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
Re: [uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)
Colin wrote: This proposal is shaping up nicely. Could you think of other client uses for just the measurement format? Already described in this thread were some excellent uses for measurement + currency (e.g. searching job listings). Thanks Colin. For just the measurement format, of course automatic localization based on a browser preference, but I imagine you already thought about this one. Also, I'm curious to know your thoughts on how this would tie in to the proposed historical uF. Would the entire currency+measure get wrapped in a history? That doesn't seem entirely necessary: the size of a barrel of oil doesn't change (right?). Only the $ currency fluctuates. In my adaptation of XBRL currency semantics to uF, I have explored the use of empty anchors as references to global definitions of units instead of redundant local definitions, but I haven't got any feedback from the community on this yet. See http://microformats.org/wiki/currency-formats#XBRL This is not just relevant for the history uF but also for any tabular representation (ex. financial statements) where you don't want to repeat the unit/currency in each cell. See http://microformats.org/wiki/currency-examples#Use_of_currency_amounts_in_tables Guillaume ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
Re: [uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)
Colin wrote: This proposal is shaping up nicely. Could you think of other client uses for just the measurement format? Already described in this thread were some excellent uses for measurement + currency (e.g. searching job listings). Thanks Colin. For just the measurement format, of course automatic localization based on a browser preference, but I imagine you already thought about this one. Also, I'm curious to know your thoughts on how this would tie in to the proposed historical uF. Would the entire currency+measure get wrapped in a history? That doesn't seem entirely necessary: the size of a barrel of oil doesn't change (right?). Only the $ currency fluctuates. In my adaptation of XBRL currency semantics to uF, I have explored the use of empty anchors as references to global definitions of units instead of redundant local definitions, but I haven't got any feedback from the community on this yet. See http://microformats.org/wiki/currency-formats#XBRL This is not just relevant for the history uF but also for any tabular representation (ex. financial statements) where you don't want to repeat the unit/currency in each cell. See http://microformats.org/wiki/currency-examples#Use_of_currency_amounts_in_tables Guillaume ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
Re: [uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)
Scott, Please ignore my last post on the subject. As Andy M. pointed to me in another thread, I took an extreme interpretation of the process. Mea culpa. And sorry in advance for this long post. On the subject of what is useful to do now with currency, I agree with you that limiting the proposal to just something like: 2 barrels of oil for sale. Price: span class=priceabbr class=currency title=USD$/abbr25/span per barrel is pretty simple and would simplify the work of the developer of browser plugins that would perform some type of convenience currency conversion. That said, it would provide no incremental value to the end-user, since the absence of a currency microformat has not blocked the development of these browser plugins. This is why I argue that the simplest form of *useful* data should be a bit more than just disambiguating the currency. On the subject of dealing with currencies first, then with combinations with other products, I don't understand your point about barrel being the product the currency references. In my example above, 2 barrels of oil is the product, and barrel is a unit of oil as you said yourself at the beginning of your answer. Maybe the example is confusing, but the following should be less: wage/hour (see http://microformats.org/wiki/job-listing) Parking garage for rent: $215/mo (see Examples in http://microformats.org/wiki/hlisting) Outside of the microformats community, I can point to financial reporting (USD/share for earnings per share), or my original $25/bll example as fairly common examples. I am sure you will agree that shares, barrel, mo, hour *are units, not products* and are an integral part of the price: If I wanted to compare two salaries: one in Euro/hour and one in Thousands of US dollar / year, converting the currency would not be enough to provide value to a user. In conclusion, this is why I suggested that we try to come up with a single measurement proposal right away, with currency being a subset of it. Perhaps what you meant was that we should have a separate measure proposal. I don't have a problem with that. If we agree measurement units are important in a price and that a currency unit is itself a measurement unit, then at the very least, we'd better make sure that the currency microformat will be viewed as a subset and component of the measurement unit microformat. Peace, Guillaume Scott Reynen wrote: On Sep 29, 2006, at 5:09 PM, Guillaume Lebleu wrote: I don't think Lorenzo is talking of: *currency amount per item/product* as your title and example imply (that, I agree, is a non-starter) but of *currency amount per unit of measurement* (which is widely used - see for instance: http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/, although not in the context of a house/product/job in which case the unit is obvious). In $25 per barrel or in 25 ($/bbl), I think you would agree that knowing that the barrel is the unit of measurement is very significant, and even though knowing that $ means USD dollars, overlooking that it is a price per barrel would lead to a big mistake. I think $ is a unit of measuring currency, and barrel is a unit of measuring oil, which in this case is the product the currency references. Though used together here, these are two distinct problems that deserve separate microformats, one for currency and another for products (i.e. hListing). Measurement of currency can be useful without considering measurement of products of purchase. We should start with describing the simplest form of useful data. Peace, Scott ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss --No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.407 / Virus Database: 268.12.11/460 - Release Date: 10/1/2006 ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
Re: [uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)
On Sep 29, 2006, at 5:09 PM, Guillaume Lebleu wrote: I don't think Lorenzo is talking of: *currency amount per item/ product* as your title and example imply (that, I agree, is a non- starter) but of *currency amount per unit of measurement* (which is widely used - see for instance: http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/, although not in the context of a house/product/job in which case the unit is obvious). In $25 per barrel or in 25 ($/bbl), I think you would agree that knowing that the barrel is the unit of measurement is very significant, and even though knowing that $ means USD dollars, overlooking that it is a price per barrel would lead to a big mistake. I think $ is a unit of measuring currency, and barrel is a unit of measuring oil, which in this case is the product the currency references. Though used together here, these are two distinct problems that deserve separate microformats, one for currency and another for products (i.e. hListing). Measurement of currency can be useful without considering measurement of products of purchase. We should start with describing the simplest form of useful data. Peace, Scott ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
Re: [uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)
Scott, My feeling is that if we must start with the simplest form of useful data and pave the cow paths, then price in hListing is good enough for me, and there is no need to pave that currency path for now, or even discuss it, at least not on this discussion list: * Google says that the price classname is the 40th most popular class name on the Web: http://code.google.com/webstats/2005-12/classes.html. You can't beat that. * There seems to be very few cows on the currency path today: after hours of research, the only example I've found on the Web that disambiguates the $ with a span or abbr and adhoc class name is the MacAfee example: http://microformats.org/wiki/currency-examples#McAfee.C2.A0.28http:.2F.2Fus.mcafee.com.2Froot.2Fpackage.asp.3Fpkgid.3D100.29.None of the top online vendors (Dell, Amazon, Walmart, Staples, etc.) care about disambiguating currencies in price. * Focusing on disambiguating only the currency can only be useful to me for conversion, and Greasemonkey scripts and other browser plugins for currency conversion seem to work ok most of the time, using other clues to disambiguate, for instance the domain name .ca to disambiguate the $ sign. Once we found more real examples, we can resume discussions here on this subject. Let me know what you think. Guillaume Scott Reynen wrote: On Sep 29, 2006, at 5:09 PM, Guillaume Lebleu wrote: I don't think Lorenzo is talking of: *currency amount per item/ product* as your title and example imply (that, I agree, is a non- starter) but of *currency amount per unit of measurement* (which is widely used - see for instance: http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/, although not in the context of a house/product/job in which case the unit is obvious). In $25 per barrel or in 25 ($/bbl), I think you would agree that knowing that the barrel is the unit of measurement is very significant, and even though knowing that $ means USD dollars, overlooking that it is a price per barrel would lead to a big mistake. I think $ is a unit of measuring currency, and barrel is a unit of measuring oil, which in this case is the product the currency references. Though used together here, these are two distinct problems that deserve separate microformats, one for currency and another for products (i.e. hListing). Measurement of currency can be useful without considering measurement of products of purchase. We should start with describing the simplest form of useful data. Peace, Scott ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
[uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)
I don't think Lorenzo is talking of: *currency amount per item/product* as your title and example imply (that, I agree, is a non-starter) but of *currency amount per unit of measurement* (which is widely used - see for instance: http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/, although not in the context of a house/product/job in which case the unit is obvious). In $25 per barrel or in 25 ($/bbl), I think you would agree that knowing that the barrel is the unit of measurement is very significant, and even though knowing that $ means USD dollars, overlooking that it is a price per barrel would lead to a big mistake. I think Lorenzo is furthermore suggesting that a currency is just another unit. I agree conceptually that it is, but in practice, standard bodies (that I know of) have traditionally separated currency amounts from other measures. For instance, I took a look at the UNECE recommended codes for units of measurement (reused by some industry standards), available at: http://www.unece.org/cefact/codesfortrade/codes_index.htm. http://www.unece.org/cefact/recommendations/rec20/rec20.zip. They indeed have the barrel (US) as a well-known unit, but as I mentioned UNECE does not include currencies in their list of units of measurement. Which leads me to my updated code examples. span class=priceabbr class=currency title=USD$/abbvspan class=value25/span span class=unit title=BLLper barrel/span/span span class=pricespan class=value25/span abbr class=currency title=USD$/abbvabbr class=unit title=BLL/bbl/abbr/span/span span class=priceOn abbr class=datetime title=1998-03-12T08:30:00-05:00August 1/abbr, the US Dollar still stood at span class=value643 abbr class=currency title=DEMMarks/abbr/span to the span class=unit currency title=USDDollar/span./span The following rules should be used: * If value is not present, then value = 1. * unit is optional By the way, I haven't found any measurement microformat on the wiki, so maybe we could do the currency+measurement at the same time. Let me know what you think. Guillaume ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
Re: [uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)
One little correction in the text below. The following rules should be used: * unit is optional * if unit is present, then value is optional, and if value not present, then it is assumed to be 1. Guillaume Guillaume Lebleu wrote: I don't think Lorenzo is talking of: *currency amount per item/product* as your title and example imply (that, I agree, is a non-starter) but of *currency amount per unit of measurement* (which is widely used - see for instance: http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/, although not in the context of a house/product/job in which case the unit is obvious). In $25 per barrel or in 25 ($/bbl), I think you would agree that knowing that the barrel is the unit of measurement is very significant, and even though knowing that $ means USD dollars, overlooking that it is a price per barrel would lead to a big mistake. I think Lorenzo is furthermore suggesting that a currency is just another unit. I agree conceptually that it is, but in practice, standard bodies (that I know of) have traditionally separated currency amounts from other measures. For instance, I took a look at the UNECE recommended codes for units of measurement (reused by some industry standards), available at: http://www.unece.org/cefact/codesfortrade/codes_index.htm. http://www.unece.org/cefact/recommendations/rec20/rec20.zip. They indeed have the barrel (US) as a well-known unit, but as I mentioned UNECE does not include currencies in their list of units of measurement. Which leads me to my updated code examples. span class=priceabbr class=currency title=USD$/abbvspan class=value25/span span class=unit title=BLLper barrel/span/span span class=pricespan class=value25/span abbr class=currency title=USD$/abbvabbr class=unit title=BLL/bbl/abbr/span/span span class=priceOn abbr class=datetime title=1998-03-12T08:30:00-05:00August 1/abbr, the US Dollar still stood at span class=value643 abbr class=currency title=DEMMarks/abbr/span to the span class=unit currency title=USDDollar/span./span The following rules should be used: * If value is not present, then value = 1. * unit is optional By the way, I haven't found any measurement microformat on the wiki, so maybe we could do the currency+measurement at the same time. Let me know what you think. Guillaume ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss ___ microformats-discuss mailing list microformats-discuss@microformats.org http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
