Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Microformats/Archive 3

Template:Microformat

Hello, I've taken the initiative to create a generic {{microformat}} mbox template for use on templates which use microformats, as a more visual warning to accompany the text-only one typically buried in the documentation. However, it's still a draft, and could use some attention from individuals who actually know something about microformats and their use on Wikipedia. =) Any takers? ···「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? Talk to Dinoguy1000} 18:03, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

*nudge* 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 17:59, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

504165 coordinate transclusions

The template transclusion counter found 504165 transclusions of {{Coord}} just now! Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:48, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Now 679652 transclusions. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:39, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Microformats in stubs

A number of stub templates already emit microformats. I have made a request for a change to {{Asbox}} to facilitate their use with less inline HTML markup, but a couple of editors have expressed concerns. Additional input (at that page, please) would help. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:31, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Abbreviations

The <abbr/> element for abbreviations can now be used. See also {{abbr}}. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:26, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

{{abbr}} and {{abbrlink}} now take a |class= parameter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:32, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Birth date and related templates

{{Birth date}} and related templates only have syntax to accept one date. In writing a biography of a person who lived in a time and place where the Julian calendar was used, it is conventional to give birth and death dates in the Julian calendar. However, microformats requires ISO 8601, which in turn requires the Gregorian calendar. So what is the appropriate thing to do with these templates that contain Julian dates?

1. Delete the template and type the date in plain text in the appropriate format or
2. Replace the template with something from the {{Birth-date}} family, specifying the Julian date for display and the Gregorian date for the microformat (even though this will change the microformat from hCard to hCalendar)? --Jc3s5h (talk) 19:36, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The former; the latter is broken behaviour by that template. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:19, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

UF-hcard-place

Hi, I've updated a template which uses vcard. I noticed the template {{UF-hcard-place}} mentions "county-name" - shouldn't this be "country-name" (under the "adr" class), or have I got that wrong? Also, I'd be very happy if someone could check the template I changed - {{Infobox UK constituency (former)}}. Thanks --h2g2bob (talk) 23:55, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

The former was a typo; now fixed. Thank you. The latter looks fine. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:18, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

How to view hCard data in browser

[ See: File:Microformat from Doncaster Minster on Wikipedia.png; Microformat rendering made from St George's Minster, Doncaster and Tails Export 0.3.9. ]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats#What are microformats? indicates the Firefox browser supports microformats. Are there ways a Firefox user can make the hCard data visible on wikipedia pages? Are there plug-ins the project members reccommend? Can CSS be used to visualise the data in the same way that it can for Wikipedia:Persondata? It would be useful for the project page to list some viewing tools so that editors can check the hCard data created is correct. -84user (talk) 07:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Update: I am now testing Firefox add-on Tails Export 0.3.9. This add-on displays an orange stacked-card-like icon in the browser status bar on pages where it senses there is microformat metadata. When I click on the icon a side-bar panel opens listing the available metadata; for Main Page it lists two: a Creative Commons license with link to [1] and another license with link to [2].

The article St George's Minster, Doncaster has a third metadata item with links "html", "export" and "geo":

Clicking "html" pops up a Javascript window containing html code, which when saved to a file and viewed in a browser displays a compact version of an infobox (screenshot at right, note the strange text in the links).

Clicking "export" pops up a Javascript window containing html code for the following VCARD, and the add-on also offered to save it in file "export.vcf".

BEGIN:VCARD PRODID:-//suda.co.uk//X2V 0.6.17 (BETA)//EN SOURCE:(Best Practices states this should be the URL the calendar was transformed from) NAME: VERSION:3.0 N:Minster;Doncaster;;;; FN:Doncaster Minster NOTE:Dedication Saint George NOTE:Parish Doncaster ORG:Doncaster Minster URL:www.doncasterminster.co.uk END:VCARD

Clicking "geo" directs the browser directly to Google maps at [3] with a pin at Doncaster Minster.

While uploading the image I created Commons:Category:Microformat screenshots and placed some existing microformat images there. -84user (talk) 09:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Testing a geocard example: I used Tails Export on Manchester Ship Canal: the first microformat item was "Eastham Locks" and the html button gave the following:

<span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="vcard"><span title="Maps, aerial photos, and other data for this location" class="geo-dec">53.321700°N 2.948150°W</span><span style="display: none;"> / <span class="geo">53.321700; -2.948150</span></span><span style="display: none;"> (<span class="fn org">Eastham Locks</span>)</span></span>

However, the export button produces a VCARD that was missing the coordinates "53.321700°N 2.948150°W". Is this intentional? -84user (talk) 09:30, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest. I believe the missing coordinates are a bug in Tails. A better Firefox add-on is Operator, which correctly includes the coordinates. I also use the Web Developer Toolbar, via its "Information"/"Display ID & Class Details" options, to check microformat mark-up in Wikipedia articles. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 09:38, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

New script for species microformat

Those of you using the Operator add-on in Firefox might like to know that there is an updated script to read the 'Species' microformat emitted by the Taxobox. More exciting developments soon! Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:41, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Microformat for objects

The current discussion of a possible microformat for museum exhibits (and other man-made objects) may be of interest: http://museum-api.pbworks.com/Microformats It is intended to be for specific instances of an object ("the Mona Lisa", "the iPad on display in the British Museum") rather than generic objects ("Apple shops will sell you an iPad"), which are already catered for by hProduct. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:53, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

RFC on Microformats

Please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Microformats, and comment. –xeno^talk 13:47, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Book titles and subtitles

I thought I'd draw attention to Template talk:Cite_book#Title and subtitle. 67.101.6.204 (talk) 22:08, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

RFC on coordinates in highway articles

There is currently a discussion taking place at WT:HWY regarding a proposal to change the MoS to prohibit the use of coordinates (which are currently emitted as metadata, using microformats) in articles about highways (aka roads/ motorways). Your input is welcomed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:47, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Closed with no consensus for any of the options, including those to remove coordinates, except an unrelated proposal to add separate KML files. So status quo pertains. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:01, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Check please

I just merged two tables into one infobox: {{infobox UK ward}} (no article edits required). Can someone check if I put the vCard classes right? Didn't know how to enter the nested ones correctly. -DePiep (talk) 08:05, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Checked and fixed in January. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:59, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

AWB

interesting, unanswered, question about making AWB understand microformats. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:57, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Yandex

Russian search engine Yandex is now consuming microformats [4]. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:10, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Request

Please could somebody add Microformats to this template? template:Template:Date_range_and_age. I'm not too sure how to do so. TheBigJagielka (talk) 15:39, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Labelled data

I wonder if anybody from here would like to comment at Template talk:Infobox musical artist#Semantic wiki markup? (The example and further discussion is at Talk:The Beatles#Straw Poll III) I may be worrying about something that really doesn't matter, but I'm just not sure that I've had a considered response to the point I'm making yet. If it doesn't matter to you guys either, I'm happy to forget it and move on. --Nigelj (talk) 22:40, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Template:Microformat

{{Microformat}} has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.131.160 (talk) 04:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

This unused template was deleted; see Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 July 25#Template:Microformat. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:31, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

RFC: Deploying 'Start date' template in infoboxes

Please see Wikipedia talk:Bot requests/Archive 2#RFC: Deploying 'Start date' template in infoboxes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:36, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Consensus was to implement. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:47, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

HTML5 microformats

A little FYI: Gadget850 mentioned at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) that MediaWiki now supports a few HTML5 features that I think could be useful for microformats: the <data> element, the <time> element and custom data attributes. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 19:29, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Is there any documentation of how they can be used in Wikipedia? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:51, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Not that I am aware of. T34545 appears to be the request for <time>. Contrary to the last comments, <link> and <meta> are not yet supported. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:38, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

And these attributes are supported:

RDFa attributes:

• about, property, resource, datatype, typeof

As of 10 January 2013, $wgAllowRdfaAttributes is not enabled, thus the attributes will be stripped

HTML5 microdata attributes:

• itemid, itemprop, itemref, itemscope, itemtype any attribute starting with data-

I really don't know anything about these other than they are are now whitelisted through sanitizer.php. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:38, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Microformats vs. Microdata

Is this project's scope only limited to Microformats or is that name just a historical artefact? I'm asking because Microformats mostly seem to have lost out to schema.org/Microdata and we should probably be focussing our efforts on that metadata specification. —Ruud 01:45, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: citation microformat

Explanation

In the absence of a citation microformat from the microformat community, I propose that we pilot our own; and offer it up for adoption by the world at large.

All we need to do is add a set of declared HTML class names (reusing classes from existing microformat, where possible) to our citation templates, and templates like {{Infobox book}}. People will then be able to read the data from those templates, identified by those class names, and export the data for use else where, regardless of the citation styles used. They will also be able to use the same class names in citations published on other websites, and so parse them with the same tools.

We can base this on an existing ontology (or subset thereof), like COinS, Dublin core or BibOnt.

I've previously blogged about this, with an example. The people behind Zotero have expressed an interest in working with us on this. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:38, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

+1. Poke me if there's anyway I could help technically. YuviPanda (talk) 17:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Our existing cite and citation templates already support COinS (and that support already breaks some things e.g. makes it impossible to use <math> in titles and generally slows things down). In what specific ways would your proposal make things more featureful, more reliable, and faster? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I address much of that in my blog post. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:17, 5 November 2012 (U

I see little to no value in bloating our citation templates further to add a feature that the world at large has not adopted. It isn't our role to push your pet projects to the world. Moreover, this request is in the wrong venue. If you're going to propose a change to massively used citation templates, this needs to be discussed at the VP, not a lightly viewed project page. Resolute 18:39, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not proposing to bloat anything; nor to push my pet project; I'm proposing that we adopt it as a Wikipedia project; and perhaps you missed the notices I posted at three village pump pages. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:52, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Will this slow down any or all of the citation templates to any measurable degree? I am against anything - no matter how useful - that will give ammunition to the "all citation templates are evil because they are slow" crowd; that includes those pushing alternative templates that are supposedly "quicker" at the expense of massive feature loss. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:05, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

It shouldn't slow down any templates, nor remove any functionality, at all. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

No, I saw the notices, which is the only reason why I knew this discussion existed. But notices with no discussion get buried quickly, leaving only the few people who noticed at the start, or the fewer people that watch this page, as the only input. And if five people comment, three in support, two opposed and you make the change, we both know you're going to stir up a hornets nest of drama. I'll grant you that after reading your blog entry, you believe this will simplify the code. But that still brings us back to the question of making a change to a format that lacks real-world adoption. You will have to clearly spell out the benefit we can expect to see, because all you have offered so far is little more than "I want to do this". Resolute 20:36, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

No, we don't both know that; but thanks for the ad hominem. Nor is this simply a a matter of belief, as I have demonstrated; but thanks for the misrepresentation. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

What I meant is that lacking a wide discussion, a change to such major templates will take people by surprise, and will cause drama. That wasn't meant as an ad hominem, but rather a note that something like this should be in the venue with the widest visibility. None the less, you've yet to really provide a reason to make the change. Resolute 21:02, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I would like to see some concrete examples. Such as a sandbox version of {{citation/core}}, with samples that show resource use. And examples of how this would play well with other tools. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:47, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, but we first need to agree which schema to base this on. Also, all we'll be adding is HTML classes; see the example of that on my blog. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:45, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I would agree with Resolute in this, though let me separate Resolute's concerns:

1. Template bloat
2. Unstandardized
3. Wikipedia's use as a vehicle to standardization
4. Use of a non-central page for discussion

I don't particularly care about #4, though I might advise addition of this discussion to WP:Cent. #1 is an understandable concern given the current template situation, but I think it's a nonstarter for a cogent argument against the use of a particular metadata format subtype (the use of microformats as a metadata format to mark up citations [the subtype]).

What I think are cogent reasons against use here of this particular metadata format subtype are reasons 2 and 3. Wikipedia should certainly enable microformat use, but this should be limited to previously standardized microformat use; it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include the state-of-the-art. Any argument to include this metadata in this way needs to address both of those reasons. --Izno (talk) 13:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

You make several assertions as to what supposedly is and is not within Wikipedia's remit; I don't see any substantiation for them. The proposal is not to include metadata, it is to identify the (meta) data which is already on the page, using HTML classes, as the HTML standards tell us to do; doing so in a consistent and logical manner; and sharing our schema for doing so in an open manner, in keeping with Wikipedia's ethos. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

You seem to have put words in my mouth. I did not say that it was about not including the metadata. I did say it was about marking up the existing metadata. You then fail to argue against point #3. Would you like to attempt to argue against what Wikipedia is not? Specifically, I think my assertions have basis in WP:NOT#SOAP and WP:NOT#FORUM. Even if non-article discussions or implementation are not specifically called out, Wikipedia is plainly not a place "to play", and to borrow Resolute's wording, this is certainly your "pet project", which specifically goes against SOAP if not FORUM.

In summary, I would oppose any new implementation of this set of microformats, until and unless it is used by other Internet organizations and it is formally written into the microformat "standard". As I have stated, it is certainly not Wikipedia's role to standardize this particular type of microdata. --Izno (talk) 23:52, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

You used the phrase "to include this metadata in this way". Your WP:NOT#SOAP and WP:NOT#FORUM arguments are utterly devoid of merit. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:15, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Yours is an odd interpretation of that sentence, but okay. As for your second sentence, your assertion holds even less water than my use of policy outside of the article space. So, if mine is devoid of merit, I fail to see how your proposal is anything more than that, and I would argue substantially less, as I have. The fact that this has been proposed by you previously, outside of Wikipedia, to use Wikipedia for what is currently only your gain, only proves my point on WP:NOT#SOAP, if nothing else does. Come back when you've got a de jure standard you can point to, rather than trying to create a de facto one of your own accord through Wikipedia. --Izno (talk) 00:36, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh go on, do explain how this is only to my gain. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:56, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it is your proposal. It is, therefore, your burden of proof. I think both Izno and I are wondering what benefit there is to adopt a non-standard standard. Also, objections are not without merit just because. If you can't explain why, then I would suggest that the objections are valid. Resolute 14:34, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not about to attempt to prove a negative. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:37, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion seems to have become just a little heated. Editors are encouraged to comment on content, not fellow editors. There's no reason to doubt anyone's good intentions here, even if there is some disagreement on what the goals should be. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:57, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

This seems like a really neat and useful proposal, great idea! It's not my area of expertise yet, but good luck with it! :) Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 08:02, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I think that having a community discussion on this topic is premature, unless I misunderstand the state of the proposal. I don't see a working example of the proposed template changes, and so I presume that one does not currently exist. Before granting an imprimatur to adoption of citation microformats, I think we've got to see a working test, and it has to resolve the issues that got the COINS metadata pulled (load times, for one, but especially the fact that we emitted bad data when wikimarkup appeared where plain text was expected -- a problem that also broke citations to certain titles requiring complex formatting). If all that's wanted from the community right now is an answer to "Should we work on this?", and you want to work on this, then I don't think anyone could rightly object. But there's no way to predetermine whether it would be adopted at that time. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 15:48, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

There's an example on the blog post cited. I'm aware that I can work on drafting something and don't need permsision to do so; I'm asking if others support the idea, and who else is interested in working on it with me. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:58, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I totally support the idea as long as it is implemented after the deployment of the Scribunto Extension (which will hopefully be early next year). IMO, pretty much anything would be better than COinS, and your proposal seems like a reasonable place to start. Kaldari (talk) 04:31, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

We now have this; see below.

• Support The huge wealth of information in citation templates should be machine readable in some form. With my works-on-data-mangling-stuff-for-a-living hat on, I have to say this: COinS is about the most terrible format I've ever come across. My personal preferences lean more towards RDFa but microformats are a reasonable compromise. With Lua coming down the pipe, performance issues shouldn't really be an issue. Eventually, it'd be nice if bibliographic metadata were something we could shunt over to Wikidata and transclude in much the same way we do with images from Commons. The main issue for me is simply that we need to try and find ways of reducing the amount of time and effort spent retyping citations. Between Wikipedia and using BibTeX as a student, I've spent far too long retyping book names, reformatting citations into different formats by hand. That is an utterly pointless process. Writing a Microformats parser is pretty easy, and I'm very interested (as someone who has suffered from repetitive strain injury from keyboard/mouse use) in building converters for Wikipedia-to-BibTeX and vice versa. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:52, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Questions

The blog post makes a lot of good points. I have a couple of questions:

1. Have you considered using microdata instead of or as well as a microformat? Speaking as someone who implements HTML-to-RDF extractors for a living, adoption on the consumer side will be faster, as each microformat requires special implementation support. And supporting more formats at the same time is generally a win.
2. Have you thought about how this will interact with dbpedia?

Cheers, Bovlb (talk) 18:10, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Yes, the barriers to using microdata are higher; and Wikipedia already has microformats, but not microdata. that said, I'd have no problem with both being used at some point, sharing an ontology. This will have no effect on DBpedia (nor Wikidata, before anyone asks). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

OK. I see that I need to work out my own example before I raise microdata again.  :) Regarding dbpedia, I didn't think this change would disrupt them, but rather I hoped this change would enable new extractions. Put another way, have you been in touch with the dbpedia team about their plans for extracting citations? Cheers. Bovlb (talk) 00:29, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Not yet; the proposal would facilitate extraction by anyone, but DBPedia folk work from database dumps, not web pages. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:56, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

That's not necessarily the case. See DBpedia Live. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:52, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Microformats2 is a solution to the problem of having to write format-specific converters. The Microformats2-to-JSON process is defined and I'm in the middle of writing the specification for doing Microformats2-to-RDF. It neatly layers on top of RDFa. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:52, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Removal of COinS

The recent removal of CoinS form our citation templates makes the need for this considerably more pressing. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:31, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

• Good work on the blog post, Andy. I enthusiastically support this proposal, and the use of the Dublin Core ontology. This is a small amount of effort that would produce a big boost for linked data. I've added this discussion, as Izno suggested, to WP:Cent to get more feedback, and also tagged it as a proposals RFC. — Hex (❝?!❞) 18:59, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

More questions

How does this help anything? What is the benefit to the project? What are the costs in terms of rendering speed? I find citation templates obnoxious, does this not simply make the cumbersome, ugly, and excessive wall of text, links, and numbers they produce even moreso? Are there commercial applications for this sort microformatting in terms of conversion of standing wikipedia articles into de facto advertising? (Notice I didn't even say Gibraltar once). Why do we need this at all? Does half a dozen fired up people on this concept constitute a green light if thousands of Wikipedians do not understand the concept and thus fail to participate in a debate in this obscure corner of the Wiki? Carrite (talk) 16:02, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Commercial reusers of Wikipedia data can already afford to spend an hour or so writing a parser for citation formats. The point of publishing data in a standardised form is to allow anyone to easily copy citation information and reuse it. You are reading Wikipedia, find reference to an interesting reference, click through, read it, then click back and want to cite it? In some hypothetical future state where people have worked out the standards, your browser can simply let you hover of the citation and click "export as BibTeX". Instead of having to retype the citation into your bibliography manager or word processor, the software does it for you. Result? Less human effort wasted on the boring task of exporting citations between formats, more time spent on the actual subject matter of interest (namely, the Wikipedia articles and the sources they reference). Whatever metadata standard is used, there's absolutely nothing to do with "advertising". If a book or article is in a reference entry, formatting it in such a way that machines can read it means that machines can process that data for humans easier. Whether the article ought to contain a citation for a particular book or article or whatnot is a matter for the editing community. This really ought to be no more controversial than plumbing. (But, of course, it being Wikipedia, nothing is ever that simple.) —Tom Morris (talk) 22:13, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

The benefit is to our readers, who can more easily import our citations into their aggregation tools (like Zotero for example) for use in their own documents (such as student essays) and tools (such as library catalogues); and to our editors who can "paste" a citation from such aggregators into a second article. The visual appearance of the citation templates would not change at all; and any change in the rendering time would be immeasurably small if not nil. All we would be doing is adding classes to the HTML markup - these are never seen; just as you can't see those in my sig, which make it emit an hCard microformat. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:13, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

VIAF

Has any thought gone into interaction with wp:VIAF? I see no signs of it on the project page. LeadSongDog come howl! 14:46, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

What does that have to do with microformats? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:56, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, no doubt I'm off on a tangent here, but it strikes me that bibliographic data is rather relevant to citations. A VIAF identifier may be the least ambiguous way of representing authors in those citations. Its use is being advanced by the OCLC, LoC, BL, and others. Shouldn't the two groups be in touch with each other's intentions? Or is this WikiProject solely about abstract format, and not intended to address itself to the metadata that the formats represent? LeadSongDog come howl! 16:54, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I can see two things here: firstly, {{Authority control}} should generate some microformat data. That would be good. (I haven't looked into the VIAF project yet, so maybe it does already.) Secondly, though, I think for your suggestion to work we would have to include VIAF data in citations as we can do with DOIs. So that would require a new citation template field. Right? — Hex (❝?!❞) 19:18, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

{{Authority control}} can be used inside a template which emits hCard metadata, such as an infobox; see Template:Authority_control#Microformat and this discussion for more. Are there any bibliographic metadata schemas which use UIDs such as VIAF? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:59, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

A little searching finds a GND ontology which looks like it could be useful. — Hex (❝?!❞) 21:06, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah. VIAF is already being served up as RDF (e.g.) using SKOS properties. — Hex (❝?!❞) 17:15, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

That's a particularly deep rabbithole. http://answerpot.com/showthread.php?3554710-ISNI%2C+VIAF%2C+ORCID%2C+XYZ%2C+PDQ%3F or http://wp.slis.ua.edu/maccall-spring2011-ls566-01-26/2011/02/24/linking-via-the-viaf/ might help narrow it down, but this is definitely not my field. That's why I'd look for people who are already engaged in it. LeadSongDog come howl! 23:11, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I do not understand

I care about this but cannot readily understand what is going on. I proposed a summary explanation format here. I would appreciate someone adding content to it so that people like me can have a basis for understanding this. I made this because I spent some time trying to understand and could not come to recognize the significance of the fundamental proposal. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:00, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Summary of proposal

• The concept of microformat applied to this project is described here
• It would be useful to integrate a citation microformat into Wikipedia because Y
• To do this, Z is needed
• Points to consider include the following:
  • Zotero staff have expressed interest in partnership
• Previous discussion of this can be found here:

Moving forward

We now have Scribunto (c/f Lua) How can we progress this? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:31, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Not at all because there is no consensus for it and it's unlikely that there ever will be a consensus for Wikipedia to introduce new microformats with no known usecase. Hans Adler 18:04, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Consensus can change. And the use case for a non-insane bibliographic format is pretty simple. I'm bored and tired of writing BibTeX entries and Wikipedia citations and any number of other things. Being able to convert all that stuff simply, easily and sanely and give my poor arms another few years of use before the bone-grinding agony of full-blown RSI is quite a good one. —Tom Morris (talk) 22:03, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I've started a brainstorming page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats/citation, with a draft proposal for discussion and an example. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:04, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Apply hAudio microformat to Template:Audio

Please comment on the proposal at Template talk:Audio#Apply hAudio microformat. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:02, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Module:Coordinates

Please someone look into Module_talk:Coordinates#Geo_microformat. --fryed-peach (talk) 00:41, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Clarification on usage of Start Date / End Date templates

Heya, I've read the article on the {{Start date}} template and the article on microformats, but I'm still a little confused about when these templates should be used. It sounds as if the {{Start date}} template should be used almost any time a date would ordinarily be written out. Is that correct? I notice a few editors going back and forth on the use of this template here, and there isn't much communication going on between them. Is it recommended that all dates be converted to an appropriate microformat template? In a biography, for example, would this be the preferred way to submit the dates? (Please ignore notability issues. :) ):

"John Doe was born on {{Start date|1900|01|01}}, he received his first haircut on {{Start date|1903|01|01}}, wrestled a grizzly bear on {{Start date|1905|01|01}}, attended Yale University between {{Start date|1918|08|01}} and {{End date|1922|05|23}}, and died on {{End date|1923|01|01}}."

A short, but rich life. So should editors make all plaintext dates conform to this template? The problem with {{Start date}} is that it intuitively implies an {{End date}} I appreciate any guidance on this, and obviously if there's a better forum for this sort of question, please let me know. Thanks! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 03:26, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

No. {{Start date}} should only be used for the first (or main) date of commencement (whatever that's called: "built", "opened" "launched" "released", etc.) inside an infobox, or a row-template like {{television episode}}, they should never be used in running prose, nor for every date in the templates mentioned. In biographical infoboxes, {{birth date}} (or one of its sibling templates; see its documentation) should be used. {{end date}} (or {{death date}}, etc.) may be used, for corresponding dates of cessation, but are not required. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:17, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Great explanation, thank you. I appreciate your time. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 03:43, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I and others have the same questions. I don't happen to see the response above as a "great explanation", because this is just an informal Talk page discussion section, and while Andy Mabbett is trying to be helpful, I don't see how his response is anything more than just one editor's opinion. A consensus definition of start date, and guidance/discussion about special cases, should be stated at template:Start date, or linked to from there. By "the article on start date template" and the "article on microformats", what exactly is meant? Could someone please provide links? I've browsed in this wikiproject and elsewhere, and I don't find adequate treatment, any consensus, anywhere.

One thing asserted in Andy Mabbett's statement is that the "start date" template should not be applied in free text outside of infoboxes. Why not? Where is that stated or explained? --doncram 16:13, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Dates in references

We're discussing how to store dates in citations; so that they can be emitted as part of a future microformat or other metadata; please see Help talk:Citation Style 1#Date formatting and machine readability. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:41, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Viewing microformat data

I believe the project page should have a description of how microformat data associated with a template in an article can be viewed in popular browsers. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:28, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Good idea, thank you. I've added one. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:06, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

That's not what I meant. I don't want to program with microformats, I want to use my browser to see what microformat data a template is emitting without writing any programs or adding any plugin to the browser. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:16, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

You can't see them without a browser plugin or external tool (or by examining the raw HTML). The external tools (parsers) listed at the page to which I have provided a link would seem to meet your requirements. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:30, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

You can show the HTML output of a template by using {{code}} and then pick out the metadata:

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000004-QINU`"'<cite class="citation web cs1">[http://example.org. "Title"].</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=Title&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.org.&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AWikipedia+talk%3AWikiProject+Microformats%2FArchive+3" class="Z3988"></span> <span class="cs1-visible-error citation-comment"><code class="cs1-code">{{[[Template:cite web|cite web]]}}</code>: </span><span class="cs1-visible-error citation-comment">Check <code class="cs1-code">&#124;url=</code> value ([[Help:CS1 errors#bad_url|help]])</span>

But I don't know of a tool that will automatically show just the metadata. --  Gadget850 ^talk 15:37, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

The wikitext of Gadget850's example is:

{{code| {{cite web |title=Title |url=http://example.org.}} }}

It contains equal signs. The template documentation for the code template says "If the content includes an equals sign (=), you must specify the parameter explicitly: date=30 Feb 2010." So how does that instruction apply to Gadget850's example? Jc3s5h (talk) 16:40, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

The documentations needs some work. It does state "embedded templates do not function inside {{code}}" It should state that using a template inside {{code}} exposes the rendered HTML. Which can be useful for examples. --  Gadget850 ^talk 18:47, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Another question. I thought, with the change to LUA, that citation templates stopped emitting microformat data. Is my impression wrong or out-of-date? If I'm right, a citation template wouldn't make a very good example. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:42, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

The other way round. Tim Starling yanked COinS from the old templates because of performance. It was added back with the Lua module and no longer has any noticeable performance issues.. --  Gadget850 ^talk 18:47, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

That's certainly true; but COinS is not a microformat. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:37, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

OK, I asked a similar question at Wikipedia talk:COinS. Perhaps both project pages should have a section discussing alternative ways of emitting data. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:48, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Template:Start date (again)

There is a discussion at Template talk:Start date#Minus sign in time zones which might interest this WikiProject, since it concerns microformats. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:22, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

"Rich snippet"?

Hi all. I'm not sure what is going on with this edit but it appears to be some sort of microformat? What does the additional coding actually do, and is this considered appropriate for external links? Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 10:27, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

@Jonathan Oldenbuck: Strictly, that's not a microformat, and lies outside the scope of this project; though I'm sure it will be of interest to most people interested in microformats. It's an example of microdata; see Schema.org for more. While interesting to see an attempt to use that on Wikipedia, more widespread use needs careful consideration, and would best be embedded in templates such as {{Official website}}, rather than deployed using inline HTML markup like that in your example, which will confuse most editors; and which, in this case, makes bad HTML (DIV elements wrapping individual list items; breaking the single list into several one-item lists, contrary to WP:LIST and web accessibility guidelines). For the latter reason only, I've reverted it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:30, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

On reflection, it's also rather spammy; the intent was to more strongly associate our article with their business, in the eyes of Google and other search engines Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:38, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation Andy, it was the appearance of spamminess which concerned me but thanks for confirming what it was (and for reverting). Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 12:52, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

{{Lunar coords and quad cat}}

Template:Lunar coords and quad cat (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for merger. -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 06:36, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

{{Lunar coords and quad cat}}

Template:Lunar coords and quad cat (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for merger. -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 05:41, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Moving forward

@Andy: Microformats appear to have been largely superseded by schema.org RDFa and JSON-LD, the latter of which is basically unusable on Wikipedia. Google claims to have dropped support for microformats. Are there any plans to migrate to RDFa? Alakzi (talk) 01:26, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

@Alakzi: None that I know of; and see discussion of $wgAllowRdfaAttributes, above. I still think there is merit in using meaningful HTML class names as done by microformats, and as I proposed for citations Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:29, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Are schema properties not meaningful? Alakzi (talk) 11:02, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Microdata and RDFa 1.0 attributes

I'm not sure if Microdata and RDFa 1.0 attributes were allowed before, but as of March 2016 (T130040) they are definitely allowed. Matt Fitzpatrick (talk) 19:50, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Anniversary

Happy tenth birthday, WikiProject Microformats! Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:06, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Add microformats2?

Hello! I'm new to this WikiProject, but not so new to microformats. I contribute to the PHP mf2 parser and am involved in the IndieWeb community.

I was wondering about adding microformats2 markup. I've started to update the Microformat page example code with mf2. mf2 can allow for simpler authoring with implied properties and parsers are backwards compatible. For example, instead of:

• <span class="vcard"><a href="https://gregorlove.com" class="fn url">Gregor</a></span>

I can write:

• <a class="h-card" href="https://gregorlove.com">Gregor</a>

To maintain support for mf1-only consumers, the mf1+mf2 classes can be combined. This is a bit of extra markup, but I think it's worth it and am willing to help. I don't know the WikiPedia process for updating templates, but wanted to open the discussion. – gRegor (talk • contribs) 02:26, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

MediaWiki blacklists the <a> element in wikitext and the parser does not accept manipulation of our beloved wikilink syntax e.g. to stuff class information into an <a>. --Izno (talk) 18:50, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, should have written wiki syntax. class placement is flexible and works with wiki syntax: <span class="h-card">[https://gregorlove.com Gregor]</span>. I used this on the project page when adding my wiki user page to the participants list. This is the parsed result: http://pin13.net/mf2/?id=20170619201600267 – gRegor (talk • contribs) 20:18, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

A 404 bug here

FYI, clicking the volcanos link in the article generates this:

Maps can't find http://suda.co.uk/projects/microformats/geo/get-geo.php?type=kml&uri=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanoes_in_the_United_States_of_America

Make sure your search is spelled correctly. Try adding a city, state, or zip code.

Zezen (talk) 06:21, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Template handling contradiction

As far as I can see, there is an outright contradiction between the intent and effect of redirecting Template:Tooltip to Template:Abbr on the one hand, and the documentation of the template Abbr on the other. Briefly put, that documentation explains why Abbr should not be employed for general tooltips. Se Template talk:Abbr#At least one error!

If this is an inappropriate place in which to put an alert for this problem, then please direct me to an appropriate one! JoergenB (talk) 12:34, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Ease switching of citations between citation templates or no citation templates

Please see Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#RfC: Remove the bullet point that starts "adding citation templates..."

This is relevant to this WikiProject because citation formats emit a considerable amount of microformat data. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:40, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Template:Agent nominated for deletion

Template:Agent has been nominated for deletion. Your participation is welcome in the discussion. – Uanfala (talk) 13:29, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Age/birth/death microformats

I have implemented some age/birth/death templates in Module:Age. The module outputs the same metadata as the old templates which it replaced. A discussion raised the fact that some of the metadata is inconsistent/wrong. I put examples showing relevant templates and emitted metadata here. I'm looking for comments on this page about what should be emitted, that is, which of those example outputs need to be fixed? Johnuniq (talk) 09:27, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Template:GeoTemplate listed at Requested moves

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Template:GeoTemplate to be moved to Wikipedia:GeoTemplate. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 21:31, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

To opt out of RM notifications on this page, transclude {{bots|deny=RMCD bot}}, or set up Article alerts for this WikiProject.

Template:Coord listed at Requested moves

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Template:Coord to be moved to Template:Coordinates. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 15:33, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

To opt out of RM notifications on this page, transclude {{bots|deny=RMCD bot}}, or set up Article alerts for this WikiProject.