hReview "type" question

I know this is partially addressed in the first hReview FAQ
on the
microformats wiki, but I have a more general question. I
have been
reading a lot about microformats, and have used hCard, but
am fairly
new to them overall.
The possible values of 'type' are limited to: product |
business |
event | person | place | website | url. Why? It seems quite
strange
and indirect, even undesirable, to me to add a link to the
Wikipedia
"definition" of a book (as a tag, suggested in the
FAQ) to my academic
book review as a way of simply saying "I am reviewing a
book". So my
question is, why do the types have to be limited to this
list? And, if
there is a good technical reason why they should be, why not
allow a
sub-type, that is open to any value? As it is, the extremely
general
nature of the types available make them much less useful. No
one is
ever looking for a review of any old "business" in
Santa Cruz, CA,
they are looking for a restaurant or movie theater. Any
information on
this topic is really appreciated.
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I think this is a great question Nora. We're building a
review 
publisher/aggregator built on hReview and we ended up
dropping "type" 
from our reviews as it was confusing our beta testers and
not really 
adding any value to our site.

What is a movie? Most testers did not consider it a product,
some 
thought it might be an event if they saw it in a movie
theatre. Many 
even found the difference between product and business
confusing. So we 
removed type and just have "add address details if you
have them" to 
cover business-style reviews. We let tags take care of
everything else.

I can see the logic of saying if type=business then hCard
mandatory and 
if type=event then hCalendar mandatory but I'd be interested
to hear 
about more uses of this limited list.

Conor


Nora Brown wrote:
> I know this is partially addressed in the first hReview
FAQ on the
> microformats wiki, but I have a more general question.
I have been
> reading a lot about microformats, and have used hCard,
but am fairly
> new to them overall.
> The possible values of 'type' are limited to: product |
business |
> event | person | place | website | url. Why? It seems
quite strange
> and indirect, even undesirable, to me to add a link to
the Wikipedia
> "definition" of a book (as a tag, suggested
in the FAQ) to my academic
> book review as a way of simply saying "I am
reviewing a book". So my
> question is, why do the types have to be limited to
this list? And, if
> there is a good technical reason why they should be,
why not allow a
> sub-type, that is open to any value? As it is, the
extremely general
> nature of the types available make them much less
useful. No one is
> ever looking for a review of any old
"business" in Santa Cruz, CA,
> they are looking for a restaurant or movie theater. Any
information on
> this topic is really appreciated.
> _______________________________________________
> microformats-discuss mailing list
> microformats-discussmicroformats.org
> http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss
>
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microformats-discuss mailing list
microformats-discussmicroformats.org
http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss