Regarding POSH and misuse of the microformats logo

Hi all,

I've obviously been following the recent push to have POSH
adopted as  
a buzzword to discourage people from mis-using the term
‘microformat’  
in their semantic endeavours.

Now the whole point of this is to differentiate semantic
HTML from  
microformats, discourage the further ambiguation of the
terms. So to  
be honest I'm a bit put out by the badges that have been
added to  
http://microformats.org/wiki/posh#POSH_Bling_for_your_
Blog which  
include the microformats logo.

As part of our ‘community mark’ experiment I'd like to
object to that  
usage of the microformats logo and ask those badges be
removed.  
Regardless of what anyone thinks of the term, POSH is
explicitly  
supposed to be a super-set of microformats, a generic term
invented  
to help protect the microformats name from being
generalised. If the  
first thing people do — on our own wiki, no less — is tack
the  
microformats logo to it then it will do absolutely nothing
toward  
that goal, and with all the current hype will only
accelerate the  
loss of ‘microformat’ as a name for the Process.

POSH is not a microformat. The documented presence on our
wiki is  
acceptable as ‘microformat’ mis-use is a common problem for
us, but I  
object to it being presented as part of ‘microformats’
through  
association with the logo. It's just going to cause more
confusion.

Cheers,
Ben
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On 03/05/2007, at 7:02 PM, Ben Ward wrote:

> As part of our ‘community mark’ experiment I'd like to
object to  
> that usage of the microformats logo and ask those
badges be  
> removed. Regardless of what anyone thinks of the term,
POSH is  
> explicitly supposed to be a super-set of microformats,
a generic  
> term invented to help protect the microformats name
from being  
> generalised. If the first thing people do — on our own
wiki, no  
> less — is tack the microformats logo to it then it will
do  
> absolutely nothing toward that goal, and with all the
current hype  
> will only accelerate the loss of ‘microformat’ as a
name for the  
> Process.
>
> POSH is not a microformat. The documented presence on
our wiki is  
> acceptable as ‘microformat’ mis-use is a common problem
for us, but  
> I object to it being presented as part of
‘microformats’ through  
> association with the logo. It's just going to cause
more confusion.
>
> Cheers,
> Ben

I agree, there shouldn't be an association with the
Microformats logo  
with that of any POSH logo. As you say, it's important to be
able to  
distinguish the two, which I believe is accomplished with
the  
information found on the wiki page.

Cheers,
Serdar
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In message <B5F16B48-E4B2-4C4B-800E-BA1EBBAD6950ben-ward.co.uk>, Ben
Ward <listsben-ward.co.uk> writes

>I've obviously been following the recent push to have
POSH adopted as
>a buzzword to discourage people from mis-using the term
‘microformat’
>in their semantic endeavours.
>
>Now the whole point of this is to differentiate semantic
HTML from
>microformats, discourage the further ambiguation of the
terms.

Is it? I've never seen that said before.

If it is intended to be separate form microformats, then
having so much
about it on the microformat 'wiki' is somewhat misleading.

>POSH is explicitly  supposed to be a super-set of
microformats, a
>generic term invented  to help protect the microformats
name from being
>generalised.

I think it's quite clear from the cited history that that's
not why the
term was coined; it certainly not why I added it to the
glossary.

>POSH is not a microformat.

Agreed, but microformats *are* POSH.

>The documented presence on our wiki is  acceptable as
‘microformat’
>mis-use is a common problem for us,

The later claim does not justify the former assertion.

>but I  object to it being presented as part of
‘microformats’ through
>association with the logo. It's just going to cause more
confusion.

I also agree with your later point; but I think the same
applies to
having POSH as part of the microformat 'wiki'.

-- 
Andy Mabbett
            *  Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards: 
<http://www.no2id.net/>
            *  Free Our Data:  <http://www.freeourd
ata.org.uk>
            *  Are you using Microformats, yet: <http://microformats.org/
> ?

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On 03/05/07, Andy Mabbett <andypigsonthewing.org.uk>
wrote:

> If it is intended to be separate form microformats,
then having so much
> about it on the microformat 'wiki' is somewhat
misleading.

I must admit that I have some qualms about having it on the
microformats wiki also - if it's a term designed to
disambiguate, it's
highly confusing for it to stem from microformats (even if
though they
are "POSH") and probably a bit counter-intuitive!

-- 
Frances Berriman
http://fberriman.com
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Right,

I've set up a vote for this on the Wiki. As explained in my
Wiki  
commit comment, with the POSH page being something of a
reference  
rather than a page of active microformat development, I
judge it to  
be inappropriate to tack the vote on to the article itself
and have  
created a Talk: page for the vote instead.

If interested parties could please contribute and offer any 

objections by Wednesday evening (allowing the UK bank
holiday weekend  
and two working days for collection).

http://microfo
rmats.org/wiki/Talk:posh

Cheers,

Ben

On 3 May 2007, at 13:06, Serdar Kiliç wrote:
> I agree, there shouldn't be an association with the
Microformats  
> logo with that of any POSH logo. As you say, it's
important to be  
> able to distinguish the two, which I believe is
accomplished with  
> the information found on the wiki page.


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Ben Ward wrote:
> Now the whole point of this is to differentiate
semantic HTML from 
> microformats, discourage the further ambiguation of the
terms. So to 
> be honest I'm a bit put out by the badges that have
been added to 
> http://microformats.org/wiki/posh#POSH_Bling_for_your_
Blog which 
> include the microformats logo. 

I've provided a plain HTML / CSS  alternative without the
microformats logo:

http://jontangerine.com/silo/microformats/posh-badge/

Please feel free to use / adapt as you like.

All the best,
Jon Tan


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I have to agree, and have cast my vote, that the use of the
microformats logo with POSH isn't a good idea straight out
of the
gate.

I do like Jon's badges so if I were to ever use one I'd be
happy with
one of those.

Maybe I'm missing something but if you want to promote
"plain old
semantic HTML" then wouldn't you have that first and
then add
microformats to it?  So the POSH badge should be designed
first and
then an alternative to show you are using POSH with uF's. 
Didn't the
W3C have badges (I'm going back a bit now) for HTML, one for
CSS and
one combined?

Maybe this is the way to go.  Get the foundation (POSH), add
CSS,
uF's, RSS what-have-you afterwards.

I'm not a big one for badges anyway 

Dave

On 5/5/07, Jon Tan <microformatsgr0w.com> wrote:
> Ben Ward wrote:
> > Now the whole point of this is to differentiate
semantic HTML from
> > microformats, discourage the further ambiguation
of the terms. So to
> > be honest I'm a bit put out by the badges that
have been added to
> > http://microformats.org/wiki/posh#POSH_Bling_for_your_
Blog which
> > include the microformats logo.
>
> I've provided a plain HTML / CSS  alternative without
the microformats logo:
>
> http://jontangerine.com/silo/microformats/posh-badge/
>
> Please feel free to use / adapt as you like.
>
> All the best,
> Jon Tan
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> microformats-discuss mailing list
> microformats-discussmicroformats.org
> http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss
>

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I agree with Ben on this, and much of the other sentiment
raised so
far. To simplify this discussion, I think POSH is useful as
a
conceptual tool for reifying the definition of
microformats:

POSH Patterns: semantic practices resulting in meaningful
markup
Microformats: HTML-based data formats

I believe that POSH should actually become it's own parallel
effort to
microformats -- and that the microformats wiki should link
to external
resources, documentation and best practices for all things
POSH. Now,
that doesn't have to happen right away, as we are still
building out
the foundational corpus of information related to POSH, but
I think
conflating microformats and POSH could end up confusing
folks new to
either concept -- and as such needs a logical and
geographic
delineation if we're to squeeze the most value out of this.

To that end, I think that whatever POSH-mark we come up with
shouldn't
relate to the  microformats mark, either in color or
typeface. While
the terms are siblings, the way we market them should be
radically
different -- as should be the audiences of either term.

The audience of POSH is generally anyone who writes HTML,
who works
with people who write HTML, CSS and AJAX developers,
bloggers,
designers, hybrids, framework builders, language writers and
so forth.

The microformats audience is similar, but should also
include
standards folks, browser developers, and so on. Nor are the
members of
these audiences mutually exclusive, but we must maintain
audience-specific priorities for each effort.

Finally, as to the POSH brand, I think there's still much to
be done
to come up with a mark to represent the effort that is as
cool or sexy
as the microformats icon itself. Dan Cederholm set the bar
pretty high
on this one and I've already got a few designer-friends
coming up with
something that I think you'll like, playing on the idea of
"semantic
salt"...

So, it's something of a matter of time before we find a
proper home
for POSH, but agree that long-term, the goal should be to
separate out
the two efforts as distinct community efforts.

Chris

On 5/5/07, David Mead <davidjohnmeadgmail.com> wrote:
> I have to agree, and have cast my vote, that the use of
the
> microformats logo with POSH isn't a good idea straight
out of the
> gate.
>
> I do like Jon's badges so if I were to ever use one I'd
be happy with
> one of those.
>
> Maybe I'm missing something but if you want to promote
"plain old
> semantic HTML" then wouldn't you have that first
and then add
> microformats to it?  So the POSH badge should be
designed first and
> then an alternative to show you are using POSH with
uF's.  Didn't the
> W3C have badges (I'm going back a bit now) for HTML,
one for CSS and
> one combined?
>
> Maybe this is the way to go.  Get the foundation
(POSH), add CSS,
> uF's, RSS what-have-you afterwards.
>
> I'm not a big one for badges anyway 
>
> Dave
>
> On 5/5/07, Jon Tan <microformatsgr0w.com> wrote:
> > Ben Ward wrote:
> > > Now the whole point of this is to
differentiate semantic HTML from
> > > microformats, discourage the further
ambiguation of the terms. So to
> > > be honest I'm a bit put out by the badges
that have been added to
> > > http://microformats.org/wiki/posh#POSH_Bling_for_your_
Blog which
> > > include the microformats logo.
> >
> > I've provided a plain HTML / CSS  alternative
without the microformats logo:
> >
> > http://jontangerine.com/silo/microformats/posh-badge/
> >
> > Please feel free to use / adapt as you like.
> >
> > All the best,
> > Jon Tan
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > microformats-discuss mailing list
> > microformats-discussmicroformats.org
> > http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> microformats-discuss mailing list
> microformats-discussmicroformats.org
> http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss
>


-- 
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Blog: http://factoryjoe.com/blog

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Chris Messina wrote:
> I believe that POSH should actually become it's own
parallel effort to
> microformats -- and that the microformats wiki should
link to external
> resources, documentation and best practices for all
things POSH. Now,
> that doesn't have to happen right away, as we are still
building out
> the foundational corpus of information related to POSH,
but I think
> conflating microformats and POSH could end up confusing
folks new to
> either concept -- and as such needs a logical and
geographic
> delineation if we're to squeeze the most value out of
this.

I agree completely. While I think it's okay for the
microformats wiki  
page to act as a stop-gap descriptive page explaining how
POSH  
relates to microformats, it should definitely not become the
 
canonical home of POSH. I think it would definitely be a
good idea to  
drop the last bit of this step from the process:
"Encourage others to  
be POSH and POSHify their websites by linking to this
page." Anyone  
mind if I go in and make that change? (Frankly, I'm not sure
a  
"process" really matches the idea of POSH which is
just labelling  
something that people are doing anyway. So while I see the
value of  
the checklist, I think we could stand to ditch the process
part)

By far the best solution here would be to split POSH into a
separate  
resource on different websites (not necessarily maintained
by people  
in the microformats community). As Chris said, the
microformats wiki  
page on POSH should become a link list rather than a home
for POSH.

Patrick Griffiths wrote:
> The fact that I think POSH is a ridiculous,
unnecessary, and  
> patronising initiative aside

I think you might be missing a lot of the
tongue-in-cheekiness of the  
term. Nobody thinks it's a particularly good or clever term
but it's  
better than saying "not a microformat" as in when
someone writes  
"I've just created my own microformat" and they
are then told "no,  
what you have created is...[insert term here]"

It doesn't matter what the term itself is. If you'd rather
say "a  
semantic HTML pattern", that's fine. If the term POSH
dies off,  
that's fine. The term itself is unimportant. What's
important is that  
people are thinking about how to create and use semantic
markup  
patterns and (crucially) also realising that a semantic
markup  
pattern by itself isn't a microformat.

> So I think lumping this with microformats partly
defeats the point  
> - it has the potential to confuse and seemingly
complicate things,  
> rather than clarify and simplify them.

No argument there. But you can see how we still need
somewhere to  
point people to when we say things like "Before you
start using  
microformats you should be using [insert term here]" or
"What you're  
proposing doesn't need to be a microformat but it's a great
example  
of [insert term here]".

Personally I think http://htmldog.com/ would be
a great resource to  
point people to when they need some tutorials and references
on  
semantic HTML. If you wanted to set up a disambiguation page
on your  
site (including whatever personal issues you have with using
the POSH  
acronym if you like) it would make a great jumping-off point
for  
people who need to brush up on their meaningful markup:
people who,  
as you point out, are coming to microformats too soon:

> Semantic HTML comes first, microformats after. For POSH
to catch  
> on, it needs to appeal to web development (or certainly
web  
> standards) newcomers. Microformats is an advanced
concept - not one  
> that most beginners are going to latch on to straight
away.

Bye,

Jeremy

-- 
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a d a c t i o

http://adactio.com/


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On 5/6/07, Patrick H. Lauke <reduxsplintered.co.uk>
wrote:
> Frances Berriman wrote:
>
> > This is kind of why I have a problem with the
"POSH" thing.
> >
>
> Also, from a marketing perspective, I'd posit that
"plain" and "old" are
> probably not the best terms to sex up and sell the
idea.

Except that that's the precise goal that we're trying to
achieve...!
We don't want *new* formats... we want to get folks in the
habit and
mindset of using HTML the way it was meant to be used.

As for using existing resources like SimpleQuiz, I went
through the
collection of quizzes and some of those answers are already
out of
date! I think what we need to do is redouble our efforts --
to go back
with all the knowledge and wisdom we've gained in the
developments of
microformats and start thinking about how these basic
formats fit into
the larger body of -- I won't use the acronym -- *meaningful
markup*
(borrowed from Molly.com).

Now, if you want to call it something else, as Jeremy said,
go for it.
I'm not wedded to the acronym, but I also don't want to
waste my time
sitting around trying to come up with a committee-approved
term that
helps the pill of "semantic markup" go down a
little more easily.

To quote Todd Sieling of Ma.gnolia: Let's focus on outcomes
and not
outputs -- let's not get bogged down with the term when
clearly our
work on spreading semantic best practices has just begun:

http://www.sean-johnson.com/200
7/05/06/web-standards-still-have-a-long-way-to-go/

Now, I want to make one final point.

If it were possible, I'd say that we could go ahead and just
stick
with the "HTML" acronym -- plenty of people still
don't know what that
means and we could obviously benefit from its widespread
use. The
problem with that approach however, as with a term like
microformats
-- is that there were already certain guidelines and
principles
established that weren't followed originally. You look at
the HTML
spec and nowhere does it talk about using blockquote for
indenting
your text or using tables for layout. Similarly, in the
microformats-creation process, there's an *explicit*
prohibition on
creating new microformats... and yet, that's been by and
large where
people have wanted to contribute most often.

I would suggest that we move beyond just the term POSH --
which itself
is arguably lacking -- and starting talking about POSH
Patterns (and
POSH formats ... i.e. microformats). I think the addition
of
"patterns" helps hone in on what we're talking
about and helps move
directly into answering the question "what is a POSH
Pattern?" rather
than simply answering "What is POSH and why is it
called that?"

Chris

-- 
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Citizen Provocateur &
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Work: http://citizenagency.com

Blog: http://factoryjoe.com/blog

Cell: 412 225-1051
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