Hidden Locality/Country?

Hello,

This is my first message to the microformats list; I'm very
interested in implementing microformats in a new site I am
building, but am having some difficulties figuring out a
best practice for something that is coming up.

The site I am building is essentially an aggregator for
local businesses, with reviews, directions, hours,
descriptions, events, and Google Map implementation. As
such, it seems perfect as a testing ground for me to play
with microformats, and microformats seem perfect to add a
bit more functionality to the site down the road.

The issue I'm having right now is finding a balance between
keeping my site optimized for human reading, and also making
it as semantically robust as possible for machines. The
specific issue is that since every business on the site is
found within our county, it makes no sense to include either
locality (California) or country-name (US) in the address
information for the reader to see. This simply takes up
space without adding any information -- the site is
manifestly about businesses based in California, which is
therefore in the US.

Now, the spec seems to say I can omit this information if I
choose to. At the same time, it seems like omitting this
information would result in a less robust experience for
anyone getting the information down the line via an
aggregator -- humans visiting the site will know it is in
California and in the US, but machines will not, and
therefore humans who see the businesses listed anywhere
other than our site won't know what state they're in.

Obviously I could just include the information, even though
it serves no function for the human readers of the site. But
I am reluctant to add redundant information that serves no
function to human readers -- part of the draw of u-formats
for me is the ability to have added semantic information
without compromising my end-user experience.

The code at the end of this email is how I would envision
solving this problem, by having essentially
"empty" fields. But my question is: what is the
general feeling towards having empty fields for this
information? Obviously search engines would be likely to
ignore this meta-data (since it could easily be faked), but
that's not a concern of mine. Are there other valid reasons
I should avoid this? Is there a best-practice that I should
follow? Preferably one that doesn't force me to rewrite
chunks of contact information in a way that detracts from
user experience just to fulfill the machine end? 

Thank you all so much for your work on this project, and I
look forward to spending a great deal of time playing with
these beautiful things.

~~Brendan McGuigan

<div class="vcard">
  <div class="fn org">Test Local
Business</div>
  <div class="adr">
    <div class="street-address">400 Main
St.</div>
    <div>
      <span
class="locality">Mendocino</span>, 
      <abbr class="region"
title="California"></abbr> <span
class="postal-code">95460</span> <abbr
class="country-name"
title="USA"></abbr>
    </div>
  <div>Phone: <span
class="tel">707-937-0000</span></div&g
t;
  <div>Email: <span
class="email">somewheresomewhere.com</span></div>
</div>
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> Obviously I could just include the information, even
though it serves no function for the human readers of the
site. But I am reluctant to add redundant information that
serves no function to human readers -- part of the draw of
u-formats for me is the ability to have added semantic
information without compromising my end-user experience.

I think that you could include the state abbreviation 'CA'
without
making the information too redundant.  It is true that
everything's in
California, but by making the a line if the address read:
 <span
class="locality">Mendocino</span>,
<abbr class="region"
title="California">CA</abbr> , <span
class="postal-code">95460</span>
You would end up with a properly formatted postal address,
which may
actually be more human-readable, (just because we're used to
it),
wouldn't you?  Even if not you're only adding 3 extra
characters to
read.

For the country though, I'm not sure what you should do.  It
would be
totally redundant in the context of the site, but as you say
if
someone's, (something), using the info outside of the
context of the
site it would be helpful.
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From: "kalisti" <kalistikalisti.com>
> The issue I'm having right now is finding a balance
between keeping my
> site optimized for human reading, and also making it as
semantically
> robust as possible for machines. The specific issue is
that since every
> business on the site is found within our county, it
makes no sense to
> include either locality (California) or country-name
(US) in the address
> information for the reader to see. This simply takes up
space without
> adding any information -- the site is manifestly about
businesses based in
> California, which is therefore in the US.
>
> Now, the spec seems to say I can omit this information
if I choose to. At
> the same time, it seems like omitting this information
would result in a
> less robust experience for anyone getting the
information down the line
> via an aggregator -- humans visiting the site will know
it is in
> California and in the US, but machines will not, and
therefore humans who
> see the businesses listed anywhere other than our site
won't know what
> state they're in.

Just include the information marked up as per normal, and
use CSS to adjust
the on-screen presentation of the information so that the
state and country
aren't visible.

-- 
Paul Wilkins

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>> Obviously I could just include the information,
even though it serves no 
>> function for the human readers of the site. But I
am reluctant to add 
>> redundant >information that serves no function
to human readers -- part 
>> of the draw of u-formats for me is the ability to
have added semantic 
>> information without >compromising my end-user
experience.
>

I think it IS a good idea to include that extra
information.

 I have done some work on aggregating international events
data and I know 
just how frustrating it is to get a machine to work out what
country/city or 
state something is in when that information is not
explicitly provided.

...so I'd say it is better to include it - even if it has to
be hidden
(as long as the authoring methods/forms/etc make it clear to
the author what 
has to be updated)

For me one of the most important reasons for using hCalendar
is that you CAN 
mark up locality/region/country as well as the dates/etc...
That is something that iCal/RSS+Event/etc don't have!

> I think that you could include the state abbreviation
'CA' without
> making the information too redundant.  It is true that
everything's in
> California, but by making the a line if the address
read:
> <span
class="locality">Mendocino</span>,
<abbr class="region"
> title="California">CA</abbr> ,
<span
class="postal-code">95460</span>

this sounds like a good idea to me -
except that I think the country-name should also be included
if possible - 
even if it has to be hidden





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In message <20070522093541.20953.qmailhosting333.com>, kalisti
<kalistikalisti.com> writes

>The issue I'm having right now is finding a balance
between keeping my
>site optimized for human reading, and also making it as
semantically
>robust as possible for machines. The specific issue is
that since every
>business on the site is found within our county, it
makes no sense to
>include either locality (California) or country-name
(US) in the
>address information for the reader to see. This simply
takes up space
>without adding any information -- the site is manifestly
about
>businesses based in California, which is therefore in
the US.

Include the information on the page at least once (not least
to
differentiate between other Californias, such as the one in
Birmingham,
England!) and include it in each hCard using the
"include-pattern":

        <http
://microformats.org/wiki/include-pattern>

-- 
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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