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comments on rel-tag microformat

Jul 22nd, 2005 by Phil Dawes

Wrote this comment to somebody else’s blog post at work. Thought I’d cut-n-paste it here:

Tagging is tres-cool, however I’m not sure about this microformat - there are a couple of warts IMO:

  • Not a biggie, but at first glance the format looks like you’re tagging the target of the link (at least to me). Reading the spec shows that the URL is actually intended to denote the tag itself (e.g. http://technorati.com/tag/apple)
  • I think the use of a URL to denote the tag implies a stronger semantic meaning than tags can effectively support. I.e. To me it implies: “By ‘http://technorati.com/tag/apple’ I mean the same as all these people who have tagged their content ‘http://technorati.com/tag/apple’”

    One of the breakthroughs for me with the del.ic.ious tagging was that the semantics of tagging were very loose and local. The tag meant “I’m categorising this content with this tag” - it didn’t imply that I mean the same thing as the tag in joeblogg’s tagging scheme.

    Personally I would have preferred a no-url scheme - e.g. <span rel=”tag”>apple</span>. My guess is that the technorati tags aggregator just lobbs the URL off of the tag anyway.

  • Of course the other thing to note is that you’re tagging your own content, so you don’t get the same levels of diversity and serendipity as an open tagging system.

(Technorati tag )

Posted in General, Semantic Web, Blog | Comments

Viewing 6 Comments

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    I think having a URL as a tag has some great benefits:

    I don't think it implies that others who've used the same tag mean precisely the same thing, just as is the case in folksonomies such as del.icio.us.
    You don't have to link to Technorati's tag space if that doesn't suit you. You can link to any tag space you like.
    Have a URL allows readers to see some explanation of the tag. For example I link my tags to wikipedia often (even though I work for Technorati :)). The wikipedia explains what I mean by the tag. Technorati tags are useful in that they say "this post is a part of that conversation" and work pretty well for that.
    <span rel="tag"></span> is not valid (X)HTML, nor is the 'rel' attribute meaninful in this case. As it is defined as: "describ[ing] the relationship from the current document to the anchor specified by the href attribute." With your proposal, there's no relationship to describe.


    As I've said before regardin author tagging vs. reader tagging, it is obvious that they are different and and have different benefits. But I don't see why this is an argument against author tagging- they're not mutually exclusive.
    • ^
    • v
    sorry. my markup got all destroyed in that comment. There was supposed to be an <ol> in there.
    • ^
    • v
    I'd seen a couple of other people criticize this scheme as too Technorati-centric and bought it until I read the part of the spec about "tag spaces":

    "Since the only part of a tag space URL of which any structure is required is the last segment, a tag space URL can be hosted at any domain."

    http://microformats.org/wiki/reltag#Tag_Spaces

    Maybe a URL-free version of this idea would have been better, but it's not true that Technorati has excluded other players on this point.

    A question: what tag spaces are people actually linking to out there? I'm guessing it's mostly Technorati and a smattering of Wikipedia and del.icio.us; any other significant targets?
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    Prentiss Riddle writes:
    Maybe a URL-free version of this idea would have been better, but it's not true that Technorati has excluded other players on this point.

    Hi Prentiss,
    My concern wasn't with any technorati-centricness of the scheme - it's clear technorati are being very open and keen to produce standards for the benefit of all. Just that I wasn't sure the URL portion added any value in return for its additional complexity over a simple tag, and may have implied semantics* not adequately supported by the scheme.

    (i.e. 'I mean the same as all the other people using this tag in the tagspace')
    • ^
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    Ryan King writes:
    I don't think it implies that others who've used the same tag mean precisely the same thing, just as is the case in folksonomies such as del.icio.us.
    You don't have to link to Technorati's tag space if that doesn't suit you. You can link to any tag space you like.
    Have a URL allows readers to see some explanation of the tag. For example I link my tags to wikipedia often (even though I work for Technorati :)). The wikipedia explains what I mean by the tag. Technorati tags are useful in that they say "this post is a part of that conversation" and work pretty well for that.

    Hmmm.. Maybe. I guess I'm stuck on URIs=precision because I've been so involved with RDF in the past.

    <span rel="tag"></span> is not valid (X)HTML, nor is the 'rel' attribute meaninful in this case. As it is defined as: "describ[ing] the relationship from the current document to the anchor specified by the href attribute." With your proposal, there's no relationship to describe.

    Oops - that probably should have been <span class="tag">apple</span> or something.
    • ^
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    I just came across this post after futureofwebapps-sf06 and I have to somewhat agree, but have other issues. I recently started trying to use the rel="tag" microformat and found it counter-intuitive, which tells me it could often get misused.

    Further, for many websites it is difficult to implement a URL w/o a file extension i.e. IIS5 and IIS6 based websites, for example (note that this fact infuriates me [see http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/WellDesignedUR..., but it is still a fact.)

    What's more, RSSBlog has a great point about re="tag" contrbuting PageRank inappropriately: http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/?guid=20050619130051

    L:astly, it doesn't allow associating meaning of a tag with a URL that doesn't end with tag itself, which to me is very limiting.

    JMTCW
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