#microformats 2014-11-07

2014-11-07 UTC
tantek, caseorga_, tantek_, KartikPrabhu, jschweinsberg, eschnou, kez, krendil, KevinMarks, kez_, KevinMarks_, TallTed, elux_ and elux joined the channel
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elux
hello
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elux
anyone around?
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elux
i was just wondering if anyone has seen success with google being able to better index pages with microformats 1 or 2 semantics ?
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elux
i haven't seen it helpful for myself, but maybe im doing something wrong
elux, KevinMarks, mko, pfefferle, eschnou, tantek, jschweinsberg, trendynick_, KevinMarks_, iwaim and KevinMarks__ joined the channel
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elux
hello
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elux
just wondering if i should be using schema.org or microformats2 to mark up my page to offer better semantics?
jschweinsberg joined the channel
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tantek
elux - microformats is less work so I'd say start with that.
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Loqi
tantek: ChiefRA left you a message 4 days, 4 hours ago: Hi mate, I've created a new temporary page to fix and improve the implementation details for hListing. See and compare 1-on-1 the "Properties" and "Property details" sections from both pages.
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elux
i prefer how microforamts2 looks ..
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Loqi
tantek: ChiefRA left you a message 4 days, 4 hours ago: new page http://microformats.org/wiki/hlisting-duplicated-for-discussions and the original one http://microformats.org/wiki/hlisting
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elux
i think schema.org markup is super ugly
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tantek
elux - cool good to know. and thank you - that was part of the goal of microformats2 design - easier/nicer markup
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elux
but i dont see the microformats stuff i added showing up in google's webmaster tools
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elux
makes me think its not working
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tantek
elux - odd, could you share your URL here?
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elux
that is an angularjs page.. so you will have to set the user-agent to a googlebot or some other search bot
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elux
at which point, you will get a different page
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elux
this is curated content, and we're still working on letting users add more annotations / context, which i believe would be the real value google would be interested to index
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tantek
elux - what if a non-JS browser goes to the page like Lynx?
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elux
tantek: we dont support lynx
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elux
theyre not our market
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tantek
or for that matter - any accessibility / reading tools
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elux
but, sure i could serve some basic static pages to those too oen day
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elux
tantek: like what..?
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tantek
why not serve those by default the same thing you serve to googlebot?
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elux
just saying, its a trade-off ... and so, in the earlier timeframe, we have forgone edge users like that
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elux
tantek: yea thats a good point
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tantek
I don't have much experience making any angular or other JS-frontend pages work with google or semantic markup
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elux
to be honest, my intention is to move from angularjs to reactjs, at which point server-side rendering of the same document becomes very easy
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elux
well, to google, they just see the static page with the microformats like in the gist
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tantek
elux - and other search engines?
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elux
those too
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tantek
do you maintain a list? seems like a pain.
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elux
its a small regexp to capture most.. and we "Vary" when we need to serve jsut a static page
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elux
i agree with all you're saying btw, which is why we will just render the same thing for everyone in a few months
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elux
but this is what im working with now.. and either way, microformats would be sprinkled in the same way
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tantek
ok, just trying to understand, thanks for the explanation.
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elux
of course :)
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tantek
glancing at the gist the microformats2 looks good
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elux
im trying to figure out is google ready for microformats2 ..
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elux
or should i be using schema.org
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elux
which i hate
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elux
:P
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tantek
here's another reason to make it easier to get the static markup - testing tools *other* than those you've hardcoded
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tantek
e.g. pin13.net
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elux
right
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tantek
I mean http://pin13.net/mf2/ - where you can enter a URL and it shows you the microformats it found in JSON format
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tantek
is there anyway to use a query param on your site for that? e.g. ?static=1
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elux
yea i get the parser stuff.. that is very smart in how it can build those hashes so easily
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elux
yes of course
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tantek
that way it is easier to test with any tool
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elux
gist will give me the raw output.. all good
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tantek
oh cool!
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elux
nice. looks like this is working well
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elux
perhaps shows some weird stuff too tho .. content: [ {html: "x": value:"x"} ]
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elux
html and value are the same.. not sure if thats intended
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tantek
elux - not quite the same
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tantek
the "html" shows *all* the embedded markup
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elux
understood..
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elux
did i use the h-cite properly there..? to cite the source content
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tantek
which is useful for syndication / readers etc., e.g. if you embed photos in the content
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elux
cool.. what about oembed-iframes?
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elux
it would be nice to see oembed in microformats
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elux
i think that is missing
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elux
mf2.1 :)
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tantek
elux - oembed is limited to one "thing" per post
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tantek
so it doesn't make much sense in practice in display
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tantek
h-entry does have a propose u-featured property for a featured photo
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elux
why cant you have multiple oembed's on a page?
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tantek
s/propose/proposed
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Loqi
tantek meant to say: h-entry does have a proposed u-featured property for a featured photo
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tantek
elux - because oembed clients expect to use only one thing
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tantek
just a limitation of the expectations of oembed
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elux
well, depends if its consumed or displayed
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elux
if i understand correctly
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elux
but, even single main "oembed" isn't bad
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elux
like a featured photo
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tantek
with microformats, you don't need oembed - just use an <img> directly :)
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tantek
or <video> etc.
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tantek
plain HTML, less work than Oembed
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elux
in the e-content ?
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tantek
right
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elux
cool
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elux
yea, i get it :) and i really enjoy it
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elux
now... does google eat this stuff up yet? lol .. or one day
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tantek
then it will show-up in the parsed JSON in the "html"
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tantek
elux - we have some evidence that they're parsing h-entry but not necessarily showing it in validation tools
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elux
also, is there a common <head meta tag people use to specify there are microformats on a page..? to make parsing the doc faster perhaps...? a check before putting it through a microformats parser
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tantek
for that reason, all microformats2 specs have back-compat vocabulary to use for "one main object" - which is all that Google cares about anyway - they don't do subobjects really
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elux
tantek: yea i think so too.. i hope they get on it, becuase its so much better
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elux
do you guys have contacts at google..? i know some guys i can ask / push
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tantek
no need for a <meta> tag because they can do a simple class name h-* test
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elux
true.
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elux
im amazed google isn't pushing this so hard..
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elux
considering how important it is to their future
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tantek
the current best authoring guidance is to markup everything with microformats2 (which is the simplest/easiest/cleanest and most minimal), and then pick *one* object to use backward compat classic microformats one
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elux
microformats 1 that is, for the *one* object?
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tantek
elux - it is very confusing on google's part - since schema is so much more complicated, and mdata/rdfa is so much noisier in the markup
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tantek
elux - correct
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elux
gotcha
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elux
i am gonna email some people i know in google to ask about this
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tantek
every microformats2 spec has a section for backcompat for the "one object"
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tantek
elux - definitely - there are fans of microformats2 inside google too
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tantek
I think they just need some more encouragement - and people publishing microformats2!
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tantek
I bet they're close
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elux
yea
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elux
nice
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elux
thanks for all the advice
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tantek
take a quick look at http://microformats.org/wiki/h-entry#Publisher_Compatibility and let me know if that makes sense and if you can extrapolate from that
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tantek
absolutely - love to help out real world use cases like yours
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elux
so btw, i guess google is further along in parsing microformats 1, than 2..? which make sense
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tantek
we learn from real world experience and improve our docs accordingly
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elux
thanks, yea this is a big help to us too
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tantek
right, google started parsing microformats1 long ago - as early as 2009 or earlier
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tantek
microformats2 didn't come out until 2010
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elux
we're a curation / publishing platform, with annoations on making awesome bundles of content around topics
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tantek
and wasn't really finalized til 2011, with minor updates since then
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elux
we want to add lots of semantics, since we do so much data normalization, we want all this searchable
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tantek
agreed- that makes a lot of sense
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tantek
unfortunately google only pays attention to "one main object" per page
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tantek
because of their limited rich snippets use-case
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elux
so in mf2 .. the one main object is the h-entry / e-content ?
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elux
and microformats1 .. its what?
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tantek
the "one main object" depends on what the page is about!
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tantek
in this case yes, it is usually whatever is your top level microformats2 object
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tantek
hence h-entry in this case
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elux
right.. h-*
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tantek
to see if that makes sense
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elux
ah perfect!
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elux
thanks
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tantek
it shows how to *add* classic microformats1 markup to *only* the top level one object
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elux
thats perfect
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tantek
to keep the markup impact at a minimum
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elux
thanks!
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tantek
we care a lot about developer/page efficiency
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elux
of course.. the developer experience drives adoption
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elux
thank you so much tantek!
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tantek
elux no problem at all
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tantek
you can keep testing your markup with the pin13.net parser
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tantek
and see that even with the dual microformats1 microformats2 markup for the one main / primary object it looks good
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elux
cool
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tantek
so let's take care of that and then look at what you're doing with the nested h-cite object
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elux
thats great
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elux
right.. yea, i am trying to reference the "source url"
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elux
how do i do that properly.. since the first h-* object feels to be like the main one
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tantek
is this like a bookmark post then? or a quotation post?
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elux
both will be supported
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tantek
just trying to understand the meaning you intend
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tantek
in this post right now - what is the intended meaning
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elux
well.. i want to "admit" to google, this article is curated from another source
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elux
we are not trying to claim its original
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tantek
so its a repost?
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tantek
s/its/it's
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Loqi
tantek meant to say: so it's a repost?
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elux
and eventually say: but, this part here is original.. the curator's opinion on the piece of content
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tantek
that sounds almost like a reply post then
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elux
its a repost in a larger collection of content around the same topic,
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elux
yes, its like a reply post
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tantek
a-ha in that case you want to use "p-in-reply-to h-cite" which will connect it in that fashion
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elux
i also feel we add value to google by creating relationships around similar pieces of content .. so a destination for a lot of great content to be discovered around similar topics
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elux
nice.. so both of those
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tantek
and be sure to <blockquote> anything quoted
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elux
the entire featured image and content then..?
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elux
and instead i suppose then
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elux
the h-entry and e-content, would be the user's opinion/annoation/context that they add
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tantek
right - and thus should also have your p-author information too
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tantek
who did the curation/excerpt/added text
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elux
i see
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elux
what kinds of "posts" are there..?
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tantek
elux - every kind we can find real world examples for :)
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elux
right :)
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tantek
elux, and based on that, here's a short list that is growing http://indiewebcamp.com/posts#Kinds_of_Posts
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elux
nice, thanks
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