At 3:48 AM +0000 10/3/05, Steven Ellis wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I think that document fragments, whether they be structurally or 
>conceptually coherent, need to be permitted formal expression in 
>XHTML. The simplest illustration of this may be xhtml microformats.
>
>Bracing microformats (and other fragments) using globally unique 
>identifiers would permit machine isolation and analysis, cross 
>referencing, consensus, scriptability, coalescence, and the 
>association of folksonomies with high resolution.
>
>Please consider an attribute capable of accepting an arbitrary 
>'unique concept / null concept' identifier.
>
><div identity="3C05DC85-DC34-4546-9210-02EC43188367" id="MyCard" 
>class="hCard">Content</div>
>
>In this case 3C05DC85-DC34-4546-9210-02EC43188367 may achieve 
>consensus as an hCard microformat reference.  Can you speculate how 
>this will scale? I thought it good enough to share.

You are right that @class has been coopted for something less than it
was designed to be.

The HTML WG is taking a second run at ontology with @role. Now at
least we have QNames where there is a presumption that any value you
give to @role has a public explanation somewhere, as opposed to the
private-code @class tokens.

Please consider @role as contemplated to be used in the

   Dynamic Accessible Web Content Roadmap
   http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/roadmap/ 

...as a contemporary effort to deploy a modicum of heredity and
similarity grouping of application fragments.  But intentional
and consensual, after the manner of Dublin Core, and not viral
like the lexicon of English.  [I think there's a place for each.]

Let us know <mailto:wai-xtech@w3.org> what you think.

Al

PS: again, as you have said, the markup-language textual fragment
that your parser can excise is related to a reusable pattern by
a generic/specific arm's length.  For more on how 'identity' varies according
to your varying concept of integrity or consistency-across-representations,
there is some history (ego acknowledged) to be dredged via

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Alists.w3.org%2FArchives%2FPublic%2Furi%2F+gilman+identity+integrity