[OWW-SC] microformats

[Mackenzie Cowell]

Hi all,

I'm currently the developer of the iGEM 2007 community website, and this
message is aimed primarily at OWW developers.  In know there has been
discussion in the past about combining or merging the iGEM page and wiki
with OWW, and this email is not about that.  It is about how information is
organized on the wiki, specifically, how the same information is presented
by different labs or teams.

As far as I understand it, besides using templates and categories, there is
no way to really structure the content on a mediawiki page.  For example,
every team on the iGEM 2006 wiki provided a picture and a project abstract
somewhere.  The information was available, but not accessible without
visiting every single team's page and actively looking for it.  This year,
one of our goals for the iGEM 2007 website & wiki is to make sure this kind
of information is tagged, or marked-up, or annotated, or put in a special
area on a template, or by some other method standardized across all the
teams.  If information common to all teams is standardized, it will be much
easier to find and reuse, from both a human and machine perspective.

I haven't learned much about it yet, but I want to point out
microformats<http://microformats.org/about/>to OWW developers.  If you
already know about them, please let me know what
you think.  Here's popular definition from the microformats website: "simple
conventions for embedding semantics in HTML to enable decentralized
development." They are basically just standardized xhtml tags, and so should
be easy to integrate with mediawiki content.  The biggest hurdle would be
making them simple for users to use.

I think microformats might help standardize wiki content, so I wanted to
make sure they were on your radar and also invite any comments or
suggestions for other means of structuring or standardizing that content.

Thanks,
Mac Cowell

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mackenzie Cowell <macowell at gmail.com>
Date: Jan 30, 2007 1:44 PM
Subject: Re: [OWW-SC] flexible databases
To: Tom Knight <tk at csail.mit.edu>

Cool!  I wonder if there could be some sort of hybrid solution for BIG
databases where the user could access a web service that would send a small
facet of the big server database to their browser for viewing with Exhibit.

Austin just walked by and mentioned they are trying to get the google maps
integration working so all the labs can be plotted on a map; I was going to
do the same thing for all the iGEM teams this year, and I wonder if Exhibit
will make it easier to do.

mac

On 1/29/07, Tom Knight <tk at csail.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> This doesn't work in my copy of Safari;  use Firefox.
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > From: Austin Che <austin at csail.mit.edu>
> > Date: January 27, 2007 3:06:29 PM EST
> > To: sc at openwetware.org
> > Subject: [OWW-SC] flexible databases
> >
> >
> >     I've been looking at using Exhibit on the wiki:
> >     http://simile.mit.edu/wiki/Exhibit
> >
> >     It allows for completely client side databases with javascript.
> >
> >     I've been talking with the author to improve the support for it on
> >     the wiki. There are still some bugs but I've gotten it to work
> >     with firefox at least in some configuration.
> >
> >     As one test, I've moved some of the E. coli genotypes here:
> >     http://openwetware.org/index.php?title=E._coli_genotypes/Exhibit
> >
> >     You can edit the data as javascript in the file. There are lots of
> >     display options. Right now it just uses the default display
> >     options.
> >
> >     Some key things that I think are interesting and have tested:
> >     - The data can be read from a Google spreadsheet instead of from
> >     the wiki.
> >     - Support for google maps (although this does not quite yet work
> >     on the wiki)
> >     - Timeline support. This supposedly already works on the wiki
> >     http://ontoworld.org/wiki/Upcoming_events
> >
> > --
> > Austin Che           <austin at csail.mit.edu>          (617)253-5899
> > _______________________________________________
> > OpenWetWare Steering Committee Mailing List
> > sc at openwetware.org
> > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/oww-sc
>
>
>
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