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<h1> hCard Auto-discovery Brainstorming </h1>
{{TOC-right}}

This page is for brainstorming about the auto-discovery<!--please add definition--> of [[hcard|hCard]]. This page contains <em>proposals</em>.  For the current state please see [[hcard|hCard]].

== Authors ==
* ???

== Representative hCard discovery ==
Given a page with one or more hCards, which hCard is the representative hCard for the page?

See [[representative-hcard]].

== hCard to hCard relationships ==
There are several types of hCard to hCard relationships, that is, one hCard hyperlinking to another hCard which would beneift from the explicit rel values that described the specific relationship.

=== home page to contact page ===
Numerous individuals and organizations identify themselves through their URL, and then include a separate page for their contact info.  This is an existing practice that could be represented with microformats.

Examples:
* Ryan King, http://theryanking.com/ , http://theryanking.com/contact/
* Tantek Çelik, http://tantek.com/ , http://tantek.pbwiki.com/ContactCard/
* Google, http://www.google.com/ , http://www.google.com/intl/en/contact/index.html

These could be addressed by the following, mini hCard to expanded hCard brainstorming.

=== mini hCard to expanded hCard ===
Perhaps the most common type of hCard to hCard link is a mini hCard, e.g. from a personal home page or blog to the person's contact/about page, perhaps consisting of only a name and URL, that links to an expanded hCard.  Examples in the wild:

In this instance, possible rel values might include:
* rel="expanded"
* rel="definitive" - the problem with this is that the expanded hCard is not necessarily a definitive version.
* rel="canonical" - similarly, the expanded hCard is not necessarily at a canonical URL.  It may simply be *an* expanded version, not *the* expanded version.

The following rel values have been suggested, but are not really a good idea due to the fact that they imply a dependence to add a new rel value for any new microformat which might have a mini-version linking to a more expanded version: 
* rel="author"
* rel='contact'
* rel="contactinfo"
* rel='hcard'
* rel='person'

Here are some more generic values that have been suggested which perhaps make even less sense:
* rel='microformat' - this doesn't make any sense when you imagine a world where nearly every web page contains microformats.
* rel='about' - what does "about" have to do with a person or even authorship?
* rel="profile" - should be reserved for meaning here is an [[xmdp|XMDP]] profile for the current page.
* rel='PIM' - not sure about how this makes any sense either.

=== mini hCard to remote site ===
Per the instructions in [[hcard-examples]] for [[hcard-examples#References_to_People_in_Blogrolls|marking up people in blogrolls]], you might have an hCard of your site for another person which then links to that other person's website.  Should there be a rel value that indicates this "mini-hCard" to "person" relationship?

=== mini hCards and nearby expanded hCard links ===
Some authors include mini-hCards on their pages of themselves (e.g. in their blog posts), and yet those mini-hCards don't actually point to more expanded versions.  However, sometimes they have a separate but nearby link on the same page like "about" or "contact" that does link to an expanded hCard.

E.g. on [http://factoryjoe.com/blog/ FactoryCity], blog posts have mini-hCards for "published by", e.g. (white space added for readability):
<pre><nowiki>
Published by 
<span class="vcard author">
 <a href="http://factoryjoe.com/blog/author/factoryjoe/" class="url fn">
  Chris Messina
 </a>
</span>
</nowiki></pre>

On those same blog pages, there is a link labeled "Contact Information" that links to http://factoryjoe.com/blog/hcard/ which has an hCard with more information like phone number, birthday etc.

== Auto-Discovery for XFN ==

An author will typically publish their XFN information on a specific page, rather than all pages.  In particular, a specific page separate from the home page of their blog, and thus it would be useful to have an explicit rel value to assist in auto-discovery of XFN information.

This was suggested by Jens Alfke on 20050606 at the WWDC blogger's dinner.

== rel=me ==
rel=me from XFN can be used to discover other pages with hCards.  If a page needs an hCard, however, it likely should have the data right on the page (humans first, machines second).

== vCard link rel auto-discovery ==
A similar possibility is an auto discovery link in the head of the document could point to a URL (perhaps with transform) to a vCard version of the representative hCard.

On the page with the hCard encoding, the best link would be as follows:
<code><nowiki> <link rel="alternate" type="text/directory" href="..." /> </nowiki></code>
this HTML page is an alternate view of the vCard.  

The [http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/text/ registered and appropriate type] for vCard entities is “text/directory”, as defined in Internet RFC 2425, “[http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2425.txt A MIME Content-Type for Directory Information]”. RFC 2426, “[http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2425.txt vCard MIME Directory Profile]”, specifies the vCard profile for “text/directory” entities, which profile the MIME/HTTP header field “Content-Type” would indicate with a “profile” parameter whose value is “VCARD”. 

It is unclear whether the HTML/XHTML “type” attribute allows values with parameters. On 2004-05-23, [http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de/ Björn Höhrmann] sent to the [http://www.w3.org/2002/05/html/charter HTML Working Group] a [http://www.w3.org/mid/40ccdc4d.97400945@smtp.bjoern.hoehrmann.de request for clarification] on the issue.

When on a different page, referencing that encoded page in the href would ''not'' be an alternate view of the current page.  Therefore rel="alternate" may not be appropriate.  The problem of what rel value to use is bigger than links to vCards.

== Related Pages ==

{{hcard-related-pages}}
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