Rob:

Thanks for the suggestions.

> The approach of the microformats community is
> potentially adopting for the well designed urls
> project (http://microformats.org/about/ ):

Don't know if you know this, but I participated heavily for several months
on the microformat mailing list. Frankly, I think their process is a bit
disfunctional. I has actually planned to blog about it, hopefully this
weekend, on my personal blog.

I haven't put my finger on exactly what's wrong with the microformat process
but I can think of some issues I have with it; some of those I could easily
resolve but others not:

-- Constricting vision. Disallows addressing many use cases, doesn't support
scaling up.
-- Positioned as a community process but is run autocratically in reality.
-- No central scribe documenting solutions.
-- Attempting to defines defacto standards for the web at large but
unwilling to consider the ramifications
-- Mailing list [1] discussion is far too time consuming and too difficult
to track treads.
-- Mailing list doesn't create as much lasting values as a forum would, IMO
-- Focus on mailing list and wiki (vs. blog) makes it difficult for people
to monitor process without getting completely involved, which many people
simply can't do. Forces everyone involved to receive everything, not just
emails on the subject in which they are interested and/or are participating.

[1] Yes, I know we have a list; setting up a forum with a mailing list
mirror is on my to-do list.

> "microformats are: ...
> - adapted to current behaviors and usage
> patterns ("Pave the cow paths.")
> ...
> microformats are not: ...
> - an attempt to get everyone to change their
> behavior and rewrite their tools"

One of my main motivations for this initiative is I believe that current
behaviors and usage patterns are mostly dysfunctional. As such my plan is to
advocate change, not document current behavior except for that which is well
designed. In addition, I think one of the many reasons for the sorry state
of URL design is most tool vendors[2] do not consider URL design important.
A key goal is to advocate for new and better tools, and to get vendors
improve the tools we have.

[2] "Vendors" includes open-source project teams in this context.

> I believe an emphasis on uncovering what already
> works is likely to be better received than developing
> a list of priori prescriptions.

Also, please realize I'm coming at this from different situations and
motivations than the technorati guys. I don't have an existing company that
is paying me a salary to manage a community process. Instead I'm doing this
because I passionately believe these issues need to be addressed, I've
studied the issues more than most, and I believe I have key insights into
what is needed.

But more to the point, I am not currently making a living doing this so I
need to optimize the process to ensure that I can generate some revenue.
Specifically I'm more interested in writing on a blog where I can hope to
get consulting work and/or sponsors than participating in a mailing list
where I won't be able to have a place for sponsors or to advertise
consulting services. That also means I'm more interested in setting up a
forum as opposed to a mailing list because I can do the same there. With
this, Yahoo gets all the advertising benefit.

Of course if you represent a company that would like to sponsor the
initiative, I'm all ears. :)

That said, as my goal is to develop a list of patterns and best practices
that is respected by the web at large, I need to objectively evaluate all
input and gain consensus from whatever I "recommend" (note the quotes), or
I'll just be considered a fringe loon, and that's not my goal. :) I *will*
be publishing my initial ideas labled under the topic of "brainstorming" to
solicit opinions and discussion, but anything that makes it to the level of
a "recommendation" for a pattern or best practice will be vetting by the
community. And if I can I'll integrate the blog with the forum so that
discussion can more to the forum once it gets started, where the forum will
provide much better features for managing a threaded conversation than would
a blog comments section.

Finally if the process I envision doesn't work understand I'm not a "stay
the course" guy who bulldozers forward when all evidence indicates success
will never be achieved with the current strategy. If I need to modify
things to get the community to participate and endorse, I will.

--
-Mike Schinkel
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/
http://www.welldesignedurls.org/