[meteorite-list] MADML RFC (was "Data in auctions")

From: Jamie Stephens <j.stephens_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:28:37 2004
Message-ID: <3FA1E81A.1050504_at_morphism.com>

For posterity, here's the first (and almost certainly the last)

                    Request For Comments
                          for the

   Meteorite Auction Data Markup Language (MADML) version 1.0

** If you're a big seller and you think you'll never provide this **
** structured data, please let me know. I don't want to waste my **
** time or others'. No hard feelings (from me) at all. **

** If you want to flame me, please be creative. Privacy-invader, **
** user-agreement-abuser, never-seen-the-light-of-day geek, and **
** irresponsible loser are old. I'm a white male. Got to be **
** something there. **

Please send suggestions and comments to me directly. (Apparently the
List can't take much more Jamie-inspired traffic. I'm sympathetic to
the List in this regard.) I'll revise and republish if I have the
guts.

The goal of MADML is to provide a *simple* way to provide pertinent
auction data in a standard format that's easily parsed. With MADML,
it'll be easy to track fine-grained stats over time:

   $/g ranges for Howardites
   $/g ranges for NWA 998
   $/g ranges for unclassified NWA
   Number of bidders on Gibeon slices
   Number of winners of Eucrites

Etc. (Note that $/g will be ranges, not single numbers.) All could
be easily graphed over time.

N.B. No EBay ID's!

Since EBay auction titles must be short and since sellers will likely
want to maintain complete control over those titles, MADML goes into
the item description, not the title.

Approach 1: An HTML table:

   <!-- MADML 1.0 -->
   <table border=1>
   <tr><td align=right>Name:</td><td>Dar al Gani 607</td></tr>
   <tr><td align=right>Mass:</td><td>2.75g</td></tr>
   <tr><td align=right>Cut:</td><td>Partslice</td></tr>
   <tr><td align=right>Classification:</td><td>EUC</td></tr>
   <tr><td align=right>Shock stage:</td><td>1</td></tr>
   <tr><td align=right>Weathering:</td><td>1</td></tr>
   </table>

   All bidders could easily see the data. Sellers could wrap whatever
   HTML they wanted around the table (including *hiding* the entire
   table in an HTML comment).

Approach 2: An HTML comment:

   <!-- MADML v="1.0" name="Dal al Gani 609" classification="EUC"
        shock="1" weathering="1" mass="2.75g" cut="partslice" -->

   The data would be invisible to bidders. (You can see raw HTML by
   using your browser's "View Source" function (available in my browser
   in several places: e.g., from the menu you get by right-clicking on
   a blank spot on a page).) The rationale for this HTML comment
   approach is to avoid messing with any visual aspects of an item
   description.

Approach 3: A text line:

   MADML [ name="Dar al Gani" mass="2.75g" ... ]

   A simple, consise, inelegant visible presentation. Not pretty.

Approach 4: Approach 1 wrapped in an HTML comment

   The benefit is easy switching from visible to invisible data. Just
   remove or add the HTML comment syntax:

   <!-- Nothing will show up, but the data is still there.
   <!-- MADML 1.0 -->
   <table border=1>
   <tr><td align=right>Name:</td><td>Dar al Gani 607</td></tr>
   ...
   <tr><td align=right>Weathering:</td><td>1</td></tr>
   </table>
   -->

Which approach do you prefer?

No matter what format, we (!) want several fields:

   name: Required.
     Either
        1) the unabbreviated name from the Met Bulletin or
        2) unabbreviated, unofficial, pre-Bulletin name.
     Examples: "Northwest Africa 1694" "Bensour"

   mass: Required.
     The mass of the specimen offered in grams.
     Examples: "2.75g" "2345g" "0.003g"

   cut: Required.
     One of "Individual" or "Partslice" or "Fullslice" or "Fragement" or
       "Endcut" or "Specks" or "Speck" or "Dust" or "Vapor".

   classification: Optional (suggested).
     The standard (?) abbreviated classification or "unclassified".
     See 'http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/9278/systemat.htm'.
     For achondrites, use the first three letters.
     All caps.
     Include petrologic type.
     Examples: "H5" "L3.8" "EUC" "HOW" "CV3" "H3-6" "H/L3" "CV3R"
       "IAB" "H IMB" "C-UNGROUPED" "MES" "PAL"

   shock: Optional (suggested). 1-6

   weathering: Optional (suggested). 0-6

Comments:

Readers can use online sources to look up classification data from
names, so it's not essential to replicate that data here. However,
it'd be much easier to have it here.

Other standard data (e.g., fall/find, year, location, etc.) is
probably best left to external sources. Feel free to provide it:

   find="yes"
   year="1917"
   location="Los Angeles, California, USA"

Comments, please. Flames expected (from people with lives,
presumably and ironically).

BTW, I'm looking into getting a life. First I'm going to read about
it on the Internet.

--Jamie
Received on Thu 30 Oct 2003 11:42:02 PM PST