Microformats 2 and Schema 2015-06-30

There's been some misinformation about microformats spread at AccBristol, specifically:

You can use http://t.co/t4dY1qs3ZG with #Microdata #RDFa or #jSON-LD - but Microformats is limited in its extendibility. @Chaals at #AccBris
— AccessibleBristol (@AccBristol) June 30, 2015

sorry, @AccBristol, @chaals is wildly wrong there. Microformats is extensible by anyone. http://t.co/x3jPNiIyke only by Google. #AccBris
— Kevin Marks (@kevinmarks) June 30, 2015

@dbounds @kevinmarks @chaals Yes, our poor choice of words initially. Microformats limits the way http://t.co/t4dY1qs3ZG can be used.
— AccessibleBristol (@AccBristol) June 30, 2015

no, @AccBristol @dbounds @chaals no, that's not right either, you could map schema vocab into microformats2 easily. It would be daft to, yes
— Kevin Marks (@kevinmarks) June 30, 2015

@AccBristol @dbounds @chaals daft because schema has a ridiculously complex inheritance model, but microformats could express it
— Kevin Marks (@kevinmarks) June 30, 2015

For the sake of daftness, I'm going to show how to do this. I'm going to take the 2nd example of BroadcastService, about In Our Time and give a microformats2 markup for the arbitrary schema vocab.

Immediately, there is some confusion as the various examples given don't match (the JSON-LD is missing all of the episode name information, and has misparsed the dates as text; the microdata and RDFa have injected lots of extra div's that will relayout the page) but I'll see if I can match the microdata/RDFa examples:

Original HTML

<div>
 <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl">In Our Time</a>,
 <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ggc19">Ordinary Language Philosophy</a>, episode 604,
 broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 09:00, 7th of November 2013, available online from 09:45 on the same day.
</div>

Microformats 2

<div class="h-schema-RadioSeries">
  <a class="p-name" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl">In Our Time</a>,
  <div class="p-schema-episode h-schema-RadioEpisode">
    <a class="p-name" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ggc19">Ordinary Language Philosophy</a>,
    episode <span class="p-schema-position">604</span>,
    broadcast on 
    <span class="p-schema-publication h-schema-BroadcastEvent">
      <a class="p-schema-publishedOn h-schema-BroadcastService" href="http://bbc.co.uk/radio4">BBC Radio 4</a>
      at <time class="dt-schema-startDate" datetime="2013-11-07T09:00+0100">09:00, 7th of November 2013</time>
    </span>, available online from 
    <span class="p-schema-publication h-schema-OnDemandEvent">
      <time class="dt-schema-startDate" datetime="2013-11-07T09:45+0100">09:45 on the same day
    </span>.
  </div>
</div>

Microformats Parsed

{
    "items": [{
        "type": ["h-schema-RadioSeries"],
        "properties": {
            "name": ["In Our Time"],
            "schema-episode": [{
                "value": "Ordinary Language Philosophy",
                "type": ["h-schema-RadioEpisode"],
                "properties": {
                    "name": ["Ordinary Language Philosophy"],
                    "schema-position": ["604"],
                    "schema-publication": [{
                        "value": "BBC Radio 4\n      at 09:00, 7th of November 2013",
                        "type": ["h-schema-BroadcastEvent"],
                        "properties": {
                            "schema-publishedOn": [{
                                "value": "BBC Radio 4",
                                "type": ["h-schema-BroadcastService"],
                                "properties": {
                                    "name": ["BBC Radio 4"],
                                    "url": ["http://bbc.co.uk/radio4"]
                                }
                            }],
                            "schema-startDate": ["2013-11-07T09:00+0100"],
                            "name": ["BBC Radio 4\n      at 09:00, 7th of November 2013"]
                        }
                    }, {
                        "value": "09:45 on the same day",
                        "type": ["h-schema-OnDemandEvent"],
                        "properties": {
                            "schema-startDate": ["2013-11-07T09:45+0100"],
                            "name": ["09:45 on the same day"]
                        }
                    }],
                    "url": ["http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ggc19"]
                }
            }],
            "url": ["http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl"]
        }
    }],
    "rels": {},
    "rel-urls": {}
}

Microformats as jf2

{
    "type": "schema-RadioSeries", 
    "name": "In Our Time",
    "url": "http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl", 
    "schema-episode": {
        "type": "schema-RadioEpisode", 
        "name": "Ordinary Language Philosophy",
        "url": "http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ggc19", 
        "schema-position": "604", 
        "schema-publication": {
            "children": [
                {
                    "type": "schema-BroadcastEvent", 
                    "name": "BBC Radio 4\n      at 09:00, 7th of November 2013", 
                    "schema-startDate": "2013-11-07T09:00:00+0100",
                    "schema-publishedOn": {
                        "type": "schema-BroadcastService", 
                        "name": "BBC Radio 4", 
                        "url": "http://bbc.co.uk/radio4"
                    } 
                }, 
                {
                    "type": "schema-OnDemandEvent", 
                    "name": "09:45 on the same day", 
                    "schema-startDate": "2013-11-07T09:45:00+0100"
                }
            ]
        } 
    }
}

Microdata

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/RadioSeries">
  <a itemprop="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl">
   <span itemprop="name">In Our Time</span></a>,
  <div itemprop="episode" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/RadioEpisode">
    <a itemprop="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ggc19">
     <span itemprop="name">Ordinary Language Philosophy</span></a>,
    episode <span itemprop="position">604</span>, broadcast on
    <div itemprop="publication" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/BroadcastEvent">
      <div itemprop="publishedOn" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/BroadcastService">
        <a itemprop="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4"><span itemprop="name">BBC Radio 4</span></a>
      </div> at
      <span itemprop="startDate"
        content="2013-11-07T09:00:00+01:00">09:00, 7th of November 2013</span>
    </div>,
    available online from
    <div itemprop="publication" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/OnDemandEvent">
      <span itemprop="startDate"
       content="2013-11-07T09:45:00+01:00">09:45 on the same day</span>.
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

RDFa

<div vocab="http://schema.org/" typeof="RadioSeries">
  <a property="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl">
   <span property="name">In Our Time</span></a>,
  <div property="episode"  typeof="RadioEpisode">
    <a property="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ggc19">
     <span property="name">Ordinary Language Philosophy</span></a>,
    episode <span property="position">604</span>, broadcast on
    <div property="publication"  typeof="BroadcastEvent">
      <div property="publishedOn"  typeof="BroadcastService">
        <a property="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4"><span property="name">BBC Radio 4</span></a>
      </div> at
      <span property="startDate"
        content="2013-11-07T09:00:00+01:00">09:00, 7th of November 2013</span>
    </div>,
    available online from
    <div property="publication"  typeof="OnDemandEvent">
      <span property="startDate"
       content="2013-11-07T09:45:00+01:00">09:45 on the same day</span>.
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

JSON-LD

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "http://schema.org",
  "@type": "RadioSeries",
  "episode": {
    "@type": "RadioEpisode",
    "position": "604",
    "publication": [
      {
        "@type": "BroadcastEvent",
        "publishedOn": {
          "@type": "BroadcastService",
          "url": "http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4"
        },
        "startDate": "09:00, 7th of November 2013"
      },
      {
        "@type": "OnDemandEvent",
        "startDate": "09:45 on the same day"
      }
    ],
    "url": "http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ggc19"
  },
  "url": "http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl"
}
</script>

Things to note here:

I've prefixed the schema-specific properties as a vendor vocabulary ie h-schema-RadioSeries rather then h-RadioSeries to show it's an extension that hasn't been through the microformats process
The Microformats JSON is parsed directly from the HTML, and will be consistent across parsers in different languages. Whereas the JSON-LD is a separate DRY violating piece of data that goes out of sync with the information in the page (as the example from schema.org shows - not sure if that is a parsing failure or poor manual updating)
The jf2 version of the parsed microformats is more compact than the direct version by embedding single-valued properties directly, not as a list - this is derived from the microformats version, and is close to what a correct JSON-LD form would be.
The Microformats markup is more compact than either Microdata or RDFa because of the implied url and name properties.
Nesting other types inside a property is much more compact than microdata and simpler than RDFa
This example also shows other issues with the schema.org vocabulary - why is the episode number a CreativeWork:position and not a RadioSeries:episode:episodeNumber ?

Kevin Marks

Updated 2016-01-07 with jf2 version.