Motivation: Web Search for Bible References
- Hundreds of thousands of on-line sermons, blog posts, scholarly discussions, etc. reference Bible passages
- The motivation: make it easier and more accurate to search the web for references to Bible passages
Some Problems
- False positives
- Mark 1 (the first chapter of the Gospel According to Mark) is also a World War I tank, a type of British railway carriage, and one of the first large-scale computers (the Harvard Mark I)
- John 13:2 matches
7, Delphos St. John's 13-2 111
(basketball team with won-lost record and total points)
- Variant book abbreviations
- John, Jn
- 1 John, 1John, First John
Even More Problems
- Language variants
- in French, Jean 3:16
- in Spanish, Juan 3:16
- Partial matches: John 4 also matches 1 John 4 (wrong book)
- Contextual references:
The Gospel according to Mark is the first Christian text that uses the word "gospel" or "good news" (1:1).
- The fundamental problem: we're using strings to match data
The Solution
- Part 1: Explicitly indicate when something is a Bible reference
- Part 2: Explicitly indicate what the intended reference is (if it's not clear)
- You can always err on the side of clarity
What's a MicroFormat?
- Tantek Çelik of Technorati (2004 ETech presentation)
- "lower-case semantic web" that
- Solves a specific problem
- Use simple, small pieces loosely joined
- Is evolutionary, not revolutionary: adds semantics to today's web
- Is designed for humans first, machines second
- Some examples
- hCard: people and organizations
- hCalendar: calendars and events
- XFN: social networks
Microformats vs. POSH
- POSH: "Plain Old Semantic (X)HTML"
- Use semantic elements and attributes for their intended purpose
- Use semantic class names and id values
- Use as little HTML as will get the job done
- All the power and goodness of HTML comes "for free".
- POSH can (and should) be validated using existing standards and tools
- Technically, bibleref is POSH or a "poshformat", not a genuine microformat
Bibleref: A Microformat Solution
- Use "bibleref" as a
class attribute to identify Bible references (part 1)
- Just add the attribute if you're already using an HTML element like
a
- Use the
cite element as a default if no other element is more appropriate
- Use the
title attribute when necessary to disambiguate the reference (part 2)
- Most real-world data won't need this
- Markup for Bible references, not for Bible texts
- If you author web content, use Bibleref!
But What Can You Do With Bibleref?
- Once references are identified, with some coding to parse the references you can:
- Style it with CSS
- Add hyperlinks
- Add script-based menus, etc.
- Retrieve and insert the text itself
- Build a search index for Bible references
- Including smarts about matching a verse to a range, etc.
- Bibleref is intentionally minimal to make it easy
Authoring with Bibleref
- Old-school: edit your HTML and add
class="bibleref"
- (All the Bible references in this HTML file are also marked as
<cite class="bibleref"> and displayed with a light blue background.)
- Bloggers: use a plug-in
Even Better: Automatically Tag Your References
- Logos Bible Software's Bibleref Tagger (beta)
- Today: client-side Javascript
<script src="http://bible.logos.com/jsapi/referencetagging.js"
type="text/javascript">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
Logos.ReferenceTagging.tag();
</script>
Other options: choose Bible version, include Libronix links, specify elements and classes not to search
- Tomorrow: server-side content tagger
Bibleref and Bibleref Tagger
- Bibleref Tagger recognizes (manual) Bibleref and enriches it with auto-generated hyperlinks
- (Manual) Bibleref extends (automated) Bibleref Tagger output, producing ...
- Symbiosis
Beyond Bibleref
- The goal of Bibleref itself is to specify the lowest common denominator to improve web search and enable rich applications
- But not to build them,
- And not to design some all-encompassing standard.
Driving Adoption
- Make it as easy as possible to author with Bibleref
- Communicate the benefits
- Provide a payoff
- Talk it up
- The Bibleref Pioneers Page (http://semanticbible.com/bibleref/pioneers.html)
- Adopt Bibleref for your site or blog
- Send me an email with "Bibleref" in the subject and your website URL
- I'll add your site to the Pioneers page
- Offer good for the next 30 days (through Feb 25)
- Design a Bibleref badge
- Other ideas?
Conclusions
- A little markup can go a long way toward more useful web data
- Existing web standards allow it
- Existing editing and blogging tools generally make it easy
- The missing pieces are willingness to do it and agreement on an approach
- The Bibleref campaign begins today
Bibleref: a Microformat for Bible References