SemanticLinks


UPDATE: Michael Bolin, author of TargetAlert, sent me the following email:
I do not approve of copying the source code for TargetAlert and redistributing it. As you will see, the current version of TargetAlert supports rel="nofollow" as well as arbitrary types of alerts. If you have suggestions for TargetAlert, then please send them to me rather than copying my code and redistributing it under a different name.
You can read more about his reasons.
I appreciate his work. As I wrote below I just added few lines of code to his extension to show VoteLinks. Anyway no reason to argue. So, I decided to stop redistributing the code of SemanticLinks; this means the "install" and "download" links below are no more working. In case you are interested, send me an email at MASSA AT ITC DOT IT and I will send you the code, actually only the .diff



SemanticLinks is a Firefox extension that shows VoteLinks, rel="nofollow" and information about the linked resource. How? By appending a small icon near the link text (anchor text).

View some Screenshots.

Examples:
- If a link contains a rel="vote-for" attribute, a small thumb-up icon is appended to the link text.
   Sample vote-for link vote-for link
- If a link contains a rel="no-follow" attribute, a small stop icon is appended to the link text.
   Sample nofollow link nofollow link
- If a link points to a PDF file, a small PDF icon is appended to the link text.
   Sample Link to a PDF pdf file

Just click the Install link below to install Semantic Links 0.1.

    Install or Download

You will have to restart your browser for the changes to take effect.
Then you can go to the Test Page.


FAQ:
 - How did I get it? I simply modified a bit the TargetAlert extension for Firefox to add support for VoteLinks MicroFormat and rel="nofollow". Michael Bolin for created the TargetAlert extension.

 - What are VoteLinks?
Technorati proposes a set of three new values for the rel attribute of the <a> (hyperlink) tag in HTML.
The new values are "vote-for" "vote-abstain" or "vote-against", which are mutually exclusive, and represent agreement, abstention or indifference, and disagreement respectively.
Examples:
<a href="example.com" rel="vote-for">site I want to vote for</a>
<a href="example.com" rel="vote-against">site I want to vote against</a>
<a href="example.com" rel="vote-abstain">site I do not want to vote about</a>.
More info on Technorati Wiki.

 - What is rel="nofollow"?
RelNoFollow is one of several MicroFormats and was proposed by Google. By adding rel="nofollow" to a hyperlink, a page indicates that the destination of that hyperlink SHOULD NOT be afforded any additional weight or ranking by user agents which perform link analysis upon web pages (e.g. search engines). Typical use cases include links created by 3rd party commenters on blogs, or links the author wishes to point to, but avoid endorsing.
More info on Technorati Wiki.

 - Why did you create this extension?
Conor and I wrote a paper titled "Page-reRank: using trusted links to re-rank authority" (at the moment under review for the Web Intelligence 2005 conference) in which we backed Technorati proposal to add at least some simple semantics to links, in order to allow users to express the reason they link to a site (agreement, abstention or indifference, and disagreement). We argued that this semantic values could be shown to the user (if she wants to) and one way of doing this is on the information consumer side, for example with an extension to her browser. For demonstration sake, I created this simple Firefox extension. The other possible way is on the information producer side, for example a site author can show semantic values using a stylesheet (CSS).
If you are interested in the paper, you can email me at massa AT itc DOT it and I'll send you a copy. You might also want to have a look at some other papers of mine.



Todo:
- add support for XFN (XHTML Friends Network) MicroFormat
 ["rel' values = contact, acquaintance, friend, met, co-worker, colleague, co-resident, neighbor, child, parent, sibling, spouse, kin, muse, crush, date, sweetheart, me]


Credits:
 Michael Bolin for creating TargetAlert extension,
 Mozilla Firefox developers for greating the best browser,
 Technorati for proposing VoteLinks MicroFormat,
 PhpBB for the thumb-up and thumb-down icons,
 OpenClipart for the stop icon.



Author: paolo