Friendster

[The Emperor <the_emperor at m...>]

--- In rdfweb-dev at yahoogroups.com, "Bill Kearney" <wkearney99 at h...> 
wrote:
> > You could also bypass lengthy form filling when you sign up on 
forums
> > or mailing lists or something. You could have an import FOAF
> > information option and you'd only need to fill in your username,
> > password and email address (as well as location of your FOAF 
file, of
> > course). It could then match the email addresses (or hashed 
versions)
> > and send and email to the address if they are the same. This would
> > send a 'confirm your identity' email with a link to click - if 
that
> > is clicked then the relevant information that the board needs
> > (location, homepage, interests, etc.) can be grabbed and used to 
fill
> > in the remaining fields. I'd certainly be interested in something
> > like that.
> 
> Gee, ya mean like how MSN messenger and Passport already does this 
sort of
> thing?

And Gator and.......

Many services offer something like this but it is rarely (if ever) 
non-proprietorial (sp?) and 'open source' ;)
> 
> > You could have an option to alert you if something like FOAFNaut
> > found someone who knows you but you don't have on your knows: 
list.
> 
> And rapidly drive people insane by sending them denial-of-service 
levels of
> messages as people dick around with foaf listings. 

DOS level? I can't think anyone has ever asked for my ICQ list of 
contacts (perhaps I'm just unpopular). My main concern was that it 
wasn't worth the effort as so few people would use it.

> Be careful how informed you
> think you want to be. If a bunch of people start jamming up your 
inbox or, god
> forbid, your instant messenger with foaf:knows requests it'll get 
old *really
> fast*. Perhaps something akin to gnu-mailman's way of 'bulking up'
> administrative message alerts. You get one request daily 
regardless of the
> number pending. That way you're not deluged with requests all 
during the day.

This could be done if everything was centralised but it won't be so 
the request could be coming from all sorts of different places (if at 
all though - see above).

On the wrapping thing up (for people on the same server) I'd probably 
favour something like an online admin which people can visit and 
they'd get a note once a week if there were any requests they hadn't 
viewed. People could also specify if the didn't want to be contacted 
under this kind of system.
> 
> > I also like another idea - simiar to the idea that you can send
> > someone your contacts in ICQ. If you had your information on the 
smae
> > sever/in the same database it would be simple to request 
permission
> > share someone else's knows list (you could edit it before updating
> > your list) - I've added this to my 'to do' list as it would be 
very
> > handy if you know someone who has a big FOAF file and knows a lot 
of
> > the same people (why replicate the effort?).
> 
> Transitive trusts; now there's a king-size can of worms.

Fancy expanding on that point?
> 
> > A broader idea might be that you could also contact someone who 
has
> > their FOAF information elsewhere and request permission to grab 
their
> > knows: list and if they were OK with that then it would be 
relatively
> > simple to grab that data and that to your database.
> 
> Yes, that has some level of merit. 

This would still have the same problems you outlined above without 
some of the solutions available if things were kept between people on 
the server.

> Or as you're doing, listing that you 'know'
> a community of users which, in turn, claims to know other foaf 
users. This is
> probably better. But raises issues about community listing in foaf.
> 
Quite - I wouldn't claim to know everyone in a community (although, 
of course, there is knowing and knowing so......).

> > As the knows: files are open for all to see it wouldn't be any 
bother
> > to just copy and paste it into a FOAF file but the above are 
based on
> > the information being stored in a database and also I prefer the 
idea
> > or it being a friendly consentual kind of thing which is in the
> > spirit of FOAF ;)
> 
> I'd caution that making it "too easy" at the outset might be a 
mistake. Having
> people 'sweat the details' a little might give them pause to doing 
a better job
> of it. Although I may be too optimistic here...
> 
Quite possibly - I suspect the way FOAF will really take off is if it 
is made easier for people to produce and edit the files.

I don't know - it will probably have to be a bit trail and error to 
start off with.

Regards,
Emps