[rdfweb-dev] Re: <foaf:community>? (Groups are subtle and tricky, keep the format simple!)

[Tim Mansfield]

Tim M said:
> >I'm definitely not saying ignore community or groups, but I am saying
> >that, based on what we've observed, it's good to keep it simple and
> >under-specify. I believe if we keep it to simple things that can be
> >used in lots of places and then only extend it by using it and
> >observing the use (rather than by exercising our creativity on
> >thinking up what might work), we'll get more useful results.

Danny Ayers replied:
> Very good point. I think FOAF is probably perfect for getting around the
> problems you describe, as RDF makes it reasonably easy to specify properties
> (like group membership etc) which may describe stricter/looser connections.
> There should be a lot of potential for observing/analysing the emergence of
> (social) networks, and suggestions on how things could be made more
> researcher-friendly would I'm sure be welcomed.

Absolutely, that's why we're here. We're planning some captive
experiments with local folks to get FOAF networks running and then
some studies to see what's going on and then some work on inference
and deduction about social networks... then working out what
vocabularies are good ways of expressing those things.

This is a fun community to play with because you guys all seem to be
obsessed with similar stuff and FOAF is a great way to write down
self-statements in enough detail to start to infer things about
groups, so yeah, exactly as you say.

> btw, there's a related list/Drupal board 'group-forming' at :
> http://www.aquameta.com/gf/drupal/index.php?or=1

This is a follow-up to the Ridiculously Easy Group Forming meme-squall
that blew over a month or so ago, right? Cool - I'm in.