[rdfweb-dev] Proposal: Names in FoaF

[Morten Frederiksen]

On Saturday 19 April 2003 18:18, Jim Ley wrote:
> foafnaut's current behaviour is to display foaf:name for names of things,
> and to display, foaf:nick, or foaf:givenName if nick isn't available on the
> aprons.
That sounds reasonable, and it's roughly the same approach I use in the FoaF 
Explorer.

> I like this approach, as you say foaf:name is purely for display purposes,
> and foaf:nick/givenName as a short display name.
The foaf:nick property is, per the docs and schema, not really a nickname in 
the every day sense, it's derived from the IRC "/nick" concept, which is why 
I left it out of the proposed vocabulary.

> I'm very much against
> having middleName as a givenName as a substitute for middleName (which
> doesn't exist) my middle name, is definately neither a familyName (derived
> from my family) nor is it a givenName (a name that I would respond to) it's
> simply part of my name.
I'd be happy to accept evidence to the contrary, but I have seen nothing to 
indicate that there, in any western countries, is a difference between a 
given name and a middle name, apart from their positions. I know for a fact, 
that Danes and Americans can have one last name and a number of given names 
in some specific order, of which the first is usually refered to as "first 
name", and the rest as middle names.

The point here is, that the position is the only difference between a number 
of given names, and I do see why that may be interesting, but the concept of 
"middle name" really doesn't exist (unless I'm mistaken).

> I personally would like to leave foaf with simply foaf:name, and foaf:nick
> - and leave others to a more sophisticated naming vocab, which is tailored
> more to the geneological.  My belief is that foaf namespace is best left
> with what can be modelled simply and without contention, names are not
> that.
I agree with this, in the sense that in the perfect world, as it will be a 
number of years from now, names will have their own vocabulary, but as I 
understand it, FoaF is also for experimenting and finding out what works and 
what doesn't, to eventually (hopefully) arrive at some sort of conclusion.


Regards,
Morten