[rdfweb-dev] Proposal: Names in FoaF

[Jim Ley]

"Morten Frederiksen" <mof-rdf at mfd-consult.dk> wrote:
On Sunday 20 April 2003 19:04, Dan Brickley wrote:
[snippage
>As stated in the proposal, the non-IRC nick name is a troublesome issue,
>it's really a different version of a given name, and perhaps could even be
>modelled as that, like a foaf:thumbnail property of a foaf:Image:

There's foaf:thumbnail ? sounds troublesome in itself (what's a thumbnail of
a 640x480 jpeg, and is it the same ratio as to a 6400x4800 TIFF?)

><foaf:Person>
>  <foaf:name>Dan Brickley</foaf:name>
>  <foaf:sortName rdf:parseType="Resource">
>    <rdf:li><foaf:FamilyName rdf:value="Brickley"/></rdf:li>
>    <rdf:li>
>      <foaf:GivenName rdf:value="Daniel">
>        <foaf:shortName rdf:value="Dan"/>

This all gives no indication of what should be used to address Dan, one of
the most important uses of names, what to call Dan when you meet him is an
important thing (Consider a Rep for a brewery or similar, recording details
of
his contacts, contact management is tough - you're expected to know the
right name to use, but of course that's not the name on the address.)

>Other than that, I'm quite open to suggestions on how to model those kinds
>of nick names (which I feel should be seperate from IRC nicks, even though
>they sometimes overlap).

They're not nicknames... well at least I don't consider Jim to be a
nickname, although my passport etc. don't name me as it.

Sorry to just be finding problems with modelling names, but I do think
they're too complicated to be answered in a global single vocab whilst still
being useful - perhaps it would be more appropriate to solve it by moving to
properties that solve the function we want to do, rather than trying to
model the many different ways people name themselves.

foaf:name - string used for your "full name"
foaf:shortName - abbreviated name
foaf:friendsCall   etc...

I think that's easier, I don't believe the multiple givenName etc. approach
solves my problem of "what do I call the person with mbox danbri at w3.org ?"

Jim.