[rdfweb-dev] Broadband Mechanics requests and proposals

[Marc Canter]

Here's a shout out to my FOAF sisters and brothers (translated:
greetings and salutations.)
 
Hopefully this message finds danbri feeling better.
 
In our efforts at developing a social networking tool around FOAF -
we've run into some basic needs - that we'd like to formerly float by
this group.  We realize that FOAF is nto intended for anything more than
'loosely' formed relationships, but a lot can be done with that!
 
We've already gotten some initial feedback from some of you - and we'd
like to get as much of these 'extensions' proposals hashed out ASAP - so
we can 'do our thang'.
 
Now that TypePad is in Beta and folks are starting to find FOAF files
on-line and Technorati has released it's 'profiles' which recognize FOAF
- with each week, I think you'll find the # of people interested in FOAF
will double (or even more so..)  So I don't have to tell you that
clarification, having things written down and as many working examples
available as possible - are now crucial.  
 
And just to be clear - everything we're doing we wanna hand back to the
community, so...
 
1.	Our project is code-named FOAFster - but apparently there's a
Mr. Dan Brickley from bloodey Bristol who has that domain name.  :-)  So
we'll either have to change the name, buy the name off of danbri or just
give him the code and have HIM bloodey run it.  We're open to any option
or suggestion.  :-) 
 
2.	We're planning on going beyond just making friends.  We wanna
help make all sorts of relationships, but ONLY friends need to be
'verifiable'.  So to that ends - our social networking code will do an
email verification if someone wants to declare someone as 'their
friend'.  But we won't require this email verification process if they
want to declare that: 
                  - they are acquainted with somebody
                  - they know somebody by reputation
                  - they know somebody in passing
                  - or that they don't know somebody, but wish to
 
So we'd like to formerly float these 'relationships' as 'standards'.  I
know there are a bunch of blood and family-type of relationships in FOAF
tools, but quite frankly we don't think those are that important right
now.  I guess an email verification for a 'relative' might be in order.
 
So what we'd like to do is formerly extend the vocabulary used for the
'second part of the triple' (or whatever it's called)  - when it comes
to friends links.  I'm not sure how you refer to these 'relationship
types' and we've seen a bunch of different types around - but that list
is really incomplete and as much as I love my relatives, they're not
really doing much semantic web research right now.  So that's our formal
proposal #1 - a standard vocabulary for the types of relationships we're
talking about.  This list would be (by no means) an exclusive list, just
a few set in stone.
 
Anyway this kind of brings us along to the next big issue.
 
3.	I have seen folks agree that a sub-set frozen spec for FOAF is
in order - round about now.  I also seem to recall that danbri agreed
and said that some formal 'process' would be put into place with clear
documentation.  What's the status of that?  Can we assume (default) that
this  <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/ is where
the 'formal specs will reside?  And that version numbering /0.2/, /0.3/,
/0.4/ will walk its way up until the golden moment of a v 1.0? 
 
            Whatever the process of deciding WHAT those specs are - it
would be nice to rely upon one place where the formal spec resides.
 
            Which then brings us to the daunting question: who gets to
decide and who has the final word - on the spec.  We refer to these
people as 'The FOAF gods'            and whoever they are - we
wish them plenty of luck, expediency and sound Solomonian wisdom.
 
4.	There are apparently two different ways to represent friends of
friends.  One seems to be the 'RDF' way - which declares a
rdf:resource="marccanter", and then uses that syntax to refer to friends
while the other more FOAFy approach - seems to be to just declare
<person><knows><name>Marc</name></knows></Person>.  Can we assume that
this duality approach will continue?  Are there any ideas or effort
being put into reducing this to one technique?  And please (oh lord of
technology) don't come up with a third or more ways of representing
friends!  :-) 
 
            You see - we're just humble software guys - trying to create
a parser/interpreter and it's nice to know these things.
            
5.	We've also already asked about groups or people.  We're going to
wait till we get a better idea of how to do this fundamental extension
and float it by you folks.  Any suggestions or feedback is welcome now.
Needless to say it's pretty important.
 
6.	We really like the idea of people posting testimonials about
other people.  We think that's the sort of simple, short content that
can/should get built into the FOAF file itself.  Any thoughts on how to
do this - without pissing people off?  We're carefully tip toeing here! 
 
7.	TypePad's usage of FOAF as a blogroll is cool, but we'd like to
go further and embed a 'Topic roll' which would keep track of the
specific keywords/phrases that someone is closely related to/interested
in.  Any ideas on this?  Is this tangential to FOAF and part of some
other .rdf schema I don't know about?  Matt and Paolo's ENT is one
namespace extension technique now being utilized.  Mr. Hammersley seems
to like it.  So what about a TopicRoll for each person? 
 
8.	Congrats on the launch of the FOAF-project site - even if it is
'just' an HTML page.  Worse things could happen. 
 
            Requests for the site:
            - we like articles that are hybrid tools/technology, FAQs,
plain, well written descriptive text and specs - to boot.  So more pages
like FOAF-a-matic!
            - we'd like to see an 'intro' article - that was more
recent.  The current Intro is 13 months old.
            - we'd like to see FOAF tools
(http://xml.mfd-consult.dk/foaf/ ) plugged as much as FOAF-a-matic
            - but good start - keep going..
 
Anyway - that's what's up...
 
- Marc Canter
 
415-296-9401 - if anybody wants to call me up and yell at me.. or laud
me... or hand me huge research grants...
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