[rdfweb-dev] Serious question about silly attributes

[Dan Brickley]

* Morten Frederiksen <mof-rdf at mfd-consult.dk> [2003-07-26 19:40+0200]
> On Saturday 26 July 2003 17:18, Martin L Poulter wrote:
> > Morten Frederiksen replies:
> > >'tis not the RDF way, which is triples, not quadruples.
> > ...and gives references.
> > I accept this, but the implications seem contrary to the intended spirit
> > of making data (well, definitions of data) democratic. 3 examples which
> > bear on the point:
> It really shouldn't be less democratic, as it's "only" a matter of 
> modelling/syntax. Instead of supplying an extra attribute on a well-known 
> element, a new element is used instead - and everyone can make these 
> definitions (ontologies).
> 
> There are many ways of doing this, simple properties in seperate namespaces 
> is just one, danbri points to possibly defining an OnlineAccount class.
> 
> Another way that may be an interesting experiment, is a general 'chat' 
> namespace that lives in a Wiki document, so everyone can add their own 
> service to the global ontology. It may start out with the few chat services 
> we already have in FoaF, and would then grow over time to include all that's 
> needed.

Yeah, there's a mix of a couple of ideas there. One is to have a 'added value'
namespace: 'FOAF Plus Gold', 'FOAF Platinum edition' or whatever, which
was a lot free-er with adding in pragmatic stuff. The other is to risk
having a world-editable RDF namespace. The combination of the two is
interesting, though I fear many would be put off by the apparent (if not
actual) instability...

Dan