FoafGroups

From FOAF

pragma section-numbers off

 FOAF group specification

FOAF includes the concept of a "group." You can say, "There is a group, and it includes members A, B, and C."

TableOfContents()

1 Template
2 Alliances
3 Flashing Colors
4 Alternatives to Groups
5 Open Questions
6 Discussion

[edit] Template

You can take the following template, and use it as a starting point:

<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
           xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#" 
           xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/">
    <foaf:Group>

      <foaf:name>NAME OF YOUR GROUP</foaf:name>
      <foaf:logo rdf:resource="URL FOR A GRAPHIC DEPICTING YOUR GROUP'S LOGO"/>
    
      <foaf:member>
        <foaf:Person>
          <foaf:name>PERSON'S NAME</foaf:name>
          <foaf:homepage rdf:resource="URL OF PERSON'S WEB PAGE"/>
          <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="URL OF PERSON'S FOAF FILE"/>
        </foaf:Person>
      </foaf:member>

    </foaf:Group>
</rdf:RDF>

[edit] Alliances

 aliances specification graphical representation

I've experimented with an "alliances" namespace.

I don't recommend it; The word "alliance" means too much. We want something like "knows," but for groups.

(QUESTION:) I was told that I can't use "knows," because it's already taken by Person-Person relationships. But, if it's in another namespace- isn't it okay?

At any rate, here's what it looks like:

           xmlns:a="http://taoriver.net/alliances/#"

      <a:alliance>
        <foaf:Group>
          <foaf:name>ESP</foaf:name>
          <foaf:homepage rdf:resource="http://wtfcon.org/"/>
        </foaf:Group>
      </a:alliance>

[edit] Flashing Colors

It's possible that the names and logos of groups of people "mean more" than the names of individual people, simply because you are more likely to know of a group than a particular individual.

Thus, we would expect that it would be more useful to see your connection with another person by a chain of group affiliations, than by a chain of personal relationships.

Instead of seeing:

YOU -- someone you know -- someone they know -- some weird guy -- some gal somewhere - some other guy -- the other person

You'd see:

YOU -- your group -- a group your group interacts with regularly -- a distant group you have vague knowledge of -- the other person

I imagine that the chains would be shorter, too.

Of course, it raises the possibility of gang warfare, too, which might not be the coolest thing.

[edit] Alternatives to Groups

The FoafSpecification includes:

* FOAF Societies - notes on whole societies, much larger than particular "groups"
* FOAF Projects - notes on particular projects, worked on by one or more groups

[edit] Open Questions

* PointingFromPersonToGroup - how do you point from a person's FOAF file to the groups they belong to?

[edit] Discussion

If you want to see something like this that exists today, check out the running WikiNodesNetworks, such as the one around the Game Design wiki or the Artificial Intelligence wiki or the PythonInfo wiki.

In fact, we probably want to use some sort of RDF description of projects, and to say, "these are the wiki we are using..." An RDF description of wiki is then in order.

-- LionKimbro DateTime(2004-06-12T16:26:17Z)

Retrieved from "http://wiki.foaf-project.org/FoafGroups"

Category: Main