Rsfoaf

From RSS Extensions

This proposal has been superseded by RSS-FOAF. It is now obsolete and here only for historical reference.

Context

I (Johannes Ernst) recently suggested on my blog that we need a simpler FOAF (Friend-of-a-friend), tentatively called rsfoaf. Lots of people picked up this suggestion, and so I started this page to attempt and create/agree on a definition for such a thing. Feel free to contribute. Also note the related Talk::Rsfoaf page for discussion.

Principles

1. RSS is brilliant because it provides an incredibly amount of power while being very simple to implement. We'd like rsfoaf to be like RSS in that respect.
2. Unlike FOAF, rsfoaf is intended to only cover information that is not covered yet in other, widely used formats such as VCards, LDAP, etc.
3. rsfoaf uses links to point to information that is (or could be) defined elsewhere, instead of in-lining it into the format
4. we'd like to stay with simple XML instead of requiring more complex mechanisms like RDF.

Tags

Tag rsfoaf

The top-level element in a rsfoaf file. Currently, it has no attributes.

This element describes the social network of an individual or other entity, from the perspective of that individual or other entity.

Contains: rel (0..N)

Tag rel

Defines a relationship category from the perspective of the individual or other entity. For example, an individual may decide that they have the following relationship categories:

• close family
• extended family
• work at company A
• knitting club
• kids' parent-teacher association

The number and kind of relationships categories are up to the individual.

Contains: person (0..N)

Attribute name

The user-given name of the relationship category, such as friends, in their local language.

Tag person

Represents a link to a URL that identifies a person. The format of the information found at that URL is undefined within rsfoaf, but could be:

• the person's Light-Weight Identity
• the person's OpenId
• the person's VCard file
• the person's blog
• the person's home page

etc.

Contains: nothing.

Attribute id

URL to a web page that defines the person's identity.

Things that rsfoaf does not do

• rsfoaf cannot capture social networks from the perspective of more than one person. To accomplish this, more than one rsfoaf file must be used.
• rsfoaf cannot represent VCard information. However, it can link to VCard information using the id attribute on the person tag.