professional relations (was: XFN usage stats and Re: [uf-discuss] rel="muse" implies romantic relationship?)

[Frances Berriman]

On 12/12/06, Angus McIntyre <angus at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Tue, December 12, 2006 5:05 pm, Andy Mabbett wrote:
> > In message <00ac01c71d96$06018010$0702a8c0 at Guides.local>, Mike Schinkel
> > <mikeschinkel at gmail.com> writes
> >
> >>OTOH, I could use any of the following if attached to "professional":
> >>Respect, admire, impressed by,awed,  revere, worship, idolize, iconize.
> >>If would be nice if there was a way to extend professional respect and
> >>admiration.
> >
> > Not to mention: mentor, mentee, trainer, trainee,
>
> I wonder if idolizing someone is in some way analogous to a VoteLinks
> vote-for.
>
> If we start encoding not only hierarchical relations but expressions of
> approval/disapproval, you have the possibility to write some extremely
> career-limiting XFN expressions.
>
>     <a href="..." rel="colleague boss despise"> ... </a>
>
> and
>
>     <a href="..." rel="colleague subordinate sweetheart"> ... </a>
>
> are two that might not do you any good in the workplace ...
>
> Angus


I agree. It's an amusing situation, but possibly a bit personal!

Adding additional attribute values seems a bit like splitting hairs to me.

What exists at the moment is a generalised, but for the most part
adequate list of types that describe in a loose terms (so as not to be
restrictive) just about any relationship a person is likely to have.

There are probably merits to adding a couple more, but I'm not sure
adding every single explicit type of relationship has any extra value.
 Infact, adding too many additional terms starts to water down the
effect and would no doubt make creating useful maps of information
from these relationships difficult.

F
-- 
Frances Berriman
http://fberriman.com