Vote on this: rel="me self" to indicate an authoritative hCard {was: Re: [uf-discuss] Authoritative hCards [was RE: Canonical hCards (was: Search on CSS element)]}

[Ryan Cannon]

On Jan 31, 2007, at 12:15 PM, Ben Ward wrote:
>> According to the spec, rel="self me" is invalid *unless*
>> you do not include the XFN profile on your Web site.
>
> Sorry, I've got muddled here. According to which spec? Are you
> referring to the “Exclusive of all other XFN values” part of the
> @rel=me spec [1]? That's also maintained, as @rel=self is not part of
> XFN, but (propositionally) of hcard.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I very well might be.

@rel=me is defined in the XFN profile it means (emphasis mine):

 > A link to yourself at a *different* URL

@rel=self is defined (as far as I can tell) in the ATOM spec.[2] It  
means:

 > The value "self" signifies that the IRI in the value of the href
 > attribute identifies a resource equivalent to the containing
 > element.

The only way @rel="self me" would be valid is if the following  
conditions
occurred:

   * Two hCards appeared at different URLs
   * The hCards linked to each other with @rel="me"
   * The two hCards contained the same information

So according to current definitions of these terms, @rel="self me" could
not point to an authoritative hCard that contained better, more  
robust or
more up-to-date information about the person.

However, perhaps @rel="via" might apply here, meaning semantically:

 > that the IRI in the value of the href
 > attribute identifies a resource that is the source of the
 > information provided in the containing element.

In this way, the hCard with @rel=via could point to a different hCard  
that
contains authoritative information.

[1]: http://www.gmpg.org/xfn/11#me
[2]: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4287.txt
-- 
Ryan Cannon

Interactive Developer
MSI Student, School of Information
University of Michigan
http://RyanCannon.com