[uf-discuss] XFN for email addresses?

[Chris Messina]

On 6/12/07, John Panzer <jpanzer at acm.org> wrote:
> Chris Messina wrote:
> > ...
> > I created a simple XFN aggregating application, it occurs to me that
> > adding email addresses, both for the purpose of rel-me links and for
> > contact links is actually useful and something that should be
> > supported in XFN (it's currently not clear whether this is acceptable
> > or not; I'm making the case that it should be).
> >
> > Therefore, this:
> >
> > <a href="mailto:buddy at foo.com" rel="contact">Buddy</a>
> >
> > should be as acceptable as this:
> >
> > <a href="http://foo.com/buddy" rel="contact">Buddy</a>
> >
> > And, on http://foo.com/buddy, this should be permissible:
> >
> > <a href="mailto:buddy at foo.com" rel="me">Buddy</a>
> >
> > Clearly the biggest issue I see with this scheme is the inability to
> > link out *from* the email address. However, I'm not sure that this
> > case nullifies the utility of such links.

> In principle it seems no worse to me than the aim: links currently
> recommended in the hCard spec.

Hmm, but both comments so far don't really say whether it's in-line
with current thinking on XFN to allow for XFN linking to non-URLs.

Given what you're saying, John, I should be able to also construct XFN
links like this:

<a href="aim:goim?screenname=factoryjoe" rel="me">IM Me</a>

And as such, do the same for email addresses... right?

This issue is fairly orthogonal to hcards, since you can have hcards
without XFN. To date, my interpretation is that XFN links to resources
not on the same page. It's not clear, in my thinking, whether those
external resources can take the form of URLs, callto: or IM links.

Chris

-- 
Chris Messina
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