[uf-discuss] Date of Death in hCard

[Andrew Jaswa]

Hi,

I think my only objection would be that the hCard is a 1:1
representation of the properties and values of the vCard [1]. Since
vCards don't have a death date I would object.

Are there programs out there that can handle death dates in their
vCard implementations?

I would think that the notes section could be used for the death date.
Using the notes section would then keep the 1:1 relationship between
hCards and vCards.

Andrew

[1] http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard#Introduction

On 6/27/07, Andy Mabbett <andy at pigsonthewing.org.uk> wrote:
>
> There having been no comments, much less objections, I intend to proceed
> with this, using "died" as the property name, in five days from the time
> of posting.
>
> In message <JAxoJkdPuYbGFw6f at pigsonthewing.org.uk>, Andy Mabbett
> <andy at pigsonthewing.org.uk> writes
>
> >
> >There has been some previous discussion:
> >
> >  <http://microformats.org/wiki/vcard-suggestions#Deceased>
> >
> >of adding a "Date of Death (DoD)" field to hCard, but no development
> >work.
> >
> >I propose that we adopt one, immediately.
> >
> >IMPORTANCE
> >
> >Date of death is important in many ways:
> >
> >   *    It is a flag that the subject is deceased - but is more specific
> >        than a "deceased", "dead" or other tag (which may not even be in
> >        English).
> >
> >   *    It is significant in genealogy
> >
> >   *    It differentiates between two people of the same name, born on
> >        the same day.
> >
> >   *    When a user agent offers the ability to generate an iCal for the
> >        subject's birthday, it will allow the user-agent to warn that
> >        the birthdays will not occur or to simply decline to do so; or
> >        to alternatively generate a differently-worded "anniversary of
> >        birth" iCal.
> >
> >   *    It allows user agents to calculate the subject's age at death
> >        (where Date of Birth, DoB, is known)
> >
> >In short, it offers additional semantic richness.
> >
> >
> >EVIDENCE
> >
> >There are a plethora of DoDs published on the web; not least in almost
> >every Wikipedia biography for a dead person; Google finds about
> >1,520,000 for "died on" alo  .
> >
> >
> >NAMING
> >
> >The hCard DoB property is called "bday". A DoD property could therefore
> >be called "dday", or perhaps "dod", "death" or "died".
> >
> >
> >BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY
> >
> >   *    The addition of DoD would be fully backwards- compatible.
> >        Parsers (and publishers) may simply ignore it. Parsers which
> >        recognise it would simply ignore it when exporting vCards.
> >
> >   *    Its use would require a small change to the existing boilerplate
> >        wording:
> >
> >                using a 1:1 representation of vCard (RFC2426 [URL)
> >                properties and values in semantic XHTML.
> >
> >        to something like:
> >
> >                using a 1:1 representation of vCard (RFC2426 [URL)
> >                properties and values, with additional properties, in
> >                semantic XHTML.
> >        or
> >                using a 1:1 representation of vCard (RFC2426 [URL])
> >                properties and values, with an additional property for
> >                date of death, in semantic XHTML.
> >
> >        (A future modification of vCard may choose to implement a
> >        matching DoD field; however, this is outside the control of the
> >        microformats community, and vCard development appears to be
> >        stagnant. )
> >
> >   *    All current hCard documentation would remain valid, even before
> >        being updated.
> >
> >PROPERTIES
> >
> >The field's properties should be identical to those for "bday".
> >
> >
> >REQUEST FOR COMMENTS
> >
> >Is there any reason why DoD should not be included in hCard?
> >
> >Are there any preferences for the property name?
> >
> >Are there any preferences for the boilerplate wording?
> >
> >
> >NEXT STEPS
> >
> >As soon as a property-name is agreed, I propose to ask Mike Kaply to
> >kindly parse an hCard DoD field in Operator, and to seek agreement on
> >Wikipedia-EN to include DoD in biographical infobox templates (such as
> ><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_biography>, of which
> >there are already over 5,000 deployments alone).
> >
> >Parser authors may then wish to write code to calculate a subject's age
> >at death (and, indeed, the age of living subjects); and to export
> >"anniversary of birth" iCals (and, indeed, iCals for birthdays for
> >living people)
>
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
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