[uf-discuss] Re: XFN Relationship types

[Toby A Inkster]

Julian Bond wrote:

> Is there some standard here we should be encouraging like rel="Contact
> Acquaintance" or do we expect developers to know that an Acquaintance is
> also a Contact? And if it's the second is there some mapping table on a
> wiki somewhere?

The background <http://gmpg.org/xfn/background> document makes it pretty 
clear (as does the profile document) that contact, acquaintance and friend 
are mutually exclusive. 

They can be considered a scale. Choosing a value higher up the scale (e.g. 
friend) both forbids the explicit use of one lower down the scale (e.g. 
contact), but also implies its meaning. So it's not valid to write, say:

	<a href="http://bob.example.net" rel="friend contact">...</a>

but when faced with:

	<a href="http://bob.example.net" rel="friend">...</a>

it is acceptable for a parser to conclude that Bob is one of your contacts.

The "co-resident" and "neighbor" values could also be construed in such a 
manner.

-- 
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.17.14-mm-desktop-9mdvsmp, up 15 days, 4:59.]

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