[uf-discuss] Proposal: Mandatory connection of a XFN to a"source" hCard and a "target" hCard

[Costello, Roger L.]

Thanks Dan.  Excellent points.

Okay, then let's revise it from "Mandatory" to "Best Practice."  

The Best Practice may be simply stated as such: 

    "If you use XFN in your web page then it is Best Practice 
     to incorporate an hCard in the web page which identifies the 
     source of the relationship."

At present there is no motivation for anyone to adopt this Best
Practice and we've seen the consequence: few social networks provide a
robot-readable way of determining the source individual of an XFN
relationship.  In those cases, XFN is providing no useful information.

So the issue becomes one of enticement.  How can we entice (motivate)
people that use XFN in their web page to identify the source and target
individuals?

One way to motivate people is to provide a mechanism that: 

- connects the XFN to the hCard that represents the source of the
relationship

- connects the XFN to an hCard that represents the target of the
relationship

Another way is to create an "XFN validator."  This tool warns people:
"Please identify the source and target individuals."

Other ideas?

/Roger