relationship-status

<entry-title>relationship status</entry-title>

Part of hcard-brainstorming for post-vCard3 additions. Per the microformats process:

relationship status examples

(move to a separate page relationship-status-examples when this section gets too big to include inline)

Facebook

From http://www.facebook.com/editprofile.php?sk=relationships (must be logged in)

Relationship status has two parts, one a discrete enumerated set provided as a select pop-up menu choice:

• (blank) - unspecified
• single
• in a relationship
• engaged
• married
• it's complicated
• in an open relationship
• widowed
• separated
• divorced

And then for *some* of those enumerated values, there is an optional field that indicates a person

• with person - chosen by selecting another profile (URL)

Flickr

From http://www.flickr.com/profile_edit.gne?from=personal (must be logged in)

Expressed as Singleness: by Flickr, the following mutually-exclusive radio button choices are given:

• ( ) Single
• ( ) Taken
• ( ) Open
• ( ) Rather not say

relationship status formats

(move to a separate page relationship-status-formats when this section gets too big to include inline)

OpenSocial

OpenSocial has a "relationship-status" field, plain text.

XFN

XFN was not directly intended as a relationship status format, however, it's use can imply some relationship.

Specifically the following family and romantic values imply relationship status:

• spouse - implies married
• sweetheart - implies in a relationship (or an open relationship)

relationship status brainstorming

(move to a separate page relationship-status-brainstorming when this section gets too big to include inline)

schema

There seems to be quite a variety of different values for "relationship-status", here are the ones that appear on more than one of the above-mentioned examples:

• single
• taken (in a relationship)
• open (in an open relationship)
• unspecified (blank, rather not say)

While this might be a good start for a set of enumerated values, we lack sufficient data to be confident in such an enum. If we had perhaps half dozen or so examples total which showed a clear set of common values, then we could be more confident defining an enum.

Until then, it may make the most sense to simply use a text string value.

In addition to the description of the relationship-status, some number of values take a "with" parameter referring to a person.

As it's a reference to a person, a link to that person makes the most sense, using XFN on that link to indicate the relationship with/to that person.

relationship-status property name

Simple brainstorm proposal: use the property name relationship-status as a class name on an element marking up a textual value / description of the person's relationship status.

E.g.

<span class="vcard"> 
 <a class="fn url" href="http://alice.example.com">Alice Exemplar</a>, 
 <span class="relationship-status">single</span>
</span>

or

<span class="vcard"> 
 <a class="fn url" href="http://bob.example.com">Bob Exemplar</a>, 
 <span class="relationship-status">taken</span> - in a relationship with 
 <a rel="sweetheart" href="http://dana.example.com">Dana Person</a>
</span>

external resources

• http://wiki.activitystrea.ms/w/page/28041547/heart - I did some previous research on relation status, specifically within the context of an activity of changing it, on the Activity Streams wiki. Should incorporate that here too. - Tantek

see also

• interested-in
• looking-for
• hcard-brainstorming
• user-profile
• vcard-suggestions