xfn-brainstorming

From Microformats Wiki
Revision as of 14:58, 14 July 2006 by Tantek (talk | contribs) (cleaned up, reorged, fixed contributors represent folks who have actually contributed to the page, not those who just "intend to", added required reading, simple groups and members)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

XFN Brainstorming

This page is for brainstorming about various uses and details of XFN, as well as collecting input for potential extensions.

Required Reading

Before participating in any XFN brainstorming please read and understand the following:


Contributors


Extending family relationships

The XFN: Background page says:

We considered adding "grandparent," but in the end dropped the term because it seemed unlikely to be used in the near future. It may appear in future versions of XFN.

Presumably the assumption is that a grandparent won't have a website, but:

  • I think it's important in some situations to capture the age difference in a relationship in a way that @rel="kin" doesn't seem to.
  • Even if they don't maintain it themselves (or are deceased) there might be a URL that does a good job of representing a person.

Consider a site about one's family tree. It might have something like:

I can trace my family back to 
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I_of_England/">
 William the conqueror.
</a>

In these cases it would be useful to have @rel="ancestor", and perhaps a corresponding @rel="descendant". -CiaranMc

Simple Groups and Members

A very simple extension to XFN could enable decentralized group membership. E.g.

  • rel="group". A person could link from their page to the page of a group that they belong to (e.g. their company, school, DJ collective etc.) and thus assert that they belong to that group.
  • rel="member". The web pages of groups could link to who they consider members and thus assert that person's membership.

The relationships could be required bi-directional in order to confirm group membership, that is, both the individual must link to the group with rel="group" and the group must link to the individiual with rel="member" in order for the membership to be considered "true".

See also group-brainstorming.

-Tantek