[rdfweb-dev] fwd [Bug 7] New: firstname/surname/given/family underspecified,inconsistently documented

[Dan Connolly]

As the guy who raised this issue, I'm starting
to think it's not worth changing deployed stuff.

But something I learned since raising this...

On Thu, 2003-02-20 at 11:00, Leigh Dodds wrote:
> When MortenF proposes a resolution I'll fix up the FOAF-a-Matic to make 
> sure its doing the right thing ASAP. I won't do anything just yet to make 
> sure I don't end up making multiple changes.
[...]
> > DanC raised this in, er, July of 2000 (see [3]). MortenF has kindly 
> > agreed to own this issue in Bugzilla, and propose a resolution. I made a stab 
> > at describing the problem in the Bugzilla entry. To summarise, I think 
> > we are all using 'firstName' and 'surname' when we should probably (...)
> > be using givenName and familyName. I have no sense for how big a 
> > problem this is, ie. whether 'first name' and 'surname' are hopelessly
> > Western concepts. Meanwhile, thankfully, we have all been using foaf:name,
> > which should take some of the pressure off. 

If folks aren't using firstname, good. Get rid of it.

I think surname is acceptable in an international
context, but if nobody's using it, I'd get rid of it.

The only thing I suggest, in addition to foaf:name
is a sortname, ala DC's familynamefirst.

Maybe you should just use the actual DC property.

-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/