[rdfweb-dev] Smushing the Semantic Web / Invalid data in IFP's

[Julian Bond]

Ian Davis <iand at internetalchemy.org> wrote:
>On Tuesday, March 23, 2004, 3:26:28 PM, Julian Bond wrote:
>> There's one or two people (round here) that have FOAF files that are
>> mostly about themselves. But they also contain foaf:Persons that don't
>> have a knows relation to them and have significant information about
>> that person. This is not bad RDF, but I think it is bad FOAF. In the
>> sense that you shouldn't be asserting statements about other people
>> beyond a name, mbox_sha1sum and maybe a seeAlso. And you shouldn't be
>> doing even that except to declare a knows relation.
>I still don't agree with this viewpoint. I can say anything about
>anything. Whether or not you choose to believe me is another matter.

I was careful to say that it was good RDF but possibly bad FOAF. The 
feeds I'm thinking of are clearly supposed to be PPDs (personal profile 
documents). What it actually looks like is that the secondary people 
have been added, but the owner forgot to put in the knows relation.

The second issue I was trying to bring out was whether it's good 
practice to assert information about people who are not you, and 
particularly whether you post contact information (like plain email 
addresses) when you may not know if that person wants to be contacted.

In a validator, I think both of these should generate warnings. Of 
course there are situations where they are valid and necessary. But I 
also think both practices should be deprecated. If you need to do them, 
then go ahead. But do it deliberately.

-- 
Julian Bond Email&MSM: julian.bond at voidstar.com
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