Re: Social data /syntax/ vs Social data /vocabulary/

My $0.02 is that we ought to do both, really. Essentially, start with
AS2 as we've already decided, then map that to a semantic model that's
defined separately.

On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 4:31 PM, Owen Shepherd <owen.shepherd@e43.eu> wrote:
> Spurred by a conversation in [1]
>
> Our WG charter says that one of our deliverables is
>
> Social Data SyntaxA JSON-based syntax to allow the transfer of social
> information, such as status updates, across differing social systems. One
> input to this deliverable is ActivityStreams 2.0.
>
> Now, there is an open question of should we be defining a syntax or a
> vocabulary*?
>
> The difference is that a syntax is purely a transport format, whilst a
> vocabulary is a data model. In particular, it should be possible to usefully
> place data in a vocabulary in a database and each named object stand on its’
> own.
>
> ActivityStreams 1, intentionally or not, defines a vocabulary; social
> protocols based upon it tend to use it as both a transport format, and to
> define the model used by their internal database.
>
> ActivityStreams 2, per the current specification, defines a syntactic model.
> It does not make sense to store ActivityStreams 2 objects in a database as
> discrete objects - they only make sense in context. Meaningfully storing
> said data involves manually decomposing them into some internal
> representation (which may involve detailed knowledge of all of the types
> involved).
>
> My opinion on this is that we should define a vocabulary. I say this
> especially as someone interested in the upper layers of the stack we are
> chartered to build - that is, the social API and federation protocols. I
> have a proposal[2] I’d like to bring to the committee in the future, based
> upon experience and existing practice with AcivityStreams 1, which covers
> both with a small and compact specification, but this depends upon
> ActivityStreams 2 being able to fulfil the role of a data model.
>
> The trade-off here is that we make the AS2 specification slightly more
> complex - the current spec abstracts nearly everything away as an “Object”.
> We would probably need to bring back something like the “Media link” concept
> from AS1 (I prefer the term Media Source, to more clearly explain the
> intent).
>
> But I feel it would be worth it - this simplifies the data model for
> everyone interacting with the protocol, and makes it useful as a data model.
> It would make the data much easier to rationalise, and help clarify what
> data “stands alone” vs being an integral part of some other object.
>
> * Technically I suppose a syntax is a subset of a vocabulary. The question
> is if we should define a syntax which is a vocabulary, or just a syntax.
> [1]
> https://github.com/jasnell/w3c-socialwg-activitystreams/issues/11#issuecomment-53518263
> [2] My current very early working draft of which can be found here:
> http://oshepherd.github.io/activitypump/ActivityPump.html
>
> - Owen
> [sorry for the delay in sending this - I’ve been busy]

Received on Monday, 8 September 2014 23:53:15 UTC