E-mailbox term in FOAF

Charles McCathieNevile wrote something like the following to 
<mailto:www-rdf-interest@w3.org> on 29 September 2004 in "Re: Email 
Address as FOAF term" 
(<Pine.LNX.4.55.0409290750250.11717@homer.w3.org>):

> On Wed, 29 Sep 2004, Kianoush Eshaghi wrote:
>
>> Is there any defined term for E-mail address in FOAF Vocabulary
>> Specification?
>
> foaf:mbox - it's a really important property in foaf because it is 
> used as a
> way of identifying a person.
>
> Have a look at http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/index.html#term_mbox

The FOAF "mbox" term is for a particular kind of electronic mailbox. To 
quote from the referenced FOAF specification:

"Note that there are many mailboxes ([for example,] shared ones) which 
are not the foaf:mbox of anyone."

In my understanding, "foaf:mbox" is at least as much about 
identification of agents ("foaf:Agent") as it is about sharing e-mail 
addresses. The tendency to use "foaf:mbox_sha1sum" strengthens my 
interpretation.

FOAF does not aspire to be an address-book vocabulary, so it may be 
best to leave to another specification a property to associate e-mail 
addresses with agents.

-- 
Please direct replies to the FOAF technical discussion list, 
<mailto:rdfweb-dev@vapours.rdfweb.org>.

--Etan Wexler.

Received on Tuesday, 5 October 2004 00:29:53 UTC