Re: [foaf-protocols] semantic pingback improvement request for foaf

On 17 Apr 2010, at 11:34, Melvin Carvalho wrote:

>> 
>>  0. Search engine solution
>>  -------------------------
>> 
>>  Wait for a search engine to index the web, then ask the search engine
>> which people are linking to you.
>> 
>> Problems:
>> 
>>  - This will tend to be a bit slow, as a search engine optimised to search
>> the whole web will need to be notified first, even if this is only of minor
>> interest to them
>>  - It makes the search engine a core part of the communication between two
>> individuals, taking on the role of the central database in closed social
>> networks
>>  - It will not work when people deploy foaf+ssl profiles, where they
>> access control who can see their friends. Search engines will not have
>> access to that information, and so will not be able to index it.
>> 
> 
> A great summary, Henry
> 
> What about using W3C recommended standard of SPARQL (Update)?  I refer to
> the architecture sketch for web 3.0:
> 
> http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/diagrams/social/acl-arch.png
> 
> It strikes me a (hyper) data file *should* be, first and foremost, updated
> (write) using SPARUL or WebDAV and HTTP should be used for read operations.

SPARUL seems to me to be asking a lot of technology for something that is 
really simple, and that is much easier done using much more widely deployed
technology. This does not stop it from being deployed later. But we will have a lot
more chance integrating foaf into web 2.0 applications if we don't require SPARUL,
especially if it is clear that one can do without it.

It is important to have this work in browsers too, so that people can create
a friend request and have a web page, they can see the request at. This would
allow them to then also DELETE that ping request, or edit it.

This can all easily be done using POST, GET and DELETE.  And mostly even just POST.

Furthermore as we saw doing updates on graphs is still very new, and can easily lead
to all kinds of problems.

Finally a ping is arguably not a request to update a graph. It is an action
to notify someone of something. That is all. As I mentioned in another thread, what the
person notified does with this notification is up to them: it could be
 - to add the person to their foaf as a friend
 - to add them as an aquaintance
 -                a spammer
 -                a follower
 -             ignore them
 - to warn their friends
 - to call the police

I really don't see that I want to give other people any decision in updating my graphs.
I can give them a space to make a comment, but updating my graph will be something I
am going to be very careful about allowing.

> 
> So I add you as a friend to my FOAF.  And also send you a message with the
> triples I'd like you to add to your FOAF (use discovery if necessary to find
> your sparql server, but as tabulator does, you could just send it to the web
> 3.0 enabled file).

As stated above, if that is what you want to do, then you don't need SPARUL. 
You could post a request which contains the triples that you want.

Perhaps we can design the ping in such a way, that a change request can be posted, 
for occasions when you noticed an error in my foaf file....


>  You can peform some sanitization/validation/reputation
> check before adding the friend to your FOAF.  It's a simple workflow to get
> you started, but you can build layers on top (push/pull, realtime,
> notifications, approvals etc.).  Also compatible with FOAF+SSL Auth.

I'd be for that, as long as we can start with a very simple ping mechanism that 
is easy to implement. And that would favor a POST, using an html form.

Also it would be nice if this could be done in an intutive way so that we can have
deployments with human readable html, that reminds people of SN friend requests.

Henry

Received on Saturday, 17 April 2010 12:45:05 UTC