DBpedia & foaf:surname

Hi.

My apologies if this is a well-known issue that has been resolved, but I can't recall anything on the LOD list.

DBpedia uses foaf:surname
According to the spec (http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/), this is an Archaic form, and the Core (Testing!) form is foaf:familyName
(DBpedia does use the Core foaf:givenName.)

Occasionally I find this quite awkward, when combining sources, and indeed I find myself using foaf:surname in my own data for compatibility.
(Which really sticks in my craw :-) )

I think that foaf:familyName is more culturally neutral, and easier for non-English-speaking people to comprehend, which is why the FOAF team chose it as Core, I presume.

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So, would there be any enthusiasm among consumers here for asking the excellent DBpedia team if we can have foaf:familyName?
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I doubt that they/we would want to move to it, because that would break legacy stuff that already depends on having foaf:surname, which probably includes some of my own stuff :-)
But simply adding foaf:familyName wouldn't be a big deal for their tooling, I guess, and shouldn't break existing consumers' stuff.
(Ain't that the nice thing about RDF!)

If you don't want to discuss it here, but simply say "yes" or "no" etc, so we can get a sense of things, I've created a Poll at
https://goo.gl/forms/G1yCegjFm3fVHAg62
(sorry if the Poll is crap - I haven't done one before!)

I have no idea how the suggestion might be received by the DBpedia team - it may be that they will like it a lot, but having a sense of enthusiasm for it might be useful to prioritise etc..

I'll give it a few days and see what happens and report back here.

Best

-- 
Hugh
023 8061 5652

Received on Monday, 24 September 2018 12:29:27 UTC