Re: ActivityStreams Schema: Hierarchy of Types

On 2014-11-10 06:54 PM, Harry Halpin wrote:
> Also, note that vocabularies in general are in the scope of the Social 
> Interest Group, not the Working Group and we'd expect the Working 
> Group to only adopt the most minimal vocabularies possible needed for 
> its deliverables, with other vocabularies (such as those around 
> profiles) being standardized elsewhere in either the W3C or outside 
> the W3C.
I'm a little concerned about that statement.

Our deliverable is a /JSON-based syntax to allow the transfer of social 
information, such as status updates, across differing social systems./

I don't think we can have effective interoperability of social software 
clients and servers if we don't have at least some recommended base 
vocabulary of social concepts with some kind of reasonable extension 
mechanism.

So, we should have an easy and recommended way to describe:

  * entities like people, groups and contact lists
  * relationships like one-way follow, two-way friending, group
    membership, list membership
  * content life cycle [CRUD] for typical content like text, images,
    audio and video as well as "office files"
  * and reactions to content like "likes", replies, and re-shares.

Whether that vocabulary is put together from pieces like schema.org, 
Activity Streams 1.0 base schema, Hydra or SIOC, or if it's generated 
from whole cloth, is I think an open question.

I also think that for mainstream developers familiar with existing 
social APIs, there's not a lot of awareness of or patience for 
distinctions between the syntax and the vocabulary. We should be very 
careful that what we deliver is functional and usable by typical social 
software developers.

-Evan