Re: a common understanding of profiles

On 26 June 2015 at 19:25, Harry Halpin <hhalpin@w3.org> wrote:

>
>
> On 06/26/2015 05:04 PM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
> > On 26 June 2015 at 14:23, Evan Prodromou <evan@e14n.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On 2015-06-26 07:37 AM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
> >>
> >>> Regarding the URI above.  It can become slightly problematic attaching
> >>> key value pairs to an HTTP document, also doubling as a Person.
> >>>
> >> I'm pretty sure I didn't do that in the example I gave.
> >>
> >
> > Well I thought you were tying (for example) the key "@type" and value
> > "Person" to the http doc : https://evanprodmorou.example/profile
> >
> >
> >>
> >>> So, how to get interoperable profiles?
>
> Note this question was explicitly scoped to the Social Interest Group,
> as obviously profiles are going to vary alot across systems and only the
> most generic pieces of syntax. So, could we move this discussion there?
>

Thanks, that's good to know.  However I dont think all members here are
members of the IG (im not for example).  To the extent that a common
understanding of profiles is a pre requisite for implementing a social api,
it would be good to get that understood.


>
> >>>
> >> Pick a data standard, and a way to find the profiles. Then, everybody
> >> implements that.
>
>
> +1 good to re-use a well-known standard.  Typically, that would be VCard
> (support across most of the ecosystem), which basically merged with a
> good deal of PortableContacts in VCard 4.0. It's got an XML
> serliazation, it maps to hCard for microformat users, and there's a RDF
> serialization for RDF users (not sure why FOAF didn't closely align
> more, but that could fixed).
>
> For things that aren't part of core vCard, the IG is empowered to create
> and maintain vocabularies (published as Interest Group Notes), and we
> imagined there would be lots of activity and iterations and maintenance
> of these vocabularies might go beyond the lifetime of the WG. The W3C is
> happy also co-ordinate as needed with schema.org and IETF on these issues.
>

-1 to vcard, I dont think everyone can be expected to implement that, does
anyone here do that so far?

In general, I think it's unrealistic to propose "one profile standard to
rule them all", unless there's a very strong reason to do so -- but if the
WG wants to go in that direction I would say a stand out candidate is WebID
because

- It's already a documented spec
- It is already based on standards, and is 5 star linked data
- It is already implemented by SoLiD
- It is already implemented by facebook
- It already has about 1 billion profiles, out there
- It provides a discovery mechanism for feeds, followers, friends etc.

Once again, I dont advocate this as being the single choice, I would rather
look for common ground for interop.


>
>    cheers,
>       harry
> >>
> >> It would be wrong to assume that the point of this working group is to
> >> make Melvin's site implemented in FOAF with Turtle talk to Aaron's site
> >> implemented in HTML with microformats.
> >>
> >
> > I guess Im not quite seeing it how to implement an interoperable social
> API
> > without interoperable social profiles.  However, Kingley's reply seems to
> > make sense. I'll fwd them to the public list.
> >
> >
> >>
> >> We're here for the important goals of defining a social syntax, and
> social
> >> API, and a federation protocol for the seven billion people on the
> entire
> >> planet -- not to build ad hoc bridges for the few dozen people
> >> participating in this group.
> >>
> >> Ultimately, that means some people here are going to have to compromise,
> >> hold their nose, and implement a data standard that they don't usually
> use
> >> or like.
> >>
> >> -Evan
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>