Re: Should WebIDs denote people or accounts?

It looks like we're making progress. In that light, I suggest we set the
date for a formal call, to try to summarize this pretty long thread and
come up with real actions/solutions and maybe things we can work on next.

Should we try something this Friday (usual 4pm CET / 10am EST), or maybe
next Friday?

-- Andrei


On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 6:27 PM, Timothy Holborn
<timothy.holborn@gmail.com>wrote:

>
> Given many services are currently "free" it is arguable, who is providing
> the service to who. Are you the advertiser - or the customer...??
>
> In ontological syntax, it has been my concern that the lang. Focuses on
> the needs of a service operator, rather than that of the user.  The
> difference is that of a provider having "duty of care" over an accounts
> data; as that data is purported to be the property of the actor who
> established the account (meaning the end-user); vs. accounts facilitating
> growth of a platform, where actors are more so orientated towards becoming
> almost like "hive" members, in a honey farm.
>
> Perhaps poor explanation.  My view is that we shouldn't pick which side,
> but provide the functionality for both.  Therefore persona is important to
> me.  As somewhere on that cloud, I'll want a person document, and a bunch
> of persona documents.
>
> My arguments for persona (in jan) are
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rww/2014Jan/0007.html
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On 21 May 2014, at 6:08 am, "henry.story@bblfish.net" <
> henry.story@bblfish.net> wrote:
>
>
> On 20 May 2014, at 21:57, Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org> wrote:
>
>  On 05/20/2014 03:45 PM, Seth Russell wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 12:30 PM, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>wrote:
>
>> Alternative Name
>
>
>  Ok.  except a Persona name is not an "*Alternative* Name".   If i go on
> the web as Seth or I choose to go on the web as Patty, "Seth" is not a
> alternative name for "Patty".   Were that to become true in the linked data
> world, then i would have been outed by the CyberMonster :(
>
>
> FWIW, my sense is the problem manifests even without thinking about certs
> -- it's there as soon as the user says "that's me!" about a WebID, and
> systems understand that WebID to denote a human being, instead of a persona.
>
> Today my wild idea for the easiest fix would be to make two subclasses of
> foaf:Person, perhaps named foaf:Persona and foaf:Human.  Then the WebID can
> still denote a Person, and it's clear that might be a Persona or it might
> be a Human.
>
> It's a bit odd, but consider
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood .  (They use the term
> "natural person" where I say "human".)   Given this idea that the class
> Person and the class Human are not the same, maybe a more specific class is
> needed when talking about instances of Homo Sapiens.  And if we're going to
> do that change, we can take advantage of it to solve this whole WebID
> issue.    Convenient, eh?
>
>
> yes, or since WebID is defined in terms of foaf:Agent not foaf:Person you
> could have a subclass of foaf:Agent named foaf:Persona .
>
>
> Persona = a role or realm of a natural legal entity.
>
>
> The problem with this solution is that non-lawyers laugh (and often get
> angry) at the idea of Corporations being People.
>
>
> But I don't think they'd have problems with Corporations being Agents ( in
> the philosophical sense of "that which acts with intention" ),
> or with the notions of Actors, which may be a better term. ( I wonder if
> actor-network theory, which I know little of, would help here )
>
>
> The term "actor" seems to be rather clear, in that it refers to a legal
> entity.  Someone that has the capacity / authority to act.
>
>
>
>        -- Sandro
>
>
>    Social Web Architect
> http://bblfish.net/
>
>