[foaf-dev] Chat IDs and FOAF -- why the special vocabulary terms?

Hi everyone,

I have a concern for a while and I would appreciate any input from anyone
who can give it.
Since I did not participate in the FOAF spec I could not have spoken up
earlier and I admit
that I am late to the game.

However, why is it that these terms exist?
- foaf::aimChatID
- foaf::msnChatID
- foaf::yahooChatID
- foaf::icqChatID
- foaf::jabberID
- foaf::skypeID

In addition to the fact last two don't conform to the same naming
conventions as the first four:
all can be describe using foaf::OnlineChatAccount instead.

My intuition would be to move those specific elements to an extension if not
mark them as
deprecated entirely. Here is my reasoning:

- They increase complexity by expanding the vocabulary that a FOAF
application would need to
understand. They also add redundancy. Because of such there are multiple
ways to describe
the exact same data and multiple or more complex queries needed to extract
the data.

- They provide no added value because the data that they described can be
described elsewhere.
Except, of course, for decreasing the size of the document negligibly.

- They create a game of cat and mouse. Thousands of online services exist,
you can not include
one and not include them all but you can never include them all so the spec
will never be complete.


Again, I realize that I am late and I am not as of yet a contributor to the
FOAF project (I would like to be)
but I hope that we can enter into some dialog on these terms. I also
acknowledge that a lot of hard work
and debate goes into creating a spec -- I have little doubt that I am not
the first person to raise concern
over these terms -- but with your permission I would like to open this part
[back] up.

Any thoughts?



-- 
Andrew Curioso

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