Allow XFN relationships to be defined in Links List

[matgb]

Title:
Allow XFN relationships to be defined in Links List

Area:
Styles

Summary:
Allow for XFN relationships to be defined, so that other sites and services can detect your relationship to an outgoing link in the links list.

Description:
The XHTML Friends Network is used by a number of services, including Google Profile, to know if you are related to an outgoing link. http://gmpg.org/xfn/

Many users put links to personal friends and their profiles on other sites in the links list. Allowing those that wish to define XFN relationships to outgoing links would help interoperability in a user friendly manner.

This could possibly be linked to FOAF, which we already support and has a similar objective?

Poll #3477 Allow XFN relationships to be defined in Links List

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 24

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
4 (16.7%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
1 (4.2%)

(I have no opinion)
19 (79.2%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[kyrielle]

If this is done, it should either be implemented with pick lists, or well documented, or both - whatever makes the most sense.

'Cause I've never heard of it before in my life, and wouldn't have known to use it if it just happened, but I think it sounds kind of neat and if something tells me it exists, what it is, and how to use it, I just maybe would.

[ratcreature]

+1
I had never heard of this either.

[matgb]

I'd vaguely heard of it when various open social protocols were being discussed awhileback, but it was only when Google launched Buxx and it autodsicovered some of my public sites but not all of them that Ir ealised how useful it could be.

So yes, I think it's fairly new, but definitely useful in the right circumstances, and probably increasingly so if Google and other search engines also use it to improve search results (virtually every result on the first two pages of a search for my name are my various profiles, it'd make sense to concatenate them somehow).

A pick list would probably make sense, but a freeform box for more esoteric responses might be useful.