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Re: [syndication] seeAlso



Kevin A. Burton <burton@newsmonster.org> wrote:
The problem with rdfs:seeAlso is that no semantics are preserved.  It is
just a URL.

- what content type is it?
- what language?
- what format?
- what relationship type?

rdfs:seeAlso is useless if you need semantics.  If is essentialy a
synonym for <a href="">

Within FOAF, the main convention is to use rdfs:seeAlso specifically to point to another foaf file associated with the foaf:person it's embedded in. This is a use that doesn't seem to appear in mod_link. I also think it's exceptionally powerful for discovery during the early stages of a new standard because it encourages scuttering round a web of instances of that standard. It's basically someone saying here's my file and here are pointers to other files of the same type I think you ought to look at.

To some extent, even though it's just an <a href> with no additional metadata, you only have to go through the link to find out what it's pointing at. But I take the point that you wouldn't know whether to do this without the additional data.

If this was done in RSS, we probably wouldn't want to clutter a feed with loads of links. So perhaps the convention would be to point at an OPML or OCS blogroll of RSS feeds.

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