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Distribute frozen federation corpus by concept destination 
Assistant: codex
Assistant-Model: gpt-6-astra
Assistant-Session: 01a070b5-4994-7271-bd8b-7c3dbcedec4b
2026-09-06 00:44:37 +02:00

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FOAF Agent Person Group OnlineAccount

Source Type

Semantic vocabulary. FOAF (Friend of a Friend) RDF vocabulary for persons, agents, groups, and online accounts.

Domain

Semantic web social identity, person/agent distinction, and account representation.

Why This Source Matters

FOAF distinguishes persons, agents, organizations, groups, accounts, and membership-like properties — an early explicit separation of actor, account, and online presence.

Key Concepts

  • foaf:Person: a person (human); may have name, homepage, depiction.
  • foaf:Agent: anything that can do things; superclass of Person, Organization, Group.
  • foaf:Organization: collective agent with members and name.
  • foaf:Group: collective agent with member property linking to agents.
  • foaf:OnlineAccount: account on a service; links via accountServiceHomepage and accountName.
  • foaf:OnlineChatAccount / OnlineGamingAccount: specialized account types.
  • foaf:member: agent belongs to group (inverse of Group membership).
  • foaf:knows: social acquaintance link between agents (not authorization).
  • foaf:mbox / mbox_sha1sum: email or hashed email identifiers.
  • foaf:openid: OpenID identifier for agent.
  • foaf:Document / Image: non-agent resources.

Relevant Terminology

Term Source meaning
Person Human being in FOAF sense.
Agent Anything capable of action; includes persons and collectives.
Organization Named collective agent.
Group Collective agent with explicit members.
OnlineAccount Presence on a service with account name.
member Membership link from group to agent.
knows Social network acquaintance between agents.
accountName Handle on a service.
accountServiceHomepage Service URL defining account namespace.
mbox Email identifier (often mailto: URI).

Modeling Assumptions

  • Agent is the root actionable type; Person is a specialization.
  • Person is explicitly human, separate from accounts.
  • OnlineAccount is not the person; it is an account on a service linked to an agent.
  • Groups and Organizations are agents with member properties.
  • Social knows is weak affiliation, not trust or authorization.
  • Identifiers (mbox, openid) are properties, not first-class scoped objects.
  • RDF graph allows multiple incomplete assertions about same agents.

Identity-Canon Implications

  • FOAF Person maps closely to Natural Person.
  • FOAF Agent maps to Actor.
  • FOAF Organization / Group map to Organization / Group collective actors.
  • FOAF OnlineAccount maps to Account with service Scope defined by accountServiceHomepage.
  • accountName maps to Identifier.
  • member maps to Membership Relationship.
  • knows maps to Affiliation Relationship (social, weak).
  • FOAF is strong evidence for P1 (actor root) and P2 (person ≠ account).
  • Supports S01, S08, S09 with explicit person/account split.

Terminology Conflicts

  • Agent vs. Artificial Agent: FOAF Agent includes humans; canon Artificial Agent is non-human only.
  • Group vs. Community: FOAF Group is generic collective; community implies participation norms.
  • OnlineAccount vs. Profile: FOAF account is service presence; profile is broader presentation surface.
  • knows vs. Following: knows is bidirectional acquaintance; ActivityPub Follow is directed.
  • mbox vs. Identifier: mbox is contact + identifier; conflation risk.

Candidate Canonical Mappings

FOAF concept Candidate canonical concept
Person Natural Person
Agent Actor
Organization Organization
Group Group
OnlineAccount Account
accountName Identifier
accountServiceHomepage Scope (service namespace)
member Membership Relationship
knows Affiliation Relationship
mbox / openid Identifier
depiction / name Profile attributes

Open Questions

  • Should FOAF OnlineAccount always imply Account, or sometimes Profile only?
  • How should mbox_sha1sum map for privacy-preserving synonymity (weak match)?
  • Does FOAF Group map to Group only, or also Community when informal?
  • Should knows remain Affiliation, or split into Following vs. acquaintance?

References