Advogato to FOAF Utility

Introduction

This Javascript and XSLT based utility allows you to automatically generate a FOAF description for yourself. Simply fill in the form below and click submit. Your FOAF description will be generated in a new window. Once you've done that see "What Next?" for some pointers on what to do with your newly generated FOAF document.

The Form

Your Advogato Nickname
Your Email Address
Protect email address from spammers

What Next?

Publish Your FOAF description

This is the easy part. Simple copy the generated FOAF description from the new window and paste it into a file. Put the file onto your website somewhere where it's publically accessible, it's a good idea to name this file "foaf.rdf" as then a google search can be used to help discover FOAF files across the web.

Your FOAF description is now ready, you just need people to come along and read it...

Joining the FOAF Community

The 'discovery' aspect of FOAF (i.e. how FOAF compliant applications find your description) is still an area under discussion. If you have suggestions then send them to the RDFWeb-dev mailing list. However there are three possibilities. You may want to try some or all of them.

Using the Link Tag

Aaron Swartz has suggested using the HTML Link tag to point to FOAF descriptions, in a similar way that many bloggers are pointing to their RSS feeds. Here's how it should look:

<link rel="meta" type="application/rdf+xml" title="FOAF" href="foaf.rdf" />

Using the FOAF Bulletin Board

An obvious way for applications to discover FOAF descriptions is for there to be a registry of people. I've cooked up a simple way to do this called the FOAF Bulletin Board. Simply visit the FOAFWiki, and edit the FOAFBulletinBoard page and add your name and a link to your FOAF description. I've added mine already which you can use as an example.

Applying the magic of HTML Tidy and XSLT means that applications such as Edd Dumbill's FOAFbot can process this index. Visit the FOAFBot home page for information about how to see it in action.

Try the FOAF-a-Matic

The FOAF-a-Matic is another Javascript utility for creating a FOAF document. It offers some additional features that mean you can create a more detailed description of yourself than is stored at Advogato, including indicating who your friends are and pointing to their FOAF documents.

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Creative Commons License


[FOAF Hackery]