What data would you like to see included in the FOAF spec next? What should or could LiveJournal support, what additions could be made, what else woudl fit into our data set
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I think that giving a us, and a 17601. Country would be defined to be one of the ISO-3661 country codes. Postcode would be defined to be whatever method of postal code is common in the named country, or (for many countries?) a prefix thereof, so long as that prefix is not unto itself a valid post-code of the same precision.
The last rule needs some explination. All postcode schemes that I know of are highericharial -- "17601" and "17602" are next to each-other. Thus, the rule says that I can specify "1760" if I want to say that I live in that area without being as specific as saying "17601".
Applying that rule needs some specific knowalge of the system in use, though. For example, in british post-codes, there is both a "ba12" and a "ba1", refering to different areas -- ba1 is not a superset of ba12. The "of the same precision" bit is because ba12 is a valid postcode, but ba12 0lh is as well -- ba12 is of a different precision. (Given "ba12 0lh", you could specify ba, ba12, "ba12 0", or "ba12 0l", or the full "ba12 0lh". You could not specify "b" or "b1", both of which refer to different areas. You could, in theory, specify "", but that would be equivlent to not giving the postcode at all.)
It may be better to specifiy that a * should be used, though that may confuse users who expect "17601" and "ba12" to be valid as-is, and not need to be "17601*", "17601-4045", "ba12*", or "ba12 0lh".
(It should also be noted that in some cases, country-specific knowlage is highly useful to deal with user-entered postcodes -- for example, it is BA12 0LH, not BA12 OLH. People with that postcode, however, don't neccessarly know that it's a zero, not an oh.)
I should note, BTW, that there is an existing international postcode system, in use in europe, that consists of a one-or-two letter country code, a dash, and a country-specifc postcode. I don't think using this is a good idea, because outside of europe, many people will not know the country code under this scheme. For that matter, I am not certian that they are assigned at all.
(As a side note, according to http://www.upu.int/, 105 of their member countries use postcodes of some sort.)
The last rule needs some explination. All postcode schemes that I know of are highericharial -- "17601" and "17602" are next to each-other. Thus, the rule says that I can specify "1760" if I want to say that I live in that area without being as specific as saying "17601".
Applying that rule needs some specific knowalge of the system in use, though. For example, in british post-codes, there is both a "ba12" and a "ba1", refering to different areas -- ba1 is not a superset of ba12. The "of the same precision" bit is because ba12 is a valid postcode, but ba12 0lh is as well -- ba12 is of a different precision. (Given "ba12 0lh", you could specify ba, ba12, "ba12 0", or "ba12 0l", or the full "ba12 0lh". You could not specify "b" or "b1", both of which refer to different areas. You could, in theory, specify "", but that would be equivlent to not giving the postcode at all.)
It may be better to specifiy that a * should be used, though that may confuse users who expect "17601" and "ba12" to be valid as-is, and not need to be "17601*", "17601-4045", "ba12*", or "ba12 0lh".
(It should also be noted that in some cases, country-specific knowlage is highly useful to deal with user-entered postcodes -- for example, it is BA12 0LH, not BA12 OLH. People with that postcode, however, don't neccessarly know that it's a zero, not an oh.)
I should note, BTW, that there is an existing international postcode system, in use in europe, that consists of a one-or-two letter country code, a dash, and a country-specifc postcode. I don't think using this is a good idea, because outside of europe, many people will not know the country code under this scheme. For that matter, I am not certian that they are assigned at all.
(As a side note, according to http://www.upu.int/, 105 of their member countries use postcodes of some sort.)
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