Subject: [VCARDDAV] Alternative dates (Issue 156)

From: Andy Mabbett <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:48:33 +0100

Alternative dates (Issue 156):

        For historic figures, where no birth and/ or death dates are
        known a "flourished" date, or "flourished from"+"flourished to"
        pair, would be useful.

        In genealogy, some people have no recorded birth date, but their
        "baptised" date is known

        <http://www.vcarddav.org/issues.xhtml#154>

        (I wrote the above)

are proposed for:

        close it with no action

with the comment:

        In my opinion this is overkill. vCard is not designed for
        genealogy.

vCard may not be "designed" for genealogy, but why should it not be used
by people recording others' details as part of a genealogical record?
The hCard microformat derived from it is certainly being used both for
genealogy and for other historical figures.

That aside, it is very Anglo-centric to assume that all people know
their, and their contacts', dates of births; there are many people alive
who either know only their date of baptism (or equivalent) or an
approximate birth date.

See, for example:

        <http://www.celebrateclitoris.com/reviews.html>

        Amma was born in a village outside Monrovia, Liberia, in 1968.
        She doesn't know her birth date because her mother, who never
        had any education, didn't keep track and merely referred to it
        "as the day the sun was shining."

        <http://socialventureforum.com/News.php?id=14&t=a>

        Begum, who is about 40 (she doesn't know her birth date), bought
        land...

        <http://savannahnow.com/node/364434>

        He doesn't know his birth date. He has no home and no job. He's
        been called a vagrant, a bum and John Doe.

A further issue has been identified since I wrote the above; I (and no
doubt many other people) have contacts (such as work colleagues) in my
address book, whose birthdays I celebrate, but whose date-of-birth I do
not know: in other words, I know the date and month of their birth, but
not the year (and am too polite, or cowardly, to ask!).

Indeed, many social networking sites, allow users to display their birth
date and month, while hiding the year.

-- 
Andy Mabbett
_______________________________________________
VCARDDAV mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/vcarddav

---

From: "Javier Godoy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:44:06 -0300

> by people recording others' details as part of a genealogical record?

As it was said for other proposals, the problem is not about using vCards as 
part of a genealogical record, but about specifying this information (as well as 
other "good ideas") in the core spec. It would complicate the core specification 
(e.g., this feature will be "overkill" for implementations supporting the BDAY 
property as a birthday reminder), and probably genealogical use cases will 
require more information than a date range and a "baptised" flag.

However, vCard 4.0 partially addresses this issue by allowing text values for 
BDAY and DDAY
  BDAY;VALUE=text:circa 1800

It could also be:
  BDAY;VALUE=text:baptised 1800-1810

If you need unambiguous semantics, an extension property may be used:
  BDAY;VALUE=text;x-flourished=baptised,iso-range:1800/1810

(IMHO, a candidate for the "extensions document", which I think should be 
written)

> not the year (and am too polite, or cowardly, to ask!).

This situation is addressed by issue #236, last discussed some weeks ago [1,2,3] 
. It seems the consensus is approve this change, but I'm afraid some details are 
not settled yet.

[1] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/vcarddav/current/msg00412.html
[2] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/vcarddav/current/msg00415.html
[3] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/vcarddav/current/msg00426.html

Best Regards

Javier Godoy

---

From: Andy Mabbett <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:56:42 +0100

In message <A5D6EF501662481E8019664CA8650B88@Javier2>, Javier Godoy 
<[email-masked]> writes

>As it was said for other proposals, the problem is not about using
>vCards as part of a genealogical record, but about specifying this
>information (as well as other "good ideas") in the core spec.

I'm not sure what is meant here, by "core spec" (as opposed to what?).

>It would
>complicate the core specification (e.g., this feature will be
>"overkill" for implementations supporting the BDAY property as a
>birthday reminder), and probably genealogical use cases will require
>more information than a date range and a "baptised" flag.

Full genealogy may, but surely alternatives to BDAY, when no YYYY-MM-DD 
value is available are pretty fundamental information about a person, 
living or dead?

I'm not one to argue for the inclusion of inside leg measurement or 
other such trivia, but "overkill" (your quotes noted) is a subjective 
judgement.

>However, vCard 4.0 partially addresses this issue by allowing text
>values for BDAY and DDAY
>

That certainly seems to be adequate, for the purposes I describe - 
though might it be harder for user agents to parse, than a separate 
property?

Incidentally, in the case of "BORN" and "DIED" properties; should these 
not be able to contain (the equivalent of) an ADR? It might also be 
worth considering a "RESTING-PLACE" property, to contain the ADR and/ or 
coordinates of the grave, should one exist.

> contacts [...] whose birthdays I celebrate, but whose date-of-birth
> I do not know

>This situation is addressed by issue #236, last discussed some weeks
>ago [1,2,3] . It seems the consensus is approve this change, but I'm
>afraid some details are not settled yet.

Thank you. I hope I can contribute to that debate.

And thank you (all) for your patience, as I catch up.