field sets

[Joaquin Miller]

>What is the thinking here around standardizing sets of data to be 
>collected by the consumer site?
>
>Does it ask for specific fields e.g. addr1, addr2, city, state, zip 
>or does it just ask for an address?
>
>Or does it ask for a vcard URL?
>
>LID seems to have "profiles" but I am not sure I am understanding 
>them correctly.

What LID has today is, for example, the capability to store some 
vCard elements and to return some of those in XML or classic vCard 
format.  Which are returned depends on what is requested and what the 
person is willing to provide to the particular requester.

By 'profile' we just mean data about self that can be provided 
selectively in some structured format.

Example: provide credit card data to eCommerce sites, but not 
friends, whereabouts to friends, but not acquaintences, ...

So, in LID, ask for specific fields (vCard provides both the complete 
formatted address and the individual fields).  But, perhaps in some 
other service, ask for the URL to make vCard queries.

Providing data in this way is a YADIS service.  So the YADIS spec 
just enables providing the identifier of the particular service in a 
YADIS Resource Descriptor.

Cordially, Joaquin