There’s been talk going around about a new protocol, humans.json - not to be confused with humans.txt, of course. The purpose of this protocol, as I understand it, is to provide yet another way for us on the open web to differentiate ourselves from AI and to “vouch” for each other.

I’ll start by pointing out, I did go ahead and implement this on my site. I like joining in on these sorts of things because I see it as just another way of promoting other sites that I like/love.

I do have to point out, though, that this is in no way an original concept. I don’t mean for that to sound as damning as I think it sounds, but it’s just impressive that we have to keep trying to get this wheel invented. There was the XHTML Friends Network, or XFN, back in 2003. I actually use this one on my site too. The purpose of XFN was/is to use the rel attribute to signify your relationship to the site you’re linking to. This could then be used to show the complex and dynamic relationship between websites on the internet. As Joe on ArtLung points out, there was also FOAF, short for Friend-Of-A-Friend, which actually predates XFN by three years. FOAF also provided a means to create a social web on top of the interweb using RDF. Outside of myself using XFN, I don’t think I’ve seen either of these two used ever.

Nonetheless, I went ahead and added it to my site because it sounds fun. I’m beginning to wonder, though, how many of these protocols and schemas will come and go before we settle on one. Now, there doesn’t have to be just one that everyone everywhere uses, but I’d like to see at least one see some wide spread usage. And that’s the secondary reason why I added humans.json to my site. Because I believe in the mission it’s trying to accomplish.

You can check out Beto, the author of humans.json, over on their site https://robida.net.