The text description describes a political office which may occur outside the US. Should the topic be restricted to US mayors, or the type be changed to something like "political office" without the US restriction?
not just US political office
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You're right that the mayor, as described by this topic, is not just a US Political Office. In fact, if you look at it again, its types make no claim that it's just a US Political Office, only that it is a US Political Office, which it definitely is.
Topics in Freebase can have multiple types. There's no limit -- as long as they apply. Here's an example: San Francisco is both a US City/Town and a City/Town, because the two types are not exclusive.
Currently, we do not have a generic, anywhere "political office" type that could apply to this topic, but we could in the future, at which time it would be correct to add this topic as an instance of that type. -
Now I'm a bit confused. I don't quite see the San Fransisco analogy: in that case the two types 'US City/Town' and 'City/Town' can apply to the topic at the same time: thinking of the types as sets, SF is in their intersection. But suppose I want to enter the profession of a person who is a Mayor somewhere in Canada. By connecting to this topic at present, I invite the mistaken thought that she's a US Mayor. Should Mayor, then, just also be typed as 'Canadian political office' (were we to have this type, which I know we don't at present but it seems natural to think we would have in the future). But then the problem would be that US political office and Canadian political office are more or less exclusive: to the extent that a Mayor has type US political office, we would expect them usually not to have type Canadian political office.
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I see, you're thinking of co-typing as intersecting sets, but it's not necessarily so. There is no such restriction. The only criterion used in deciding whether a topic is an instance of a type is the "is a" test. Mayor "is a" US political office, so it can be typed as such. Is mayor a Canadian political office? If it is, then it can be co-typed so -- if we have that type.
Actually, now I think about it, is mayor a profession? I would think the profession in that case would be politician. Mayor is just a title for a politician who may be a mayor this year, and a governor the next. But if so he hasn't changed profession, only job title. I wonder if that incorrect co-typing isn't part of the confusion here.
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