alecf

Halloumi: is it just me?

2008-07-25T01:06:51.0012Z

Jon, it's not just you, but it's not everyone either. :) From what I understand, the featured topic that shows up on a logged-in user's home page is dynamically generated, and depends on the user's domain membership. I'm not a Food domain member, so (sadly), Halloumi is never a featured topic on my home page.

Yale University: yale college and yale university?

2008-07-24T14:54:09.0000Z

Wikipedia tends to classify by the broadest institution, so there are a lot of actors associated with Yale University instead of the drama school. I think it's fine that we start with the lower-precision classification and as data becomes available, replace it with the more specific.

Apple Inc.: What will be the next bullet of Apple Inc.

2008-07-24T14:32:34.0012Z

this is the interesting questions, I also wondering what would be the next bullet of Apple

Apple Inc.: What will be the next bullet of Apple Inc.

2008-07-24T07:38:50.0017Z

Apple have bring 3G iphone to the market, any idea about what's the next bullet of Apple

Broadcast: Internet-only radio stations?

2008-07-21T21:58:29.0007Z

Er, forget that internet stream typing business, the real question is should it still be typed as a "Radio station" ?

Broadcast: Internet-only radio stations?

2008-07-21T21:57:09.0012Z

An example:

WOXY is a radio station that used to broadcast terrestrially but is strictly internet-only now..so it's typed as a Radio station, and as such it has properties like "Frequency" and "Serves Area", that i guess historically make sense..but not anymore.

Should it instead by typed as Internet Stream?

525 Power Tracks: The best rock station!!

2008-07-20T02:50:51.0005Z

This is the best internet radio station on the internet! Hard Rock and Heavy Metal and no emo crap!

Halloumi: is it just me?

2008-07-18T22:33:56.0005Z

or is Halloumi the most frequently featured topic in freebase?

Food: Plain old food type

2008-07-18T16:40:02.0000Z

The USDA has a fairly extensive database of nutritional data (per 100g unit) available for download at: http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=8964

It includes base ingredients (e.g. various cuts of meat), both cooked and uncooked. If you're looking for nutritional information or ideas on how to classify it, that may be a good place to start.

The data consists of multiple files - one per table - containing one record per line in a fixed width text format. It probably wouldn't be too difficult for someone with time on their hands to write an importer for freebase.

Food: Dishes and ingredients

2008-07-18T01:06:20.0020Z

These three very well populated types have been moved into this domain.

River: Mouth & Source should be geolocations

2008-07-14T11:50:43.0000Z

This is on my to-do list and should be complete late today.

River: Mouth & Source should be geolocations

2008-07-14T05:18:54.0012Z

Geolocations now include elevation, so mouth/origin elevation could be merged into the mouth/origin geolocations.

Merrick, Galloway: history

2008-07-05T01:34:54.0005Z

so heres the thing my grandpa told me that this galloway in scottland was named after one of my ansictors and now i can not figure out his her name so if anyone nows anything or can help me out please let me no! thank you

River: Tributaries

2008-07-03T18:14:23.0014Z

Should River include a field for tributaries? And then how could we show if that specific river was a tributary of another river?

For exampe, the Koshi River in Nepal has several tributaries, and then in India it becomes part of the Ganga River. So it both has tributaries and is a tributary.

Or is this linkage somewhere else?

United States: Removed "Official Language" and Liberty Dollar as form of Currency

2008-07-03T16:55:01.0005Z

Removed "Official Language" as per Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States

Removed "Liberty Dollar" as it is not a currency in itself, but rather a unit of currency.

Fall Out Boy: Problem with the description of this page.

2008-07-03T01:56:56.0015Z

Thanks for catching this. Either one of our users or bad information in the MusicBrainz or Wikipedia entries for the DJ caused us to merge the two entities. They should definitely be split apart.

Fall Out Boy: Problem with the description of this page.

2008-07-03T01:42:16.0041Z

There seems to be a problem with the description for this page. The page itself is about the band Fall Out Boy, but the description reads:

"Also known as

   * Alec Milliner,
   * Fallout Boy
   *

Fallout Boy is a DJ whose real name is Alec Milliner. He should not be confused with Fall Out Boy. "

And the link to the Fall Out Boy not to be confused with links back to this page.

United States: Liberty Dollar

2008-06-27T16:52:19.0005Z

I don't know that this can be rightfully linked as a form of currency inside the US as it is not recognized by the Federal government.

By the same token, the United States has no official language, although English is the predominant language.

Food: Dishes and ingredients

2008-06-26T00:13:31.0012Z

I've created three types in my own food domain called Ingredient, Dish, and Type of Dish. We're (the data arch team) looking to promote these into this domain but thought we had better run it past the locals first. Thoughts?

Car Sharing: partners

2008-06-18T16:52:36.0000Z

Sure - I'll add a new type for it to, with an included type of "company"

Car Sharing: partners

2008-06-14T16:57:04.0012Z

Could you add a partners link to Car Sharing/Agency? Some agencies have roaming agreements.

TheSlyShow.com: Acquired by Yahoo.

2008-06-13T17:04:03.0012Z

No longer available as a free internet stream.

WBOS: split

2008-06-13T16:36:10.0012Z

This topic should be split. The producer of content and the content itself should not be combined.

Car Sharing: GoGet locations

2008-06-11T20:00:24.0013Z

I just added all the Sydney locations for GoGet. If anyone wants to do the rest they're at http://www.goget.com.au/content/view/66/77/

Academic Library: Thanks for creating this type!

2008-05-01T18:02:28.0007Z

Yes, I think we shoudl probably model it on how hte public libraries work: Academic Library System (with associated institution), which has associated Academic Libraries.

Academic Library: Thanks for creating this type!

2008-05-01T15:26:38.0000Z

I'd like to see a field for linking it to the affiliated academic institution. A complexity that needs to be addressed is that on many university campuses, there are a number of different libraries, each of which may have its own name. I'd recommend that there be topics for each library on campus and field that links to the overall library system topic page and a field that links to the affiliated academic institution.

I'd do this myself, but I have no clue how to.

Mountain: Volcanoes?

2008-04-30T16:47:23.0007Z

That's a good idea. Would you be interested in modeling in your private domain, with an eye toward having promoted to the commons when it was finished?

Mountain: Volcanoes?

2008-04-30T06:01:03.0005Z

There should be a separate type called "Volcanoes" so there can be more than one eruption.

Academic Library: Thanks for creating this type!

2008-04-18T18:24:30.0012Z

Thanks so much for creating this type. I've added a couple of topics: the Bodleian Library and Baillieu Library at the University of Melbourne.

Can we help you at all with building this out a bit further? We could add properties for collection size, affiliated academic institution, etc. And then I think we'd probably like to promote it into /library if you'd be interested in that.

Lake: Max Depth vs. Average Depth

2008-04-17T23:10:16.0000Z

What about median depth? Variation in depth?

This is an issue I have with a lot of statistical data and units contained in Freebase. While it is good that the system enforces standards, they way it enforces them reduces the flexibility for users. For example, if the property asks for data in kilometers and the user has a bunch of data measured in feet, then the user must make the calculations to enter the data and anyone wanting to check their accuracy must back transform the values. This opens the door for errors. Similarly, if a property just asks for a value and the data are provided as a mean with min, max and standard error, which value does the user choose?

For these reasons, I created a Domain of summary statistics for times when I need to document a value and a summary statistic (e.g., mean, max, median, standard deviation), which I've been collecting within an enumerated list. For an example of how I use these in a CVT, see Length statistic and Parasitism.

Unfortunately, these summary statistics need to be used as part of CVTs (hence the need for a domain of them). Presently, this means they can't be nested within other CVTs. Therefore the context of the summary statistic must be built into the CVT (e.g., Parasitism), which makes for very wide tables in the UI and CVTs that are limited in application.

Lake: Max Depth vs. Average Depth

2008-04-17T20:48:14.0012Z

@ Powerset were looking at the depth of various lakes and noticed that a few (at least Huron and Baikal) are mixing up average depth with maximum depth. Lake Michigan has both average and maximum depth numbers in the maximum depth field.

I'd recommend adding average depth to the schema and then probably re-extracting the depths from the infoboxes in Wikipedia.

I didn't make the changes in Freebase because i thought you might want to see the live data.

Yale University: yale college and yale university?

2008-03-27T22:13:29.0017Z

Or, I suppose you could argue that everyone should be linked to the University itself, but I think that's less useful in the long run (if I'm interested in directors who went to the Yale School of Drama, I'd rather query that than to have to filter Yale Univ. grads by degree [MFA] and field of study [directing, drama, acting, etc.]).

Yale University: yale college and yale university?

2008-03-27T22:10:34.0022Z

It does complicate queries, it's true. Ideally everyone would be linked to the school they graduated from. That said, it's useful to be able to say that someone graduated from Yale University, even if you don't know which school they attended.

Yale University: yale college and yale university?

2008-03-27T21:26:57.0012Z

This is the case, although it complicates queries. Also, many alumni are linked to the university even though they attended Yale College.

Yale University: yale college and yale university?

2008-02-14T23:16:00.0007Z

As near as I can tell, Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University, and should therefore be made a constituent school of Yale, along with Yale Law School, Yale School of Drama, etc., which I've now done.

Yale University: yale college and yale university?

2008-02-14T21:56:01.0012Z

shouldn't these two be merged?

-chris

Food: Plain old food type

2007-12-16T23:36:38.0032Z

Also a property for the basic food type called 'form' or something similar would help add more detail to the original food type. You example of crackers containing powdered cheddar cheese is a good candidate. In that scneario 'ingrediant' itself would be a cvt between food A, food B and the form of the contained food. However things like HFCS complicate things a bit, but for the most part, it would be quite helpful as shredded cheddar cheese is different from powedered cheddar cheese.

Food: Plain old food type

2007-12-15T20:58:43.0000Z

Lets start thediscussion on food... My primary interest is in nutritional information and ingredients of "complex" foods. But I think this gets complex reasonably quickly.

For example, some brand of crackers may contain powered cheddar cheese, which is itself a food. But the nutritional value of the crackers probably can't be easily derived from Cheddar Cheese.. not to mention that Cheddar Cheese is itself a food. Cheddar Cheese contains cow's milk and rennet, but I don't think we'd consider rennet itself a food.

So my proposal is a type Food which has an included type Ingredient, as well as a property Ingredients which points to a list of Ingredients.

Food would have properties like Genre, maybe Country of origin, etc... but Ingredient would have stuff like "Nutritional information"

Nutritional Information would be a CVT which would indicate how many units of some nutritional thing, normalized to a "per 100g" unit (I think that's the standard in Europe, and the US is based on Serving Size, which is totally non-normalizable)

for example, cheddar cheese might have "2 mg of Vitamin A" - so the CVT for Nutritional Value would have an Integer quantity, a mass unit unit, and a nutritional thing.

Thoughts? I'll model this up on sandbox...

Food: Plain old food type

2007-11-13T20:03:03.0007Z

I have to agree.. then we could list the ingredients of Twinkie which appears in the wikipedia article.

Food: Plain old food type

2007-09-15T17:10:00.0012Z

It would be good to have a plain old "food" type (very much like beverage) and perhaps a "food genre" type (fruit, dessert, meat, vegetable etc). There's lots of very simple things we can say about food that there's no way to express right now.

River: Mouth & Source should be geolocations

2007-07-16T18:47:47.0007Z

Great -- I've added the properties here.

River: Mouth & Source should be geolocations

2007-07-13T04:17:35.0007Z

Thanks, looks good to me -- except for using the dash to separate the compound values. An mdash or a ⋅ might reduce confusion with numeric data. Cheers!

River: Mouth & Source should be geolocations

2007-07-12T17:39:57.0007Z

This is a good idea. I've mocked it up on the sandbox -- take a look and let me know what you think. http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/?id=%239202a8c04000641f800000000002cb83

River: Mouth & Source should be geolocations

2007-07-12T01:39:27.0011Z

Mouth and Source might better be geolocations or have a parallel entry as geolocation as USGS gives the lat long of the mouth and source.

alecf: Hello...

2007-06-29T00:05:30.0007Z

Hey -
I like the idea of incorporating web comics because I think they share a lot of characteristics of newspaper comic strips (they come out frequently, have recurring characters, are sometimes syndicated, etc)

it's probably best to start a conversation on the domain page for comic strips - http://www.freebase.com/view/domain?id=/comic_strips

alecf: Hello...

2007-06-07T02:30:20.0011Z

As my first toe-dipping into the freebase experience, I have created a "Webcomic" type and added it to those comic strips to which it obviously applies (Diesel Sweeties, xkcd, Penny Arcade). I do an almost-daily blog about comics on-line and off- at funnypaperless.com. My plans are to flesh out the Webcomic type with entries for my other hundred-or-so favorites. Should I also automatically add them all to "Comic Strips"? I intend to provide content to the Comic Strip type also. Just letting you know "Who IS this guy?"