colin

Stephen Colbert: Stephen Colbert for President

2008-07-25T19:06:10.0000Z

flippity floo!

Scott Peterson: Split

2008-07-25T18:57:13.0017Z

I don't think this particular Scott Peterson is a TV Writer.

A Darkness at Sethanon: A Darkness at Sethanon

2008-07-25T09:38:41.0017Z

Plz remove this: A Darkness at Sethanon . because it is aaready created with full detail.

Publishing: Possible revision for Journal Articles

2008-07-24T23:20:13.0005Z

Spurred on by an aside that spatialed made in some discussion post awhile back (I can't locate the post), I'm considering revising the way that we model journal issues. Currently, each issue has its own topic, which links to both the journal and the articles contained in that issue. (See
http://www.freebase.com/type/schema/book/journal_issue) The main problems with this format are that it is cumbersome to enter data, and also that most bibliographic sources are concerned primarily with the article and the journal, relegating the issue to a series of strings (volume, issue, date). This latter issue might make integration with standard bibliographic schemas a bit cumbersome, although it wouldn't be insurmountable.

As an experiment, though, I thought I'd try to see what a model that eliminated the issue type entirely looked like. Here are the results:
http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000008cd1edd.

I've replaced the issue type with a CVT that connects the article and the journal, and includes the standard bibliographic data of Volume, issue, date, issue date extra, and pages ("issue date extra" is something I had to make up for journals that aren't published on a schedule that translates into mm/dd/yyyy). Journal articles have both Scholarly Work and Written Work as included types, although a journal article can also be a review, editorial, letter or other type of writing.

The only real disadvantage that I see to this is that constructing the contents of a given issue will be harder -- users will have to query on a combination of several fields (volume, issue, etc.) to find what they're looking for.

I'd love to hear what people think about this. If it seems to work, I might do the same thing for newspaper issues.

This is also being discussed on the data-modelers mailing list: http://lists.freebase.com/pipermail/data-modeling/2008-July/000989.html

International Affairs: Split

2008-07-24T22:49:16.0010Z

The field of study should be split from the journal.

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

Azriel Graeber: speaking tour

2008-07-24T14:06:36.0017Z

Has anyone heard anything about Graeber's public speaking tour. A friend of mine told me he was producing tapes teaching people how to be as successful as he is, and that they were being taped live. thanks

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

Location: Contains/Contained By

2008-07-23T15:44:01.0000Z

Can you put a limit on this? I always see more than one level on these items and its frustrating. Can you guys just cap that field at 1?

Azriel Graeber: Re: A. Graeber

2008-07-22T19:09:27.0007Z

well when its someone like A.Graeber, you dont have to wonder too hard. He's feats are pretty pretty pretty impressive.i mean milk machine, PhD, published writer, all around renaissance man, all-around renaissance man.

Publishing: "Genre" as properties of "Book" and "Short Story"

2008-07-22T18:35:33.0007Z

I think that about covers it.

Azriel Graeber: Re: A. Graeber

2008-07-22T04:59:01.0007Z

It's the same Azriel Graeber who invented the milking machine that has a PhD in Genealogy?

It kind of makes you wonder how one person can accomplish so much?

The Venture Bros.: first...

2008-07-22T04:00:43.0012Z

of all. I love this show.

Publishing: "Genre" as properties of "Book" and "Short Story"

2008-07-21T19:57:15.0007Z

It does seem silly that some short stories have "short story" as a genre. Feel free to delete those assertions. Poems have genres, but those are pretty much already handled by the "verse form" propety. Plays have their own genre type. What other types of written works do you think have genres (that aren't already covered by an existing type)?

Number Eight: Nice

2008-07-20T12:05:32.0012Z

She is really nice actress!!

Publishing: "Genre" as properties of "Book" and "Short Story"

2008-07-17T01:04:29.0012Z

I'm curious why "Genre" is not a property of the type "Written Work" but exists separately under both "Book" and "Short Story" (though not "Poem").

It seems silly that some short stories have the genre of "Short Story", which would make more sense if tagged on the more generic "Written Work" instead.

Azriel Graeber: Re: A. Graeber

2008-07-16T00:10:10.0007Z

i cant think of the name either,but no i think this is the Azriel Graeber that has a PhD in Genealogy and Cemeterial Studies. i hear he's coming out with a book on methods of research, should be fantastic

Azriel Graeber: Re: A. Graeber

2008-07-15T22:38:35.0005Z

Is this Azriel Graeber the same person of that name who invented that machine to facilitate the milking of cows? I forgot what it's called.

Location: City Parks/Golf Courses

2008-07-09T20:35:32.0000Z

Cool, thanks for the update.

Location: City Parks/Golf Courses

2008-07-09T18:37:54.0015Z

It looks like the general consensus was in favor of not denormalizing the data, but instead having a synthetic property that could represent current data from the historical data. However, this suggestion is currently not something that is possible, and would require development work. I'll check around to see if there are open tasks for this and update you.

Location: City Parks/Golf Courses

2008-07-09T15:41:51.0000Z

Did we ever come to a conclusion about this? It seems to have died without an answer in the Data Modeling discussions.

Written Work: Subjects

2008-07-08T18:59:15.0012Z

"Subjects" is pretty much wide open; do what you will.

Written Work: Subjects

2008-07-08T01:11:25.0005Z

Are the "subjects" of a written work restricted to subjects that are addressed in a non-fictional manner, or can e.g. Octavia Butler's biology-focused SF works have a "subject" of biology?

TV Episode: Dubbers

2008-07-07T22:27:21.0013Z

Use the "special performance type" column in the "Performances" property on TV Episode. You should be able to select "Voice" for these types of performances.

TV Episode: Dubbers

2008-07-06T04:31:18.0013Z

How should I model a specific person who voices a specific other person in a specific TV episode? e.g. Kent Frick voicing Chairman Kaga in the Iron Chef blue crab battle?

TV: TV filming location

2008-07-02T18:39:23.0012Z

I think we should have a type, "TV filming location", for things like "Survivor: Vanuatu" which was filmed in Vanuatu. Thoughts?

City/Town: Newspapers?

2008-06-30T22:02:22.0005Z

I think a property for "areas covered locally" or something similar would be the best way to capture this. Of course, the trick is then getting the data.

City/Town: Newspapers?

2008-06-29T05:23:31.0012Z

Very specifically, I wanted to ask, "What are the websites of the newspapers in the 3 cities neighboring the Federation of Damanhur?"

Of your two options, if I had to pick one, I would ask, "What newspapers cover a specific city locally?"

For Turin, (for example,) according to Wikipedia, the newspapers are: La Stampa, Tuttosport, and the Turin Metro.

Publishing: editor in chief for periodicals?

2008-06-27T22:40:07.0000Z

Most periodicals should also be typed as Employer. The intent was that editorial staff could be entered there.

Publishing: editor in chief for periodicals?

2008-06-27T17:07:45.0012Z

I don't see a editor in chief or executive editor in any of the newspaper, magazine or periodicals. May I suggest a field be introduced if none exists?

Australian local government area: remove administrative division

2008-06-26T07:14:01.0012Z

Ok, I see, AD is supposed to be vague. What was tripping me up was the ISO and FIPS attributes do have a clearly defined domain. So maybe they should be kicked out into a new type (principal country subdivision?) that US State, Australian State etc. include?

Australian local government area: remove administrative division

2008-06-25T19:29:21.0012Z

Administrative division is specifically designed to be somewhat vague, and to be used for everything that falls between the most local government (city/town or equivalent) and the country. I wouldn't call the ISO and FIPs codes "main attributes" -- they're basically just foreign keys. Administrative Division is almost just a "bucket" -- a way to assert that something is an administrative division of a country, and generally bigger than a town. (Some cities are of course both city/towns and administrative divisions.)

Creating separate types for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.-level administrative divisions would probably be even less applicable, since many countries don't have nice clear hierarchies, and in some places the supposed hierarchy is subverted (New York City is the classic example -- its five boroughs are also counties). Using a single co-type for all these things also allows for simpler modeling as well-- if there are only three major types for country divisions, you need fewer properties to link to them and have fewer places where a property might conceivably go.

Australian local government area: remove administrative division

2008-06-25T18:52:38.0012Z

From what I can tell, cities in the US are both naming and administrative. Australian LGAs are mostly administrative divisions, and city/town naming in Australia is separate from them; it comes from the postal system. In large metropolitan areas naming goes state/metro area/suburb (which apparently means 'neighborhood' in USian, and are postal divisions). Suburbs can be split between multiple LGAs, although most are within one.

However the Administrative Division type doesn't fit because its main attributes are ISO 3166-2 and FIPS 10-4 Region Code, which are only defined for Australian States. For the same reason I'd also recommend removing Administrative Division from US County, which is probably the closest analogue to Aus LGA. If required, there's probably room for a new type that is between state and city/town which both of them could include.

City/Town: Newspapers?

2008-06-25T00:51:47.0001Z

Do you have a specific use case in mind? I'm hesitant to add this property to City/Town, because a lot of cities don't have their own newspapers, and a lot of newspapers are regional (Contra Costa Times for Contra Costa County, CA, for example). Is the idea just to be able to see what newspapers cover a specific city locally? Or are you specifically wanting to know what newspapers are based in a given city?

City/Town: Newspapers?

2008-06-24T23:24:37.0012Z

City newspapers? A link to the city newspapers?

For example, Santa Cruz, CA -> Santa Cruz Sentinel.

For example, Seattle -> both Seattle Times & Seattle P-I.

Location: City Parks/Golf Courses

2008-06-24T21:38:56.0012Z

No, no, you're not being obnoxious at all -- this is a persistent pattern. I'm guessing that you're looking for the current head of state of each country, as opposed to the office that the head of state holds. A property for "current head of state" on the country type seems reasonable, but I'm going to repost this to the data-modeling mailing list to get more input because I can see a lot of ways for this to snowball. (If you're not on the mailing list, you can join here: http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling, or just watch the outcome here: http://lists.freebase.com/pipermail/data-modeling/)

Location: City Parks/Golf Courses

2008-06-24T17:55:30.0012Z

Right, I had seen that type, but when trying to query against the database, it seems more helpful if heads of state were given their own type. For instance, if I wanted to see who the heads of state were in the UK and the US, I currently have to sift through the results to find "President of the United States" and "Prime Minister of the UK". If it were in a separate property, I could just ask for the heads of state of each country and receive only them.

Sorry, not trying to be obnoxious.

Location: City Parks/Golf Courses

2008-06-23T23:42:55.0012Z

Heads of state (and all other people who hold government offices) can be listed on the "governmental jurisdiction" type. Most countries should have this type already, but if they don't, feel free to add it. There's some documentation for entering data about government office-holders here: http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000739446b.

Location: City Parks/Golf Courses

2008-06-23T21:36:06.0012Z

Because Country is a type within Location, I figured I'd ask here: Would it be possible to add "current leader" or "head of state" as a property?

Location: Contains/Contained By

2008-06-20T19:33:14.0000Z

One level is sufficient, Tyler. One of our planned features is transitive property comprehension (like containment and organism classification hierarchy), so there is no need to denormalize the hierarchy completely.

Location: Contains/Contained By

2008-06-20T18:48:46.0005Z

How deep should I go? For instance, I'm working on the Empire State Building. Generally, it is contained by New York. If one clicks to see New York, they'll see that the city is contained the state, and the state by the country, then continent, then earth.

In this sense, should I list that the Emprie State Building is contained by: New York, New York, United States, North American, and Earth?

I haven't been doing this because I think its cleaner to just list the most immediate contained by and followed the path if needed. I guess I'm asking is my way correct or not?

Thanks!

Australian local government area: remove administrative division

2008-06-16T18:27:45.0000Z

Thanks for your comment -- figuring out where different governmental divisions in different countries fit can be a bit of a challenge. LGAs are a bit confusing (at least for this non-Australian) -- some of them seem to essentially correspond to what I would think of as a city (e.g. City of Clarence) but others seem to encompass several smaller towns and open space (e.g. Kingborough Council). Or, in other words, it looked to me like they were a level of government between state or territory and city or town. Which is why I gave the type an included type of administrative division.

Australian local government area: remove administrative division

2008-06-14T18:27:17.0005Z

to quote its description, "This type is for administrative divisions of countries of any level below the country itself and above city or town." ie LGAs don't fit. I've manually removed it from a few topics until I thought to look at the schema.

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

Stephen Colbert: Stephen Colbert for President

2007-11-14T23:29:21.0007Z

I agree. Sadly it appears that he's stuck in South Carolina.