jdouglas

tristan: Question

2008-08-30T00:03:01.0005Z

Dear Tristan,

I noted that you posted the bio of me (Anthony Glise) on Freebase. Thank you, by the way.

I have a problem in that one of my CDs (Partitas of G.A. Brescianello) has been placed on Freebase for free download. Since my split with Dorian Recordings, I secured all copyrights and performance rights to that and other CDs. I can't find a way to get directly to the Freebase staff to have that download pulled and the management company is getting VERY agressive insofar as persuing the matter - which I would obviously like to avoid.

As an active Freebase member, what would you advise so I can get this matter addressed before it gets out of hand?

Thank you,

Sincerely,

Anthony GLISE

robert: Is this image copyright free?

2008-08-29T22:17:30.0000Z

benjamin, here are two queries I threw together yesterday which might help you.

The first one gets a bunch of topics and any images associated with them, then tells you the license those images are under:

[
{
   "/common/topic/image" : [
     {
       "/common/licensed_object/license" : [],
       "id" : null,
       "name" : null
     }
   ],
   "id" : null,
   "limit" : 20,
   "name" : null,
   "type" : "/people/person"
}
]

This second one is roughly the same, but excludes licenses of a certain type -- in this case Fair Use:

[
{
   "/common/topic/image" : [
     {
       "/common/licensed_object/license" : [
         {
           "id" : null,
           "name" : null
         }
       ],
       "id" : null,
       "name" : null,
       "nofu:/common/licensed_object/license" : [
         {
           "id" : "/en/fair_use",
           "optional" : "forbidden"
         }
       ]
     }
   ],
   "id" : null,
   "limit" : 20,
   "name" : null,
   "type" : "/people/person"
}
]

robert: Is this image copyright free?

2008-08-29T20:30:04.0012Z

There are examples and documentation in the help center. If you only need to look at a couple of images, you can do it manually; the licensed pictures have a little license icon at the bottom. Unfortunately, some of the older images (like this one) were loaded before we required a license assertion for each one.

If you are loading many images at once, I would imagine that your application would require some other MQL usage anyway just to find them.

mediflick: Welcome, and congratulations!

2008-08-29T20:17:44.0012Z

Click the Help link at the top of this page and then look at the Screencasts in the lower right. I think those may be what you’re looking for.

mediflick: Welcome, and congratulations!

2008-08-29T19:16:45.0005Z

Hello, wow a message :) nice to see. Thank you for the info, it was hard to insert data, not knowing how the site works, but i managed it after a long time, maybe introduce a quick video for users to see what and how to edit the pages. :))

robert: Is this image copyright free?

2008-08-29T18:37:49.0012Z

Totally unfamiliar, but I do know other similar languages, so if you had an example that was close, I could disect and repurpose it. Thank you!

Business: Company type

2008-08-29T16:22:47.0012Z

Well, I guess it depends on what we want to use it for. Do we want to use generic terms for multiple legal types, or do we want to be more specific.

For example, PLC is Public Limited Company. "Public limited company" could be used to cover all those types in various countries, or it could be for the specific Plc used in UK.

But unless you are intimately aware of what SA (Societe Anonyme) is, or use the Wiki page to see what approximate equiv is, then chances are no one is going to use this field (at least for "harder" ones). I deal with company names all the time, so I'm familiar with Oyj, AG, KgaA, etc, but I don't know what they translate to.

Either way we're missing values. If we keep the "generic" route, then we (I) should comb through the wiki page and identify the big ones we're missing, like "Limited Partnership with Shares" (for SCA & KgaA, for example). Though I'm not sure if all can be mapped (like KK, which is common in Japan, though I think it is usually seen as Co Ltd).

So I think we need to figure out what direction we want to take, generic or country specific, and I don't think either is an easy answer (either you have a long list of specifics or a hard to determine list of generics).

mediflick: Welcome, and congratulations!

2008-08-29T15:47:06.0012Z

Sorry: your business. I wish we could edit previous posts… d-:

mediflick: Welcome, and congratulations!

2008-08-29T15:46:11.0017Z

Of several would-be business promoters to come to Freebase, you are among the first to actually use the site correctly. We welcome all factual, well-structured information about business enterprises, and encourage business owners and employees to fill out information about their businesses. Why not tell us where you business is located, who its founders are, etc.?

Welcome, and we hope you find some time to add information about other topics of interest to you, too.

Business: Company type

2008-08-29T15:20:31.0012Z

Enumerated types like Company Type aren’t locked, they’re just a little harder to add to, in order to discourage accidental proliferation. Additions must be made through the query editor or some other way that isn’t the client. We do encourage you to discuss the proposed additions with the community first, though, to avoid edit wars on high-profile types. What specific instances do you think are conspicuously missing?

www.VideoMenu.com: Video Websites

2008-08-29T14:28:06.0017Z

Please let me know about any new video websites or new web video technology. Thanks

Business: Company type

2008-08-29T14:00:35.0017Z

Why is Company Type locked? There are many legal structures of companies, and even state-owned enterprises. But very few are listed here. Is there a particular reason for this? If so, it would be good to have that documented so those of us filling in company information know how ot complete this field. Thanks

Olympic Games: athletes by country: Beware of Long Lists!

2008-08-29T06:36:47.0012Z

No worries. As a programmer, I probably should have realized the limitation of what I was trying to do and in the end it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.

Help Center: to get (image) statistics

2008-08-29T06:31:11.0012Z

Hi parity, minor point: you don't need to send your authentication cookie for doing mqlread (only for mqlwrite).

Help Center: to get (image) statistics

2008-08-29T05:33:55.0012Z

I suspect /api/service/mqlread is returning a timeout or error. My Perl is rusty, but the until loop doesn't look like it's checking for a 200 OK return response; it just looks like if you don't find a cursor, you assume the counting is complete and exit.

Help Center: Batch update data

2008-08-29T04:42:45.0012Z

The only real "batch update" tool in Freebase is the list importer. If there were a link from the timezone to "places in this timezone" then you could do "import list" to do what you ask, but since there is no such link, I think you'll probably have to use the API.

Olympic Games: athletes by country: Beware of Long Lists!

2008-08-29T04:40:52.0012Z

Yeah, the import tool can be a bit of a pig on long lists. I usually try to do it in batches, myself. Sorry it caused you trouble :(

4. Metaweb Read Services: c# example

2008-08-29T04:26:34.0012Z

Thanks, weblivz! Probably the best place to put this is under Application Developer Tips, but I'm copying our docs guy, Phil, on this so he can help you out.

damirworld: Welcome

2008-08-29T04:23:38.0005Z

Hi, Damir, and welcome to Freebase. I see you're trying to publicise yourself as an activist and rapper. We welcome contributions of this kind, but I suspect you'd have more luck if you were to start with a Musical Artist topic (go to Musical Artist then click "add new Musical Artist") and fill in information there. Then you can add links, pictures, a description, and some structured information about yourself and your music, which is what Freebase is all about.

robert: Is this image copyright free?

2008-08-29T02:41:42.0012Z

Yup, that's certainly true. If you're looking for stuff that's absolutely OK for commercial use, I suggest you use a MQL query to look into the license on an image, and limit it to those which have licenses that fit for your purposes (i.e. PD, CC-BY, or whatever). I can help you with that if you're unfamiliar with how to do it.

robert: Is this image copyright free?

2008-08-28T22:53:19.0000Z

Thank you for looking into it! Fair use for me is a bit different than copyright free (or some CC flavor) because it would impact the commercial use possibilities.

Help Center: to get (image) statistics

2008-08-28T22:47:07.0005Z

The following is the code I used. Have a look only if you're free. I print out $count to see number of topics with images and $count~438

Afterwards I grep entire query result and got numbers close to you:

692001 topics with image

626805 topics with 1 image

62827 topics with 2 images

2210 topcis with 3 images

and so on...

#!/usr/bin/perl
use URI::Escape;
# This module provides the uri_escape function used below

# Build the Metaweb query, using string manipulation
# CAUTION: the use of string manipulation here makes this script vulnerable
# to MQL injection attacks when the command-line argument includes JSON.
#$band = $ARGV[0]; # This is the band or musician whose albums are to be listed

my $cursor = 'true';
my $query;
my $pre =
'{
    "qname":{
        "cursor":';

my $post = ',
        "query":[{
            "id":null,
            "limit":1000,
            "type":"/common/topic",
            "image":[{
                "return":"count",
                "id":null
            }]
        }]
    }
}';

my $allresult = '';
my $count = 0;
my $result = '';

until($cursor =~ /error/){
#while($cursor){
    $query = $pre . $cursor . $post;

    $escaped = uri_escape($query);

    $baseurl='http://www.freebase.com/api/service/mqlread'; # Base URL for queries
    $url = $baseurl . "?queries=" . $escaped;

    $auth = 'metaweb-user=###Enter Your cookie data here###';

    #$result = `curl -s --cookie \'$auth\' $url`;
    $result = `curl -s $url`;


    $result =~ /\/api\/status\/(.*)/;
    $status = $1;

    $result =~ /cursor\":\s*(\".*\")/;
    $cursor = $1;

    $count = $count + 1;

    print $result . "\n";
}

# Use regular expressions to extract the album list from the HTTP response
#$result =~ s/^.*"album"\s*:\s*\[\s*([^\]]*)\].*$/$1/s;
#$result =~ s/[ \t]*"[ \t,]*//g;
#print $allresult ."\n";

print 'done'."\n";
# Finally, display the list of albums
#print "$result\n";
#
# vim: ts=2 sw=2

robert: Is this image copyright free?

2008-08-28T21:26:54.0012Z

I suspect it was uploaded under the terms of fair use, but for some reason the image page doesn't say so. I'll check with the guy who uploaded it (I'm copying his user profile on this thread.)

Help Center: to get (image) statistics

2008-08-28T20:34:47.0012Z

Well, I got essentially the same results as reported above using metaweb.py. Are you using your own Perl module, or one from our API library?

robert: Is this image copyright free?

2008-08-28T16:28:34.0018Z

Looks similar to the corporate stock photo, so I wanted to double-check the copyright status. Thanks!

Help Center: to get (image) statistics

2008-08-28T15:19:55.0012Z

Thanks. I counted the number of iteration for the code above and multiply it by 1000 (since I set the limit 1000) to get approximate image count.

Help Center: to get (image) statistics

2008-08-28T05:53:50.0012Z

Some MQL reference material can be found here. I iterated through topics with images and then recorded the number of links there were. Currently, you can't constrain the query to ask it to return topics with exactly n amount of images. I'm not sure why your results differ so greatly that mine - I'll try to investigate a little more.

Help Center: to get (image) statistics

2008-08-28T05:04:39.0012Z

Thank you. It seems I don't know enough of MQL language; let me know if there's reference other than this website for I don't want to bother you like this.

I use the following code embedded in a perl code to count the number of topics with at least one image, and the result is about 438K--much lower than yours. By the way how to get the number of topics with exactly 1, 2, or 3 images? Can this be requested directly in the query?

{
"qname":{
"cursor":<cursor value>

    "query":[{
      "id":null,
      "limit":1000,
      "type":"/common/topic",
      "image":[{
        "id":null
      }]
    }]
}
}

Help Center: to get (image) statistics

2008-08-27T22:31:31.0012Z

You can just break the link between an image and a topic and not have the image deleted. Just for fun, I ran a quick analysis:

Found 716008 /common/topic topics with image links (out of ~4 million topics)
650326 have one img
63058 have two imgs
2296 have three imgs
328 have four or more imgs

Note that more than one topic can be linked to the same image.

Help Center: to get (image) statistics

2008-08-27T20:54:54.0012Z

Thank you. Then if a /common/image object is not linked to any /common/topic object, why is it there and how can it be presented to end users? Thanks.

Help Center: to get (image) statistics

2008-08-27T19:06:31.0012Z

No, not necessarily - a /common/image topic may not be linked to a /common/topic topic (for whatever reason). You could use the last query to find out how many images each /common/topic topic has by counting the ids in the "image" clause.

Freebase Apps: Strange HTML behavior

2008-08-26T06:50:00.0012Z

There are some weird dances being done to make the under-lying xml parser happy. I'd consider it a bug.

Probably the easiest thing to do is just stick a containing <acre:doc> tag around the whole thing to make sure there's a root tag.. but it won't get passed through in the result.

Let us know if that doesn't work for your case.

Freebase Apps: Strange HTML behavior

2008-08-26T06:48:56.0012Z

An XML doc can only have one root node, so try adding <acre:doc> as the first line, and </acre:doc> as the last line.

Yes, we should a) document this, b) generate understandable warnings, c) possibiliy insert the tags automatically. We're working on it.

Freebase Apps: Strange HTML behavior

2008-08-25T23:24:58.0017Z

I've been working on a first, simple application.

Overall, its been very smooth.

However, I've noticed some weird behavior with regard to HTML rendering.

In particular, in my index file I have the following HTML at the top:

"<div></div>"

With this HTML, the page loads fine. Taking it out breaks the page. Very strange.

Is this just me, or is this behavior being seen by others as well?

Freebase Apps: Support for images?

2008-08-22T10:58:34.0012Z

Yup, that's on my wish-list too. We're working on it.

Freebase Apps: Support for images?

2008-08-22T09:05:05.0005Z

It would be great if style images could be stored and served statically, to optimize performance...

Bug / Feature Request: Length of Auto Suggest List

2008-08-19T22:53:38.0012Z

Thank you so much!

Bug / Feature Request: Length of Auto Suggest List

2008-08-19T18:42:28.0012Z

This is underdocmented, but you can always enter an ID in the autocomplete box. So once you know that “Midnight” is /guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000008e684ab, you can enter that literally into the autocomplete box.

4. Metaweb Read Services: c# example

2008-08-19T17:42:53.0017Z

As there is not one above, i created a C# version here :

http://tinyurl.com/6y6hea

If anyone knows a good place to put it please do so. New to this so don't wanna edit the description of the article!

Bug / Feature Request: Length of Auto Suggest List

2008-08-19T17:33:05.0012Z

I've got a similar problem with similar symptoms - it seems at the very least, priority should go to exact name/type matches first, then exact name matches, then approximate matches. This isn't what happens and it causes all sorts of grief if the topic name is a simple word.

For example, I want to link to a Doctor Who TV Episode called "Midnight". If I type the word, the topic I want doesn't appear as an auto-suggest - many other topics mentioning the word appear first, some of which aren't even TV episodes. At this point I have only one choice, create a new topic, and plan to merge it later. Of course, the problem is, I can't submit a merge report either, since I get the exact same auto-suggest list with the entry I want too far down.

At the very least, would it be possible for me to use the guid? I can filter down and find the node from the full search box.

Influence Node: Chefs in general

2008-08-18T22:34:09.0040Z

Yes I agree we should use all the properties.

Influence Node: Chefs in general

2008-08-18T08:33:13.0013Z

Alex: yes, probably, though I think I want to talk to Mike Love about it first. I'm crossposting over into the Influence Node domain.

If we use it we should probably take all the properties from Influence Node including peers, etc.

Influence Node: Chefs in general

2008-08-18T01:37:48.0012Z

use inShouldn't the chef type the influence node type to specify the chef's influence?

Help: Non-events

2008-08-16T04:21:31.0000Z

cool, thanks for the feedback. I will definitely bring this up on the list.

Help: Non-events

2008-08-15T15:58:39.0012Z

Ditto what Shawn said; a new type seems the best way to handle this. I would also strongly recommend bringing up this discussion on the data-modeling mailing list.

Help: Non-events

2008-08-15T15:52:53.0012Z

That's a good point. Just because an event doesn't appear in Freebase doesn't mean you can assume that it didn't occur.

I would model this by co-typing the 1994 World Series topic with a Canceled Event type and then maybe add a property to say why it was canceled.

Help: Non-events

2008-08-15T15:39:56.0007Z

I've been slowly adding the historical results of baseball's world series, and in thinking about the 1994 world series, I hit upon a bit of a hurdle: this world series didn't occur.

As a piece of information, this fact seems relevant to me. However, in terms of integrating the "non-event" into the site, it really doesn't fit at all with the structure of all the other world series results, namely, "winner, loser, score", etc.

I guess that my question, then, is how is one to deal with non-events that are nevertheless relevant precisely because of their exceptionalism? The expectation of a world series in 1994, given the pattern set both before and after the cancelled season, separates this instance from all others in its class. However, since the actual event never occurred, I’m not sure if representing it in the current schema is either (i) possible or (ii) desirable.

There are other examples of this kind of expected-but-never-occurred event, notably in sports, and I was wondering if there are any ideas/suggestions on how to represent this type of information.

Thanks

Influence Node: Chefs in general

2008-08-13T21:38:06.0012Z

alexbl: signature dish is a great idea!

Influence Node: Chefs in general

2008-08-13T21:25:50.0012Z

And don't forget Wikipedia's Chef infobox as a potential data source.

Influence Node: Chefs in general

2008-08-13T21:08:15.0005Z

Cool! Would be very nice to do an import of celebrity chefs in general. Might also be interesting to have a signature dish property..