pdavison

None: Absence of information vs. information of absence

2008-10-03T19:43:18.0012Z

This topic may be poor substitutition for indicating the absense of something, but the fact that it's extremely well-used in so many situations by so many different users suggests that it serves a real purpose.

Freebase, after all, is an open data community, and the community has found a need for a "None" topic. Unless or until a better alternative is provided, this well-used topic is simply too relevant to be removed from the system.

Please keep.

None: Absence of information vs. information of absence

2008-10-03T17:33:40.0012Z

On another note... even if we deleted "None", it would keep popping up again and again as people kept trying to use it.

None: Absence of information vs. information of absence

2008-10-03T17:23:39.0012Z

I disagree with Daniel that absence of information is sufficient. However, I agree that this peculiarly polymathic poymorphic None is a poor way to indicate it. As a concrete example, on my Person topic, I have no value for the Spouse or Children properties. In one case, it is because of privacy for the other party or parties involved, and in the other, it is because of a positive lack of value. A way to concretely indicate known, negative value would definitely be useful.

None: Absence of information vs. information of absence

2008-10-03T13:51:37.0012Z

This page should be marked for deletion. It serves very little purpose. The absence of information is a sufficiant indicator that a property is empty or invalid.

Lindsay Lohan: Incorrect Wikipedia abstract

2008-09-04T00:28:01.0012Z

Thanks. This is a known issue that should get fixed in the next wikipedia cycle. Basically, Lindsay got her mom's name as a /wikipedia/en key somewhere along the way. This, plus a non-wikipedia derived topic for Dina, caused the topic updater to put the wrong blurb on Lindsay.

I'm patching the underlying data now; it should auto-resolve after the next cycle.

Lindsay Lohan: And Dina Lohan has no description

2008-09-03T23:18:40.0012Z

Cross-posting to Dina Lohan.

Lindsay Lohan: And Dina Lohan has no description

2008-09-03T23:17:30.0012Z

Thanks for noticing - we'll investigate

Lindsay Lohan: Incorrect Wikipedia abstract

2008-09-03T23:16:45.0012Z

Thanks for noticing - we'll investigate.

Lindsay Lohan: And Dina Lohan has no description

2008-09-03T22:22:10.0010Z

I just checked the mother's FB topic, and she has no Wikipedia abstract at all.

Lindsay Lohan: Incorrect Wikipedia abstract

2008-09-03T22:21:01.0005Z

The article from Wikipedia relates to Lindsay's mother, not Lindsay

United States: Merge

2008-08-05T00:32:00.0005Z

This topic should be merged to United States.

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

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.

Pierce Brosnan: This is the actor

2008-07-02T07:45:14.0012Z

The tracks are on the soundtrack to Evelyn, a movie in which he appeared. I suppose it’s possible a different musician with the same name was on the soundtrack, but it seems unlikely.

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.

HAT-P-2 b: Wrong name: should be HAT-P-2 b

2008-06-02T16:26:12.0000Z

No, do not delete, merge other topic to this...

HAT-P-2 b: Wrong name: should be HAT-P-2 b

2008-06-02T13:10:57.0005Z

Please see HAT-P-2 b instead

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.

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.

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

None: Absence of information vs. information of absence

2007-09-17T01:04:49.0007Z

Ah, this page is no longer marked for deletion. Cool.

None: Absence of information vs. information of absence

2007-09-09T04:07:16.0012Z

Freebase generally conflates the absence of information with information of absence, a distinction that many other knowledge representation systems make. If there is a discussion of the logic behind this stance, this would be a good place to link to it.

Answers to FF Questions

2007-08-22T21:31:40.0012Z

Hi Dan,

I need to use my own type for Fantasy Football positions for a couple of reasons.

1. Each league will have a different number of sets of positions to choose from, and they may or may not map to a position on the /american_football/football_position type. For example, there are Team Quarterbacks, Team Kickers, and Defensive Units that are FF positions, but not American Football positions. In addition, you have two Quarterback positions which can only be distinguished by ID, since there is no offense or defense property. Also, some leagues use Wide Receiver and Tight Ends as distinct positions, while others may use Receiver as a combination of the two. In any case, the Football Position needs to be distinct from the Fantasy Football position.

2. When enumerating types in scripts, I want to be able to control what returns in queries. I can do that with a private type, but not a public type.

As for teams, NFL_Team uses your /american_football/football_team as its type and is definitely redundant with the /football_roster_position/team field. As I mentioned however, redundancy has cause problems with writing to and reading from this subfield and so I added it to my type for simplicity. At this point, it could be eliminated.

As for stats, my only source is TheHuddle.com, as we discussed, and only for projections. Ideally, the Statistic fields would get populated by an XML pull from NFL.com and the projections would be an aggregate of moderated community submissions. I have no knowledge of an XML feed of NFL stats, but would love to locate one. The structure of your source data will likely dictate the actual stats you'd track, and thus structure of the Statistic instances I'd use to record the data, but they'd certainly map to NFL Week, NFL Season, and Player. You'd also want to keep a record of Opponent and Stadium where the stats were compiled.

As for the aggregation of community projections, that's a worthy project in itself and outside my project's current scope.

Noticed you loading football data...

2007-08-20T05:06:56.0004Z

still trying to get my head around what you're doing here -- you're thinking that fantasy football rosters would be good to store in Freebase? Interesting. Can't say we really anticipated it being used for that kind of data.

Re your schemas - wondering why you're inputing player's teams in your own type when the current team and position field already exists on the football player type? It appears that much of this data is redundant?

Also, if you're defining and loading historical stats - i'd like to work with you on the best way to model that - its pretty complicated to get right. What is your source for data? Thanks,
Dan (danm)