People

Umpire: Film character and fictional character should be split off

2008-07-23T15:25:33.0012Z

These refer to a specific instance of "Umpire" as a character in a film and should be moved to a distinct topic.

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.

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?

John Foreman: Move all films produced

2008-07-21T07:02:39.0000Z

done

John Foreman: Move all films produced

2008-07-20T16:11:03.0005Z

to http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000468bfd3

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte: Don't delete...Millions of French people will get very mad at us...

2008-07-16T23:24:00.0000Z

Hee, yes, don't want to upset the French ;)

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte: Don't delete...Millions of French people will get very mad at us...

2008-07-16T07:13:45.0012Z

I've undone most of the edits that had inadvertently transformed N.B. I into N.B. III so lets keep this VIP on the site and visible to all (be they Francophiles or not).

Richard Bachman: Richard Bachman is a pseudonym for Stephen King

2008-07-16T01:26:07.0013Z

The books are all by Stephen King.

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.

John Fellows Akers: Duplicate topic page

2008-07-14T06:30:53.0005Z

Also known as John F. Akers. Please merge

Jenny Holzer: Same artist - please merge...

2008-07-14T05:52:15.0005Z

...the two Jenny Holzers.

On Kawara: Merge the two instances of "On Kawara"

2008-07-14T05:50:54.0005Z

Same artist.

Mark Lombardi: Merge the two instances of "Mark Lombardi"

2008-07-14T05:49:24.0005Z

Same artist.

Allan McCollum: Merge the two "Allan McCollum" topics

2008-07-14T05:48:39.0005Z

Same artist.

Person: Relationships

2008-06-23T20:03:38.0012Z

It’s less a decision to obscure the facts as a lack of a compelling use case for a more complicated model. The current model is simple and handles 95% of the use cases. To complicate the parent-child relationship—quadrupling the amount of information needed to represent it, in even the simplest cases—really needs a compelling use case. The blurb can tell human consumers that Gerald Ford was adopted. Is there a need for API-based applications to be able to make that distinction?

Person: Naming

2008-06-23T19:58:15.0000Z

As with many such issues, there is a trade-off between the use cases and completeness. Having proper sorting, name semantics, etc., would all be very cool, but (a) where would we get this data, and (b) who would use it? These are not rhetorical questions; if there is a large store of such data and an interested user community, then it is worth figuring out the answers to these questions.
We could get sorting information from Wikipedia, as category inclusions often include that, and from MusicBrainz, which includes it for all musical artists. Is it worthwhile? How would we model it—as an additional text field, like alias?
Is there a large database of genealogical information that is reconcilable with Wikipedia and of general public interest? Does it have well-structured name information?

Person: Relationships

2008-06-20T19:52:15.0001Z

I just discovered this reply after many months. Sorry for the delay!

In my opinion the privacy concerns are orthogonal and are a red herring here. The participants can believe whatever they want, but biological parents and adoptive parents are undeniably different relationships.

The decision to obscure the facts which our displayed for living people who aren't public personas shouldn't prevent getting the data accurate in the first place. That's not possible with the current schema.

Take a look a Gerry Ford http://freebase.com/view/en/gerald_ford?pid=%2Fpeople%2Fperson%2Fparents. Leaving aside the fact that his grandfather is also listed as a "parent" (apparently the work of mw_template_bot), how would you accurately model his family using the current schema? How would you tell his adoptive parents from his biological parents? How would you tell which female parent went with which male parent? Would all the half-brothers and half-sisters just get linked together in one big undifferentiated pile of "siblings?"

Person: Naming

2008-06-20T19:34:13.0000Z

It would be worth reviewing the practices in the field of genealogy. Doing this in a culturally comprehensive way is non-trivial. Surname or family name and given name are more culturally neutral terms, but you also need to deal with ruf names http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_name, dit names http://www.francogene.com/quebec/ditnames.php, other kinds of aliases (e.g. "William Smith alias Jones") , etc.

In addition to all the names a person used personally, they may also have been called different names in different languages or cultures (e.g. Charlemagne vs Carolus Magnus) where it is useful to have the name tagged with the language.

Person: Privacy concerns

2008-06-20T19:22:30.0000Z

Change banks. Seriously! Your bank has indicated that they really don't care about the security of your money or your personal information. Information like this is widely available from sources other than Freebase.

If you're going to keep the same bank, just lie. They don't care that you said your mother's maiden Deep Azure Blue or Rugby Union. They're just going to check that the response to the challenge matches what you gave them originally (of course that does somewhat defeat the mnemonic value of using easy to remember challenges).

For the more general question of personal data, the approach used by things like WorldConnect (wc.rootsweb.com) is a good starting point. Don't publish personal data on people who are still alive (unless they are a public persona).

People: How about Professional Association?

2008-06-12T02:55:33.0000Z

Organization is a type located in the organization domain.

People: How about Professional Association?

2008-06-12T00:26:42.0036Z

I'm sorry. I did not see the category, if that is the correct term, of organization associated with the category "person." Or at least I don't remember seeing it.

Can you put me straight on where to find it?

Thanks, Dennis

People: How about Professional Association?

2008-06-09T20:27:47.0007Z

Dennis, I think this is best modeled by the Organization and Organization member types. Menino’s leadership, on the other hand, of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, would be modeled as having a board position in that organization, specifically that of Chair or President or whatever they call it.

People: How about Professional Association?

2008-06-09T02:09:09.0005Z

Hey, what's up?

What about a category or type for "Professional Association?" For example, politican Thomas Menino, Mayor of Boston, used to be the head of the United States Conference of Mayors. Where does that info fit?

Perhaps that would be better expressed as "Political Alliance?"

"Professional Association" could refer to some one belonging to the "Association for the Promotion of Web 2.0" of some such...

Thoughts?

Thanks, Dennis

Ethnicity: Ethnicity ?

2008-05-23T07:31:01.0005Z

'French people', 'European', etc... this is not Ethnicity this is nationality. In genetics, only a few items are used 'Caucasian', 'African', 'Asian' ... and even here, that doesn't mean much things.

Person: Why do some relationships return a null "name".

2008-05-02T21:16:40.0000Z

The discussion fora are a fine place to ask questions. I don’t know if the discussion about Person is the best place for this question, but it’s fine.

The thing attached to the “Spouse (or domestic partner)” property is not a Person, but rather a Marriage. The Marriage is a compound value type connecting two (or more) Persons, as well as other information such as the start and end of the marriage. Since the Marriage CVT doesn’t have a name on its own, the simple form of the query doesn’t have anything to display.

You can try this instead:

"spouse_s" : [ { "id" : null } ]

to find the marriage itself, or:

"spouse_s" : [ { "spouse" : [] } ]

to find the participants in the marriage. The problem with that latter approach is that since the Person from which you’re starting is in the marriage, you will see him or her again; for instance, from Bill Clinton, you will find that his marriage includes Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton.

CVTs are a powerful design pattern in Freebase, but can be a little tricky to use. The help topic linked above should be of some help.

Person: Why do some relationships return a null "name".

2008-05-02T20:17:00.0012Z

(n00b question, might be wrong forum, sorry in advance, pointers in the correct direction appreciated, etc.)

Anyways, why do some relationships return a null name field? For example, spouse_s, sibling_s, etc. That is, for a query such as the following, the name field comes back null.

{
"query" : {
    "/people/person/spouse_s" : [
      {}
    ],
    "id" : "/en/bill_clinton"
}
}

(yes, I know...insert Bill Clinton joke here)

But I can get Chelsea's name from a similar query for /people/person/children. This seems to imply that I need to get the guid from this query, and re-query for information on Bill's spouse (and siblings, and some others that seem to return a guid+null name)

Person: Isn't this a treatment of human persons?

2008-04-22T23:54:55.0000Z

Most dictionaries define "person" as a human being, for what that's worth. My impression is people (defined as "humans using Freebase" for purposes of this post) will understand what is implied by the type "person". Naming the type "human" seems, well, impersonal to me. But maybe I'm not familiar enough with the arguments you're alluding to. What other types of things might it be confused with?

Person: Isn't this a treatment of human persons?

2008-04-22T23:18:24.0012Z

There's some room for argument as to whether only humans should be persons? Perhaps something more like Humans, rather than Persons would be slightly more accurate/appropriate?

Person: Height and Weight

2008-03-31T19:07:13.0005Z

This is a good point, but is kind of related to the general question of time-varying properties. For now, they should be the present height and weight, if known, or the most relevant (per community consensus, e.g. an athlete’s height and weight at the peak of their career) otherwise.

We are working on the general challenge of varying properties.

Person: Height and Weight

2008-03-30T03:43:34.0012Z

I don't think that height and weight should be included in person's properties as they are highly variable and can not be easily fixed to particular event or age of that person.

Person: Signature?

2008-03-29T06:55:11.0000Z

yogi

Person: When the ties break asunder...

2008-03-24T18:50:26.0007Z

We actually had a property for this once-upon-a-time, but it seems it was deleted. I think it's interesting data, too.

Person: Handedness?

2008-03-24T18:16:17.0005Z

What do y'all think about adding Handedness (Left, Right, Ambidextrous) to Person? There are many data sources out there to start populating it, e.g.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_left-handed_people

http://www.indiana.edu/~primate/left.html

Person: When the ties break asunder...

2008-03-23T19:38:38.0012Z

Should we capture the announced, official or legal reasons for a marriage's end? I guess it would be less certain for the unofficialized unions such as domestic partnership.

Just mourning the end to yet another beautiful celebrity relationship But I think at the least it would be interesting to have the various historically significant anullments, divorces, and estrangements captured and searchable. Henry VIII and Catherine's breakup certainly had a tremendous impact on history.

Catherine of Aragon m. 1509 - 1533 Divorced	Anne Boleyn m. 1533 - 1536 Executed	Jane Seymour m. 1536 - 1537 Died
Anne of Cleves m. 1540 Jan. - July Divorced	Kathryn Howard m. 1540 - 1542 Executed	Katherine Parr m. 1543 - 1547 Widowed

Person: Privacy concerns

2008-03-05T20:14:08.0012Z

Crossposted from the data-modeling mailing list...

A while ago I signed up for online banking and, as online banking systems tend to do, it asked me not only for a password but for some additional question/answer pairs to help me sort things out if I lost or forgot that password. I looked at the list of suggested questions, and saw things like:

- Mother's maiden name
- Your high school's mascot
- Town where you were born

It occurred to me that almost every item on that list of questions was something that you could find in Freebase, if a person's properties were filled in completely. As you can imagine, this could be a bit scary if someone used the information in FB to login to your online banking.

When you sign up for Freebase you get a "user profile" and then there's a field to link it to a "Person topic about me". That person topic then lets you fill in your mother's maiden name, your high school, the town where you were born, and so forth. I suspect that some people do this a bit naively, hardly thinking about how it could be used for identity theft. (None of *us*, of course! Me, I filled in my mother's maiden name in the full and complete knowledge that the world can use it to access to my bank statements ;))

But now my mother and father have nodes in Freebase, and what's to stop someone coming along and filling in *their* mother's maiden names, high schools, etc? Or for that matter, points that might be sensitive for various reasons, like "weight" or "religion"?

So there's been a bit of discussion around the place about changing the "Person" topic to be less privacy-invading, and moving some of the properties to a new type called "Public person", which we can use for well-known public figures and famous people whose privacy is, let's face it, already pretty well invaded. That way we can record the weight of professional athletes or celebrities with eating disorders, or the religion of Presidents of the USA, or the genealogy of historical figures, without doing the same to ordinary people like you or me.

If we did this, we'd probably then go through and type anyone who has a Wikipedia article as a "public person" for starters. If they meet Wikipedia's notability criteria, then their birthdates and so forth are probably public knowledge anyway. Also, we'd need to write a FAQ or guideline somewhere about what makes someone a public person, and when you should (or shouldn't) apply that type.

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

Person: Relationships

2008-02-22T21:46:18.0007Z

People may assume that the biological parent is intended, but the participants in most adoptive relationships prefer to have their relationship assumed to be equivalent to (if not identical to) a biological one. This is really a sort of privacy questions; the fact that you or I were or were not adopted is not of general public interest; the fact that Nicole Richie or Pax Jolie-Pitt are adopted is of broader public interest. This will probably be addressed in the near future by a division of the Person type into public and private sub-types.

Person: Relationships

2008-02-22T20:32:49.0007Z

In the absence of any qualifiers, people are going to assume that "parent" means biological parent. It would definitely be useful to have adoptive relationships (with dates) included as well. The two types of information are both useful. As was pointed out, for some types of research (e.g. medical/genetic) only biological relationships are important.

On the opposite side of things, the "sibling" relationship seems undesirable to have stored explicitly since it can be derived from the other primary relationships.

People: Education

2008-02-15T22:08:37.0007Z

That’s a good question, Gordon. It’s not something easy to structure; in some sense, the most accurate fix might be to change the property name to “Formal Education.” We could add the School of Hard Knocks or what have you as institutions… This is strongly related, if not identical, to the general problem of negative assertions, such as the infamous promiscuous polymorphous polymath None.

People: Education

2008-02-15T20:09:51.0012Z

Should we capture the datum that someone is self-educated? Informal education? Would the Education Property be modified to allow non-standard education processes outside of the standard Collegiate system?

Here's an example from our pal Wikipedia:

"Giambattista della Porta spent the majority of his life on scientific endeavors. He benefited from an informal education of tutors and visits from renowned scholars..."

2007-09-16T21:08:49.0007Z

I agree with Etan. People can be born into or out of wedlock, and their parents may get married at some later date. If you know who a person’s parents are and you know their birthday, you can then make inferences based on marriages of the parents, but that’s about the best you can do.

A stronger argument for mediators is handling adoptive relationships as well as or instead of biological ones. That gets complicated.