Government

Government: Streamlining "Political Office Held"

2007-09-21T00:17:48.0007Z

I'd like to thank everyone who's commented on my first attempt at this. Based on various comments, I've come up with a new attempt: http://www.freebase.com/view/domain/user/jeff/government_test_2. Come by, put in some data, and let me know what you think! (More specific details about what I changed are discussed in my private domain.)

Government: Types of Politicians for all countries?

2007-09-17T08:13:34.0007Z

It should be ready now - I wanted to add a few more politicians, but I can always do that later.

I tried something a bit different - the "Australian MP" type links to an "Australian House of Parliament" type (via a compound type). So you can tell whether an MP is federal or state by which house of parliament they belong to. Not sure yet if this is the best way to do it ...

So the types in question are "Australian Political Party", "Australian Politician", "Australian MP", "Australian House of Parliament" and "Australian Parliament Membership", which are all linked together.

Government: Streamlining "Political Office Held"

2007-09-13T23:59:29.0012Z

I think it might be a good idea to streamline the "us political offices held" type, and make it so that one type can be used for all countries, which should make this domain a bit easier to handle. It will also solve a major problem, which is that there is currently no way in the schema to link from a country to its elected officials. I've posted the modified type over in my private domain. I'd love to get everyone's comments on it and see if we can come to an agreement on this.

The main changes would be to eliminate the "state (if state)", "county (if county)", etc. properties and replace it with a new property that can be used for all levels of government. It would also do away with the need for some country-specific types (politician and political party).

Government: Types of Politicians for all countries?

2007-08-28T22:44:20.0000Z

Just let me know when you think that Australian politics is ready share,

Government: Types of Politicians for all countries?

2007-08-22T03:21:46.0007Z

No problem - I notice that lots have things have changed today ...

I've started on a few types for Australian politics in my domain, so I'll keep adding to those following the types for UK and/or US politics as appropriate.

Government: Types of Politicians for all countries?

2007-08-21T18:26:17.0007Z

Sorry tp be slow responding. I think the UK Politician pattern is worth following since it creates a useful pattern for completion, since the same pool of people tend to hold multiple offices.

It rare for a politician from one country to hold an office in another, so I don't think the general polician template is so useful, and I think people would tend to overuse it.

Government: Types of Politicians for all countries?

2007-08-14T00:37:48.0000Z

Fair enough. In that case, would it be worth creating some sort of template for a politician type?

Also I see that "UK MP" includes "UK Politician" as a type - is this pattern worth following in general?

Government: Types of Politicians for all countries?

2007-08-10T21:04:02.0000Z

Yes, that's the idea, because different systems of government have different properties associated with the position.

Government: New Type: President of Germany

2007-08-10T21:02:42.0000Z

done

Government: Types of Politicians for all countries?

2007-07-18T00:03:42.0011Z

Will we need to create a separate politician type for each country? Currently we've got them for the USA, UK, Canada ... will we create them for France, Germany, Russia, ... ? I guess that's useful because you can group all the UK politicians easily, but couldn't this be done as a search on "Politician" and "Nationality: UK"? Otherwise we could end up with hundreds of politician types, but maybe that's not a problem ...

Government: New Type: President of Germany

2007-07-06T23:16:27.0007Z

Welcome to Freebase.

You can create types in your own domain, and an administrator can make them part of the public domain. The help files give guidance on creating types: http://www.freebase.com/view/helpindex?id=%239202a8c04000641f80000000012090ef.

A couple of tips: It's always good to try things out on Sandbox (http://sandbox.freebase.com)--it's wiped clean and rewritten with data from the main site every Monday, making it a good place to experiment. Also, when you've got your model in shape, make sure to add some sample data--flaws in a data model often don't show up until you try incorporating some real data.

Once you're happy with the types you've created, post a note in the discussion area of the domain you're interested in so the admins can take a look at your work.

Meantime, feel free to post again if any questions come up about your model!

Best,
Sarah

Government: New Type: President of Germany

2007-07-06T05:25:07.0012Z

Hi all,

I'd like to create a special "Type" for the 9 presidents we had in Germany since 1946. Can I do that or do I need an admin's special premission?

Government: GovTrack.us

2007-06-19T02:13:15.0011Z

Is Freebase integrating RDF data from Govtrack.us ?

I can't figure out how to tell. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to know or care. Is the use case for Freebase to "not worry about the source"? Won't there come times when certain data sources have contentious definitions for something that would have a very similar display name? Or is ironing that out a kind of editorial authority that the Freebase community accepts, in the same way that Wikipedians collectively work out "notability" and "neutrality"?