jdeperi

Domains and Types: Non-events

2008-08-16T04:21:31.0000Z

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

Domains and Types: 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.

Domains and Types: 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.

Domains and Types: 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

Domains and Types: Any one creating patent reference map with freebase

2008-08-14T15:09:43.0012Z

I can see how you got that idea, since most of our textual articles came from Wikipedia. However, the structured data came from many sources, including MusicBrainz, the SEC, and Freebase users like you.

Strictly, you can’t use other databases in Freebase; this is one database. (Well, OK, two or three. Still.) But you could import patent databases into Freebase, assuming that they are compatibe with our Creative Commons licensing requirement. Check out the US Patent type for the very small set of examples already populated.

Domains and Types: Any one creating patent reference map with freebase

2008-08-14T03:58:51.0017Z

I'm a newbbie around here.

So far I only got the idea that freebase is for wikipedia data only.

How 'm I going to use other database like USPTO ?

Domains and Types: Renaming the money category to Commerce

2008-08-13T20:09:25.0013Z

What would go in a classified section? Freebase is not really intended for ephemeral data such as classified ads themselves; we would quickly be full of obsolete listings. We could certainly model information about classified ads, but I am not sure what that would entail.

If you are thinking we should actually have classified ads—well, I’m not one of the Metaweb business people, but I can’t imagine that competing with Craigslist is something that would make our investors happy. (-: And remember that nothing in Freebase is ever deleted—not really an ideal tool for classified ads.

Domains and Types: Renaming the money category to Commerce

2008-08-13T17:29:01.0000Z

Speaking of changing it to commerce

what about a classified section? Or have I just missed it?

If there isn't one, there should be.

Domains and Types: /type/people/person?

2008-08-05T21:03:13.0012Z

I had tried it, but for some reason the change didn't go through. Thanks, though, both of you. ^_^

Domains and Types: /type/people/person?

2008-08-01T19:41:10.0012Z

I see skud already removed it. Please keep in mind that Freebase is a community-edited Web site; that means that the community—meaning you—can and should edit it when you find problems. Any logged-in user can remove a type from a topic by using the little drop-down arrow under the type’s name.

Domains and Types: /type/people/person?

2008-08-01T18:14:18.0019Z

Considering there's no data in it, I think that this was accidentally typed /people/person. It should probably be removed.

Freebase Applications: "limit" : 0 change in semantics?

2008-07-10T00:36:59.0012Z

The docs are still incorrectly stating zero returns all.

Domains and Types: Don't see a domain or type you're expecting? Suggest it here.

2008-07-08T05:53:56.0012Z

Barry, have you looked at Robert's "Congress" domain (http://www.freebase.com/view/user/robert/us_congress)? Is that the sort of thing you're looking for? I believe he got his data from the Campaign for Responsible Politics (I think that's the acronym expansion for CRP) which tracks who donates how much to which politicians.

Domains and Types: Don't see a domain or type you're expecting? Suggest it here.

2008-07-08T00:23:05.0012Z

I'm getting ready to build a database of political contributions for a community: office, candidate, year, contributor, etc. This would be for multiple boards and the idea would be to make some connections about who's supporting whom.

Is freebase a suitable tool, and has anyone done anything like this yet? I can find anything.

Domains and Types: Don't see a domain or type you're expecting? Suggest it here.

2008-07-04T17:25:52.0005Z

I would like to see a Commercial Real Estate domain/type on here. By the way this is a great site!

Domains and Types: Geography of.....

2008-07-03T21:43:49.0012Z

Sorry - I've developed an aversion to discussion posts as they tend to crash my browser. :)

"Assassination of JFK" is a historic event, and I wouldn't want to merge it with the topic for "JFK", for all the books, movies, experts, and other events associated with it. "Reactions to the assassination of JFK", however, is probably split in WP only because of article length restriction, and I wouldn't mind merging it with "assassination of JFK".

In addition to being book subject, film subject, career specialty, academic field/focus, etc., I don't think it's out of the question that someone might want to create a data model that could use topics like this. I could easily create an "Assassination" type, with properties for "assassin", "target", "motivation", "outcome", etc.

Perhaps I was too conservative with my "keep if cannot re-pro with a query" policy, and on second thought, topics like "geography of ..." or "economy of ..." are probably of low value to Freebase. On the other hand, "assassination of .." or "death of ..." and similar topics I'd like to keep around. We have already established that lists should be deleted, when it comes to non-list content though, it seems that sometimes the best policy is one of flexibility.

Company: Shareholders are not necessarily Person

2008-07-02T18:08:54.0012Z

Yeah, I think that makes sense. I had made it person originally cause I was pulling out the individual's SEC filings. In addition to companies, funds and endowments can be shareholders.

Domains and Types: Geography of.....

2008-07-01T18:23:01.0002Z

(Typelibrarian is me; I try not to use it for discussions because it gets confusing, but I forgot I who I was logged in as.)

Merging "reactions to the assassination of JFK" into the "assassination of JFK" topic is certainly an option (just as merging "Economics of Angola" into "Angola" is an option). I favor deletion for these sorts of topics, but merging would work, too (the only functional difference, since these are largely un-typed topics, is that merging adds the Wikipedia keys of the "reaction" and "economics" topics to the main topics), and I don't feel especially strongly about it. In either case, the topic is gone, for all intents and purposes (that do not involve keys, anyway).

I don't see any point in keeping them around if the purpose is merely to extract the data onto other topics; the articles exist in Wikipedia, and the data can always be gotten from there.

I still don't understand Faye's argument that these topics have lots of potential; Faye, can you expand on that?

Domains and Types: Geography of.....

2008-07-01T07:55:54.0000Z

typelibrarian - that article describes events which are in reaction to another event (the assasination). The data in the article can most likely be split across these many related events, or incorporated into the main assasination topic.

I came across a topic, 'characters in atlas shrugged' - http://www.freebase.com/view/en/characters_in_atlas_shrugged.
At the time no query could reproduce it, but with a bit of work I divided it into the 100 or so individual topics for each of the individual characters. Once all the information was transferred I flagged it for deletion, as I believe the original article can now be recreated using MQL.

Domains and Types: Geography of.....

2008-06-30T17:39:58.0000Z

I like skud's criticism of the "subject" argument as well; her method is a lot cleaner than using these articles, too.

I don't think I understand the argument for "If topic's content is original that no query can re-pro - save", however. Freebase is a database, not an encyclopedia, and the value of the data is in the type and property assertions, not in the descriptions. Keeping them around tends to clutter up the search and autocomplete results, if nothing else.

Company: Shareholders are not necessarily Person

2008-06-30T12:36:21.0005Z

Another company can also be a major shareholder.

Could the type of 'Major Shareholder' be changed to a type of 'Shareholder', rather than 'Person'?

Domains and Types: Geography of.....

2008-06-28T11:40:07.0000Z

I agree with skud - if uniqueness is not taken into account the vast majority of topics would be a type of "Book/film subject", as they are all the subject of wikipedia articles.

Therefore, to expand on faye's criterion:
- If topic's content is but a shortcut for results from a MQL query - delete.
- If topic's content is original (that no query can re-pro) and unique - save.
- If topic's content is original but non-unique - Split/merge

Comments?

Domains and Types: Geography of.....

2008-06-28T01:29:03.0012Z

Looking at the "Economy of Angola" example, could you not say that the book's subject was "Angola" and "Economics"? It's a non-unique property after all.

Domains and Types: Geography of.....

2008-06-27T22:01:08.0012Z

To play Devil's advocate: By your criteria, a topic like "Reaction to the assassination of John F. Kennedy" (http://freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000000471826) should be kept. What sorts of assertions (type or property) do you think might accrue to a topic like this?

Domains and Types: Geography of.....

2008-06-27T00:30:09.0005Z

I would vote for these topics to stay. While Wikipedia import of things like "List of books by author x" clearly offers no extra value (since it's trivial to find out that in Freebase), these focused topics have a lot of potential in addition to being Book-Subject- and Film-Subject-compatible.

My criterion for determining if something should be deleted:
- If topic's content is but a shortcut for results from a MQL query - delete.
- If topic's content is original that no query can re-pro - save.

Domains and Types: Geography of.....

2008-06-26T22:15:42.0012Z

This is a recurring debate, with some people in favor of merging "Economy of Angola" into "Angola" and others in favor of deleting the "X of" topics. I generally favor outright deletion, but neither choice is probably actually wrong. There is a third school of thought that maintains that these topics are potentially useful as instances of types like Book Subject or Film Subject, roughly equivalent to the Library of Congress subjects "Angola -- Economic policy" and "Angola -- Economic conditions", I suppose. I don't think any formal policy has ever been arrived at.

Domains and Types: Geography of.....

2008-06-26T13:26:08.0005Z

There are a number of Wikipedia articles entitled 'Geography of' or 'Economics of' related to locations e.g. 'Geography of Angola'

What are your opinions on the best way of dealing with these sorts of articles?

As I see it, 'Geography of' topic should be deleted, as all the data within actually belongs in the location's topic. e.g. all the data within 'Geography of Angola' belongs in the 'Angola' topic, most likely in the location type instance.

Domains and Types: Type method

2008-06-11T21:08:43.0009Z

How about a type "method" with the attribute "purpose"?

It is pretty abstract and can be used for different stuff like sewing is a method to make clothes but also the Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm is a method to search or 454 one to sequence DNA.

A problem is that most of the Topics are nouns and methods normaly verbs. Any suggestions?

Domains and Types: Government Agency

2008-06-09T16:52:59.0000Z

I think I understand the governmental bodies bit. I think at the federal level it would be the country's congress or equiv. It is not an agency (yes it may have employees but I still think it is a "body"), and I think it is a valid distinction. Yes, it is limited in use, but still a distinction. (most govt entities will be an agency)

Domains and Types: Government Agency

2008-06-08T17:34:02.0007Z

Thanks, crism:

Sorry about being slow getting back to you. I am a little anxious about saying anything as a big old newbie, but I don't think the disctinction between "governmental body" and "government agency" is valid, either legally or practically except in limited circumstances.

First, practically, many government agencies that have employees also have boatloads of politicians who are elected or appointed to leadership or managerial roles in that agency: the FCC, for example.

Second, virtually all government agencies have employees, whether there are political types elected or appointed to work with or direct the agency.

Thirdly, There are virtually no "government bodies" that are composed of politicians only. Courts, many city councils, legislatures all have employees, even though the people calling the shots in those entities were elected or appointed through the political process. They all have employees / flunkies to carry out the directives of the decision-makers.

The division between government "body" and government "agency" does not take into account the realities of modern government sufficiently.

Just my thoughts, but I really believe the distinction is artificial.

Thanks for your help! Dennis

Domains and Types: Government Agency

2008-06-03T19:08:27.0000Z

Hi, and thanks for your work on Masschusetts government.

Government Agency is a type, and this discussion should probably move over there if you want to continue it.

I think what you are saying is that agencies are not distinguishable from bodies in any meaningful sense. I submit that there is a qualitative difference: the difference between politicians and bureaucrats. A Governmental Body is composed of politicians; one must be elected or appointed to it. A Government Agency has employees. (So the FCC proper, the commission itself, is a Governmental Body, but the FCC as an organization is a Government Agency.) Other entities like the USPS or Amtrak might be co-typed as both Government Agency and Company, depending on their organizational details and history.

I’m not completely clear on which two modifications should think should be made. I encourage you to make a government agency type in your own personal domain, with the main Government Agency type as an included type, and add the properties you think are missing or should be modified.

P.S. Are you Dennis Desmarais? If so, you can use the Person-Topic About Me property on your user page to connect your user account with the Person.

Domains and Types: Government Agency

2008-05-31T09:31:35.0005Z

I am not sure if "Government Agency" is a type or domain, but its description does not accurately represent the legal status of many government agencies. The explanation of agency appears to distinguish agencies from "real" braches of government like ligislatures and courts.

Actually, most American states as well as the federal goverment traditionally feature three branches of government: the Executive (governor or president), the legislative (often an "upper" and a "lower" chamber of representatives), and the law courts.

First, most American states and the federal government feature many agencies which are as part of the government as the courts and the legislature. These agencies traditionally fall under the governor or president, the executive branch which is charged with executing and enforcing the laws.

In the modern state, administrative agencies are as fully part of the government as the legislature in that modern adminstrative law sees legislatures giving grants of legislative or rule-making authority to executive branch agencies which then develop and publish regulations. These regulations typically have the power of law, if they have been developed and promulgated according to the authority granted the executive branch by the legislalture.

Therefore, most agencies are, in fact, government entities which are part of and not distinguished from government. Most agencies fall in the executive branch of government, under the control of the governor or president. This identiy should be reflected in the category "agency."

Secondly, the category of "government agency" does not seem to encompass or acknowledge semi-independent "authorities" or "Services" such as the United States Postal Service or regional transportation authorities that perform traditional govermental functions like delivering the mail or keeping the trains running on time. These authorities operate under the color of government authority after creation by the passage of enabling legislation, and have the characteristics of government, like diminished legal liability for certain claims. However, they are usually not directly under the control of one of the three branches of government like governor's executive branch agencies.These authorities are "agencies" in that they take decisions and practical action that affect citizens' lives, but without referring those decisions to one of the three traditional branches of government.

Therefore, I think there are two modifications that should me made to the concept, "government agency."

Freebase Applications: "limit" : 0 change in semantics?

2008-05-19T19:22:06.0007Z

Set a large number as the limit. But if you truly want all results, you are much better off using a cursor; if you don’t know the reasonable upper bound, then you really can’t have confidence that you’ll get all the results without a timeout.

Freebase Applications: "limit" : 0 change in semantics?

2008-05-19T16:43:27.0000Z

if limit:0 now means return zero returns, how do you ask to return all results?

Freebase Applications: "limit" : 0 change in semantics?

2008-05-05T20:53:13.0007Z

The doc is being revised right now, and that change is on the list. Thanks for asking about it.

Freebase Applications: "limit" : 0 change in semantics?

2008-05-05T14:32:18.0005Z

It appears that setting limit to 0 now limits the number of results to 0, rather than be unlimited, as stated in the online documentation. Is this a recent change? Can you change the documentation if so?

The tutorial says:

Note that we use a limit of one in the above. Specifying a limit of zero means "don't limit the results: return everything you've got".

Domains and Types: Don't see a domain or type you're expecting? Suggest it here.

2007-09-13T00:50:48.0007Z

It looks like they've been moved. Apologies if you had to do it manually.

Domains and Types: Don't see a domain or type you're expecting? Suggest it here.

2007-09-06T03:05:18.0007Z

Would it be possible to get someone to move all of the types currently under my personal domain over to the "Futures Studies & Forecasting" domain, as doing it manually will involve a significant amount of work. I am also wondering if it would be possible to move the content associated with all of those types as well to avoid having to reenter all of it.

Domains and Types: Don't see a domain or type you're expecting? Suggest it here.

2007-09-05T18:58:10.0000Z

We don't currently have a feature for moving types between domains via the UI. If this is a big hardship for a specific case, let us know and we can probably assist.

Per your second question, there is nothing to prevent you from having even identical types within two different domains. Where conflicts happen is if two types have the same key in the same domain -- which, coming full circle here, is one reason why we don't yet have easy tools for moving types in the UI.

Domains and Types: Don't see a domain or type you're expecting? Suggest it here.

2007-09-05T03:58:31.0007Z

The ability to add domains is now available...cool! Now how do I copy all my types from my personal domain to another domain (Futures Studies & Forecasting) that I've created so that I don't have to re-do all of them.

Also, is it possible to have one variation of a type in the personal domain and a slightly different type in the other domain?

Domains and Types: Don't see a domain or type you're expecting? Suggest it here.

2007-08-22T18:13:16.0007Z

1) I would think that something like "Trend Impact" should be calculated from the other properties when its displayed (I'm assuming that you are talking about displaying it in an external application of some kind, since Freebase doesn't have this capability.)

2) I think you might need a property on event along the lines of "topics related to this event" which should have a new type as the expected property (I can't think of any good type names for this off-hand -- naming often turns out the be the hardest part of schema design!). Since the event "first operational use of a jet aircraft" is not the same thing as the "Me-252" (the aircraft topic covers a lot of things about the aircraft model, from its design to its final disposition, while the event topic is about a specific instance of its use), I don't think using the topic of the aircraft for the event makes sense.

Domains and Types: Don't see a domain or type you're expecting? Suggest it here.

2007-08-22T04:38:32.0007Z

Thanks for the pointers, Jeff. They were very helpful.

Do you have any suggestions for the questions I asked 4 items up?

Domains and Types: Don't see a domain or type you're expecting? Suggest it here.

2007-08-20T21:28:42.0007Z

The way to do this is to create a new type, something like (but with a better name than) "Issue Opinion-Haver" that would link to issue, and could be applied as a co-type to the person, organization, agency, racehorse, etc. that supports or opposes the issue. I made up "issue opinion-haver" because I think it makes more sense to have a single type for this with two properties (e.g., issues opposes; issues supports) rather than two types "Issue Opponent" and "Issue Proponent" with one property each.

Domains and Types: Renaming the money category to Commerce

2007-08-07T20:28:06.0007Z

Hey, PMM. Thanks for the suggestion.

On the Domains & Types page, "Money" is just a label for the collection of domains listed under it. That is, the things labeled as domain categories (including money) aren't part of the data structure per se. Instead, they're navigational elements to help people find related data. So toward that end, we're going for broad labels.

I'd say that "Commerce" is too narrow for the domains and types collected there, but it's certainly possible that another term would better help people find the data.

Sarah

Domains and Types: Renaming the money category to Commerce

2007-08-04T02:24:19.0011Z

As I was looking through the categories, it came to me that perhaps money is too broad for the types beneath. Money has an overarching quality that is not expressed in the types. Money is more like history. It is a property of or involved in more topics than we'd like to admit.

In contribution to the community,

PMM