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Beginner's Guide: Creating Schemas
So you want to design a data schema on Freebase? Perhaps you have a topic you're passionate about and want it to be included here, or perhaps you have come up with some improvements to our existing schemas and would like to try them out. Please, go ahead! Freebase allows anyone to create schemas on just about any subject they like.
Join the data-modeling mailing list
Many of our schema designers are on the data modeling mailing list. It's a pretty active list with interesting discussions about new types, design problems, or broader philosophical issues around how we model data.
You can search the archives at freebase.markmail.org.
Read our data modeling guide
There is a fairly large body of information about how to create schemas in Freebase. See, for example:
Create a domain
It's usually best to create your own domain to work in. This helps keep things tidy and prevents your chicken-breeding types from getting mixed up with your types related to UFO sightings -- assuming you're into both those things, of course.
We used to only provide one personal domain per user, but now you can create as many as you want, so please, go wild! To get started, go to your domain page and you'll see a button saying "Create domain".
Design your types
The data modeling guide, linked above, will get you started on this. Remember that each type is usually a noun that describes a class of things. So, for instance: "chicken breed" or "UFO sighting".
For each type, you can add properties or attributes. For UFO sighting, you might add "date", "sighted by", and "sighting type". You might then create types for "UFO sighter" and "UFO sighting type", linking them to your first type.
Schema design can be tricky at first, but with a little practice you'll get much more adept at it. It's mostly a way of thinking. Being on the data modeling mailing list, or reading discussions about schema design on the Freebase site, will help you understand that way of thinking.
Propose your types for promotion
See Publishing a type for more information.
