Discussions on Guide to Freebase Types

Juan, I'm looking into this and trying to find an answer, sorry it's taken so long so far. I hope to have this figured out by the end of the week.

The property you want is /freebase/type_hints/included_types. The Explore view is invaluable for questions like this; I explored the Musical Group type, and that is the property that connects it with Musical Artist and with Topic.

I found the property in Explore, but my MQL queries for the value don't work. Can you help with the MQL query itself?

Sweet, thanks, I'll give that a try!

You should join the data-modeling list...I think you will get better guidance there.

Also found here.

They're doing something similar for geographic shape data, by attaching a document and linking to it.  You could do that.  Freebase user "jamie" is the expert on the geo stuff.

Thanks for catching this, Tracy; I’ve filed a bug to get those fixed, and to check for other similar problems. This is a risk of alpha software; we changed the structure of Freebase URLs after that got written, and the doc has not all been updated.

I don't think supporting types will help you out here, but I could be wrong. If I understand the problem (which I might not), I think it could be solved by using a CVT.  I.e., you have a property ("egg information", say) with an expected type that is a CVT. The CVT would have properties for # of eggs, species, and habitat type (all of which should be marked as disambiguators). That way, you can enter both "species 1, eggs 5, habtype 1" and "species 2, eggs 4, habtype 2" as property values on the same topic. This also removes the problem of having to name the topics, since as you point out, there's no sensible name for ones like these.

Thanks Jeff. You're probably right about CVT as a more logical approach. I'll try it on and see if it fits.

An enumerated type just means it'll pick up items from a given type and won't let the user add to the list. "Gender" on "Person" is an example: you get a choice of Male/Female but can't add in a new one as you can with many other FB fields. So if you wanted a shortened list, you'd have to use (or make) a more specific type.

Thanks. I found out through trial and error that the list items are added as topics to the type. This was not intuitive to me and I was not able to find documentation on it. My original conception was that the list items were added as part of the schema. I like how it works but maybe it needs a little better or easier to find documentation on the actual steps of defining the set.

fyi, we're trying to move away from the use of the word 'mediator' and just use 'compound value type' -- in the hopes that people will be less confused. To get technical, a mediator is a compound value type that connects two or more types -- whereas you can also have a terminal compound value type that connects a type to a collection of literal values... but this distinction is something that likely will only confuse people more... thus, we like to just call 'em CVTs.

The simplest way to do this is with the "suggested properties" feature on the type definition page.

For example, you could create the "Station" type, then the "Adjoining Relationship" type. Then add an "adjoins" property to Station with an expected type of Adjoining Relationship. Now click through to the Adjoining Relationship type definition page. There should be a property under "Suggested Properties" whose expected type is Station. Double click it to give it a name, and your reciprocal property should be all set.

Robert, you make some good points. I've made some quick edits to this content, which I hope will help. This posting on the developer blog is also an important read. We'll continue to improve our help content. Thanks for the note.

Although they appear in Type Editor, the suggested properties shouldn't have any impact when viewing topics of that type unless you reciprocate them by naming them - you can ignore them and they won't appear when viewing topics of that type. To answer your question about the order, they are displayed in reverse timestamp order - so the most recently added incoming links appear at the top.

Hi Jean-Baptiste, and welcome!

It's definitely possible for private types to be promoted into the public type space - in fact, we're counting on it. :)

Once you've modeled your types, it's good idea to add some sample data as well - you often don't find the flaws in your data model until you try adding some real data. If you're planning on a large data load, you should let us know in advance so we can walk you through it. And it's always good to try things out on sandbox - it's wiped clean and re-initialized from the main site every Monday, so you always have the chance to start fresh.

Once you're happy with the types you've created, you should post a note in the discussion area of the domain you're interested in so the admins can take a look at your work (if the types you've made should go into a new domain, you can just post to a domain that's related to the one you're working on).

Feel free to post to related discussions if any questions come up about your model. Good luck - and have fun!

Both types and topics have an "also known as". This property expects simple text meant for synonyms or alternative names, for the purpose of searching and autocomplete completion. For example, the topic for the band "The Police" is also known simply as "Police" or sometimes "Sting and the Police", so those are added for "also known as" for that topic. A good example for a type that has an "also known as" property is the Film type, which has the alias of "Movie".

Yes it is a bit confusing. The "Remove" menu item for the type on the user page has the same behavior as "Edit". The schema editor is displayed. To remove a type select "Delete this type" from the menu on the title of the schema page.

For instance, if you want to delete your date_of_death type, navigate to,
http://www.freebase.com/view/schema?id=%2Fuser%2Fcohesion%2Fdefault_domain%2Fdate_of_death

Click the affordance to the right of the title Date Of Death.
Select "Delete this type"
Click Ok on the popup confirmation dialog box.

what are you getting stuck on? Is the system not working properly when you select 'add new property'? Is it confusing when you have to select an expected type? Have you watched the demo videos available in the help section?

Ken, you can edit the type and add new properties there. Note that while you can view any type via edit, you can only actually make changes to types that you administer. For most users, this means private types that they have created. So if you have created a type called "governing body" than you can edit it. Let us know if you are unable to get to this stage.

If it's a type that you don't own, then you can go to the discussion area for the type and propose changes.

So are you all set? Typically, the save button becomes active once a valid input has been entered.

You can include Team type in your Baseball Team Type by editing Baseball Team in the Schema Editor (choose Edit Type from the menu to get there):

Look under the name of the type at the top of the page to add "Included types". You should see instructions in gray that says, "add a parent type to include the properties of another type in all Baseball team topics." Double click on that and enter "Team", which should autocomplete. Hit enter and all the properties of Team should show up.

It turns out I wasn't able to follow this suggestion, I filed this ticket: http://www.freebase.com/view?id=%239202a8c04000641f800000000454e729

I'm used to using bugzilla, in bugzilla that ticket would get an "assigned" status once someone looked at it, is there anything analogous for freebase tickets?

thanks for the catch. this has been fixed.