Discussions on Fictional Universes

Yeah, that is kind of a dilemma. If you split the character into multiple sub-characters it becomes difficult to determine who was in what fictional work, but if you keep them together it becomes hard to model many of their other properties because of different situations in each different adaptation of the character. =/

In the case of Toothless both adaptations of him are still Toothless, but everything about them has been changed between the book and the movie.

I can think of two possible solutions for this. One would be to make a "master character" type that links to all the different adaptations of the character. The other would be to give each property of the fictional character type a secondary property allowing you to define what fictional universes this fact is true in. I'm really not sure the problem is big enough to warrant either of these solutions. =/ It does become very difficult though to model characters though when all the facts are different depending on which adaptation of the character you are considering...

I believe your interpretation of the intent of the fictional object type is correct. Adding an additional type (although it would probably be called something like "fictional object category" type to avoid the "type type" nomenclature) sounds like a reasonable request (although I'm not an admin for this area, so can't help directly).

If you create it in your own base and start using it, it would help your figure out what the appropriate properties are, etc, and then it could be "promoted" to the commons later, preserving the work you did.

Okay, thanks. I don't own any bases general enough to hold this type, so I'll just put it in my drafts for now. Too bad I can't give it any return links from the objects in the commons. =/

Anyway, here's the link. http://www.freebase.com/schema/user/ajedi32/default_domain/fictional_object_class

If anyone has any suggestions for the type please feel free to tell me about them. =)

Hmm... it seems that there are a lot of properties of the "Fictional Object Class" type I created are the same as the properties of the "Fictional Object" type. Should these be delegated properties? =/ The properties and their names are almost identical. On the other hand, wouldn't the object class type hold be the one to master properties rather than the object type? And why would an entity be both a fictional object AND a fictional object class?

Any ideas?

A fictional object is not a class of fictional things, I thought the description and examples quite clear (was there something that made it questionable?).

You should consider adding a property to assert what category a fictional class of objects are: Star Destroyer is a fictional class of fictional spaceships. This would allow us to remove the incorrect typing as a fictional object from the topic of star destroyer.

Finally, you might consider moving your type into a base (fictional universal additions?), no one will be able to add, see or use your type otherwise.

What made the intentions of that type questionable for me was that it was being used by other people to indicate classes of objects, and that there was no Object Class type that could be used instead.

So what you're saying is that you think 'Subclasses' and 'Subclass of' properties would be a good idea?

And no problem, I'll move the type to a base. Before I do though, I want to know what you guys think of my previous question (two above this one). If people start using the type and we decide we need to change those properties later, a lot of data could be lost. I don't think we need the properties to be delegated since I don't think a topic can be both a fictional object and a fictional object class at the same time, but I want to know what you guys think before I start using the type.

The properties could be delegated, but is unnecessary IMO. Simply moving a user-created type such as your fictional class that uses as expected types for its properties commons types, fictional object and fictional universe, these associations will not be changed and the data will not be lost in such a move (since move is a bit of a misnomer, what happens is that a new linkage is created between the fictional universe namespace and your type and the old one, currently /user/ajedi32/default_domain/ will be depreciated, but not destroyed).

My very wise coworker thinks it should be a three-way (or triangular) pattern: Object <-> Class <-> ?Classification? <-> Object

Narya <-> Three Rings <-> Ring <-> Narya

We are unsure what would be the best term for what kind of classification the class should be.

Okay I didn't think they would have to be delegated properties, I just wanted to make sure because as far as I know there isn't a way to convert a delegated property into a master property (or vice-versa). I wasn't saying that moving the type would cause data loss, I was more concerned about whether we would have to change the properties to delegated ones at some point in the future. (Just checking.)

So you're saying that I should create a separate type for kinds of classifications? =/ I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean something similar to the 'Rank' property of the Organism Classification type?

Anyway, I've created a new base called 'Commons Prototypes' and moved the 'Fictional Object Class' type there.

No not rank, check this example out: Super Star Destroyer... So what is it? It's a 'super' class of Star Destroyers with one known named ship, the Executor, but what else is it? It's a spaceship. I think there should be a property that allows us to state that this fictional class is a class of Spaceship. Nenya is one of the class of the Three Rings. It is also a ring and a magical artifact. We wouldn't have to do this if the the type was Fictional Space Ship Class or for Rings of Power.

Possible name of property: "Type of?" "Type?" Doesn't seem quite right. "Category?"

Well, I did run Nenya is of the class of = Three Rings > Rings of Power > Magic Ring through your class/classes of ladder. I suppose you could add one higher category, Ring, but that seems not quite right. Not sure about using Magic Ring as the preeminent class. But Nenya is both of the class Three Rings and a Ring and a Magic Ring and it would be a difficult query to find all the magic rings if you need to go several ply down. One could go the ship named Executor is of a class of = Super Star Destroyer > Imperial spacecraft > Spaceship. I'm torn as to having a hierarchical ladder or using the class property for all of the classes regardless of ranking on a topic.

You might want to ask this on the Freebase discuss about suggestions on modeling these relationships, my head is spinning ;)

Well, I guess it's already set up that way. Another thing I was considering is that there are really two types of object classes: The kind where all objects of the class are nearly identicle (I.E. Imperial Star Destroyer), and the kind where objects of the class have only a few charactaristics in common (Space Ship, Magical Ring). I suppose both of these could be represented by the same type, unless we wanted to assign different properties to them (I.E. The first kind could have height and weight properties, while this would not be practicle for the second kind.)

Although maybe we are over-complicating this. No data model can be absolutly perfect. I think perhaps you're right; we should just wait a while and see how people start using the object. We shouldn't wait too long though because if the object is used widely and we want to make changes later then there could be problems.

Mr. Mackenzie,

Thank you so much for your very helpful suggestions. I will do as you instruct.

Hege

Read the bottom of the page:

"Some of the content on this page was provided by other sites, including Freebase Icon (Homer) or others licensed under Creative Commons"

Ok, thanks. Good to know.

Hege

Tom,

Now that I have removed "person" from the character "Janni," and replaced it with the correct "fictional character; military character; book character" it still says "person" on the drop-down list when Janni is typed in. I'd like to know where and how to fix that.

I also think we could merge "Janni, Stepson" and "Janni" but the issue of the "person" type in the drop-down list must be fixed first. If we can fix this and merge them, can the drop-down list say "military character in fiction" or "fictional character?" How does one control which type will come up in the drop-down list?

Hege

Thanks, pak21, very helpful.

To aid in the campaign to remove duplicates from this work: Can you tell me an easy way to get back to those two zeusi base lists where he/she has gathered characters also referrerd to as persons, persons, and job descriptions for people? Wouldn't want to leave any of them unemended.

Thanks for your input, always clear and timely.

OR

Hmm, I'd rather that everything in the fictional universe was split from the real-world (locations and events as well). Although I do see there is a widespread problem with the incompatible typings of Fictional Character and Person.

By having the 'Fictional Character' on the Person, it forces us to have only one 'Fictional Character' representation covering all works of fiction in which it appears (and the same for organisations, events, locations etc.)

The Jordan College of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass is very different from the college seen in the Inspector Morse TV series. Both are based on the 'real-world' Exeter College. As is the Queen Victoria portrayed in Blackadder's Christmas Carol rather different from The Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown.

Another option is to have a CVT on every property, mediating by Work of Fiction(s) and Fictional Universe. It would be a way of keeping the Fictional Character & Person types on one topic and still allow for for variances between works. On the downside, it's a massively breaking schema change and a lot of introduced complexity.

Hi Hege,

I like what you're contributing to Freebase, it's fantastic to see this sort of enthusiasm for adding new data.

You raise a valid point with defining "fact", it's a long-running subject of much philosophical debate both in Freebase and in the wider-world. Your argument is especially valid in cases where the information we have, as you point out, is distorted, unreliable or subject to opinion. For a lot of areas where the fact is debated, for example the Trojan War, JFK assasination, UFO sightings, BP's involvement in the Lockerbie Bomber release etc. it would be a worthwhile task to sit down and model all the arguments and available data. There is even a base in Freebase for this sort of argument mapping, and is worth checking out.

However, we also need to take a pragmatic approach to data in Freebase. Most people who visit Freebase aren't familiar with philosophical arguments on truth or academic conflicts relating to Ancient Greek history, which is perhaps a shame. I believe the majority of people arrive at Freebase looking for a quick answer to a question, perhaps as part of a trivia quiz or to look up something they saw on TV or for school homework. Freebase needs to provide these people with a quick and simple answer to their question.

This is where the Freebase Commons works best, it provides a place to hold a "fact" which will quickly return a suitable answer to the majority of questions. Freebase needs to fill up the commons with as much data as possible so it can answer as many questions as possible from as many people as possible. As such, the data which is added represents a general, widely-held consensus of it being fact - e.g. "Quentin Tarantino is the director of Kill Bill", "David Cameron is the Prime Minister of the UK" etc. - within some threshold. As a consequence there may be data in the commons which has a sizeable and vocal minority opposition e.g. "Barack Obama is a US citizen and was born in Hawaii". It should be noted that this does not represent an opinion that one "truth" is better than the other, just a reflection of a general consensus and/or verifiable references where available.

However, the presence of this data in the commons does not preclude somebody from creating their own base and asserting facts there. You could create a type "hegemon's military" and omit all reference to Cadmus from it. I'd highlight that any fact added needs to be in accordance with Freebase's Terms of Service, so you shouldn't add anything you know to be false or misleading. There's also an ongoing debate in Freebase about how much personal opinion is allowed.

Your own base is also the best place to try and model a schema for Prisoners of War. If the schema is working well in your base, it can then get reviewed and possibly promoted to the commons.

I hope this goes some way to answering your question,

Iain

Iain,

Dubai? It's late where you are....

I really appreciate your reasoned input on fact vs. fiction. I hope my response of deleting the "warrior-mage" and "wind-charmer" entries from military personnel job titles solves the problem pragmatically for now and doesn't cause additional problems.

The Sacred Band novel I'm working strives to be correct in every particular (where possible) and we are doing the same as we document the text wherever sorcery is not involved. I brought Outrider in to help me with images and he's doing yeoman's service. Glad you like the results so far. Many rp gamers and war-gamers use Sacred Bands and at least one, Everquest, uses specific characters from The Sacred Band of Stepsons so I have my hands full with internal consistency referencing a series of books and stories that spans from 1981 to 2010.

However...ancient militaries were factually dependent on seers and oracles and sorcerers (mages, wizards, etc) the way we are dependent on the IC staffs, analysts, and mission planners today. You probably know about Darius and his magicians heating manacles, throwing them in the river, and beating the river surface before attempting to cross with his army. That's a pretty well-known "fact," and it would require calling out the warrior-priest, warrior-mage or seer category to document that event in Freebase job titles correctly if one were tackling Darius's Persian Wars adventures. Ditto the Ephors interference before Thermopyle, or Alexander III's visit to Delphi for what amounted to intel and mission approval. There is a real difference between ancient and modern thought, therefore a concomitant difference in military job titles, and that is a fact. Ancient armies (in cultures where gods and sorcery were believed to be real.) were staffed with people whose job titles and descriptions are different from those in modern times -- but equally factual: not that the magic worked, but that they had billets for these ranks and occupations. I wouldn't presume to make a 'Hegemon's' military base, but perhaps someday an ancient military base would be helpful. I have my hands full with this series of Sacred Band books, because the blending of fact, fiction, and myth is so pervasive.

In response to Lis, I removed those job title categories (in the SBS list of job titles) that she objected to, and I hope that doesn't leave an orphan topic somewhere. If you agree that removing the unacceptable job-titles is the simplest response, and orphans are now the result, please feel free to delete any orphan topics if required. I will never delete anything again without prior approval but I feel I can correct my own errors. If this untrue, please advise.

I only brought up Cadmus as an example of a mythical person that probably never existed (or never existed as described since he was married to a goddess and many gods attended the wedding and eventually turned into a serpent/dragon) being treated as a factual person. I thought it was cute, and probably warranted: if you take ancient data at face value, then many questions of validity go away. When I have time I'll look to see how you handled the Battle of Kadesh, where both Hittite and Egyptian sides claimed victory.

I do want to mention, before closing, that the image of Akhilleus and Patroklos on the SBT page with the WP description is from an earlier time than the SBT and the helmets and gear are wrong for the SBT period -- but that image has become a symbol for gays in the military, which is a whole other issue. Outrider and I have repurposed much art for this project, and I understand why that image was chosen. However, there is a more correct image of Thebans in Theban helmets that I used in the Cadmea topics.

I have worked for DoD entities for half my life and I must fill in blanks correctly and be responsible for their factuality, so I am trying hard to comply with all requirements. I took this assignment and until I finish with it in its simplest form I'm not going to complicate anything, just work within your current, existing rules.

Thanks again for your thoughtful reply and astute suggestions. Please feel free to course-correct me and Outrider as warranted.

Hege,

As you mentioned, the blending of fact, fiction, and myth is so pervasive in these books it creates a bit of a problem of separating the real-world facts out from the fictional. As the tone of writing in the books is a narrative one, we would be best to treat all the information in the books as "in Fiction". (I'm being careful not to say "fictional", I do understand that these books are apparently well-researched and contain a lot of actual facts. The incorporation of some fiction in them unfortunately means that we can't use it as a source of facts to out in our 'real-world' topics).

In Freebase this will mean using the Fictional Character, Event in Fiction type, Military Unit in Fiction, Location in Fiction etc. types and ensuring that you don't add Sacred Band of Thebes/Stepsons data to real battles.

However, we can indicate that these people and events "in Fiction" are based on real people and real events. In the Fictional Character type there is a property "based on" which allows you to select a real-world person. In the Location in fiction type there is a property "Represention of real location". So you can link Thebes as described in the Sacred Band of Stepsons books to the real life Ancient Thebes.

Mythical people should also be separate from their representation in fiction. So Lachesis, a Greek mythological figure, is a different topic from Lachesis, as described in the Sacred Band of Stepsons books. Cadmus should get the same treatment.

As for Warrior-Mage's, we'll treat it as "in fiction" when it's used to describe characters in the Sacred Band of Stepsons universe. That's not to say it couldn't be a real military rank, it's just that I think it best to have reference to non-fiction sources (i.e. books that don't present the facts in a semi-fictional narrative/story-telling tone) before we treat it as real-world.

Iain

Iain,

Again, very helpful data. Please understand I do not want to treat fiction as fact. There was another topic (Sacred Band cavalry) that tried to present war-gaming data as historical data and T.J. helped me with my concerns that we not treat things as what they are not.. In my day job, I find too many things masquerading as fact which are not.

That said, I like all the solutions you are proposing, although they are second nature to you but new to me. If we can link the mythological and historical to the fictional while keeping the natures of each one clear, the authors and their more educated readers will be very pleased.

I'll catch up and metabolize all this eventually, I hope, but now I need to take a leaf from Outrider's book: watch and learn.

Am trying to vote responsibly. Hege

These are interesting suggestions, I'd rather see them modeled in a base and applied to the topics you are interested in. We haven't really thought much (at least i haven't) about non-intimate relationships. I think you could do some interesting modeling with the lover-beloved vs. leftman-rightman designation. I have reservations about adding such specific designations in the Fictional Universe Commons for fictional relationship as it applies to a such distinct and small set of topics at this time.

I can think of leman/concubine as another historical relationship designation.

Am too new at this to tackle creating a base. WIll just try to work within the parameters wiser folks have established for now.

Thanks.

H

Jeff, TJ, et al,

The Sacred Band folks want to know if Freebase streams audio and if so, could they upload The Sacred Band March to stream from Freebase, since it's referenced several places on Freebase Sacred Band pages. For free, of course. They're not selling it anywhere yet, just streaming it. It's on The Sacred Band Facebook site if you want to hear it: inoffensive, a rousing instrumental; no sales pitch with it or related to it.

If so, then please provide instructions and I'll pass them along to them.

I said I'd ask.

H

Reiterating from the discussion list that the Mythical person type is probably most appropriate for the generic "Hercules" concept. It links to Mythology. For specific fictionalizations of Hercules, use the fictional character type.

-Ed

Jeff,

Read my first again. Hercules is NOT a person. Of course, you and I know that. So, the "Based On" property for Fictional Character that says it is for "real people" CANNOT fit for Hercules the "Mythical person". If you look at the description or "hint" for the Fictional Character type's "Based On" property, it says "Use this property only for characters based on real people. Enter the topic corresponding to the person."

Again, Hercules is NOT real. So then, he can't be logically typed or inferred as a "Person or Being in fiction". (again, because the "Based On" property makes that illogical. He COULD be typed as a "Mythical person in fiction" however, if we had that. Or more simply, as just a "subject basis" of something else. Which is what I was referring to when I mentioned perhaps just using something like /fictional_universe/representations_in_fiction. Kind of 2 things, I guess... 1. being the subject basis of a work of fiction and 2. a fictional character being the character portrayal of a real person. (and Hercules and Odin are not real people)

Many things are based on many other things. The Character portrayal of "Hercules" the mythological person is not correct when we say that he is a "Person"...of Being in fiction. That doesn't sit well with me, and it seems that the schema description also says it doesn't fit, and should be used only for "characters based on real people".

(sorry for being longwinded, I tried to describe my thoughts in 3 different ways, hoping that one of the paragraphs above would make sense to you??)

Ed,

Yes, I think your understanding me here. "Odin" has the correct view of Mythical person, but alas is also not correctly typed as a "Person or Being in fiction" either.

Something somewhere needs to change guys.

Jeff,

Forgot to mention the obvious to you. Currently, Hercules is NOT typed as a Fictional Character, but instead a "Person or Being in fiction", quite different or one in the same ? That's my basic problem with the schema currently and that "Based On" property.

Simple: Hercules should not be typed as a "person or being in fiction". From the type definition,

"The "person or being in fiction" type allows people, deities, and other beings that are not actually fictional"

(my emphasis). Hercules is fictional, therefore the "fictional character" type should be applied, with "based on" left empty (or linked to None, but that's a whole different problem) as he's not based on a real person.

I understand you now. It's just a documentation issue. The expected type of "based on" is "Person or being in fiction", which is designed to allow non-human entities to be represented, including deities and mythological beings. From the type description:

The "person or being in fiction" type allows people, deities, and other beings that are not actually fictional to be modeled as characters in fictional works that treat them in a fictional manner or that include characters clearly based on real people.

"Person or being in fiction" started out life as simply "Person in fiction", I believe, but when we extended the type definition to include other entities, we forgot to update the hint on the incoming property.

Once the date/time schema is promoted to the commons, what other properties do we need to add, if any?

So far, besides character birthdate, I've got Event in Fiction start/end dates, and Fictional Object created/destroyed dates. Any others? I'm tracking these in DA-1053.

Thanks, Jeff, this fits the bill nicely.

Is there another way of finding relevant types besides plugging in keywords into the search field?

Primary Universe would be better dealt with as Created In (a non-existent property as of now.) Although as I was writing this reply, the Blue Beetle, The Question, Turok, Magnus: Robot Fighter and Dr. Solar: Man of the Atom came to mind. Seeing as how they originated in the Fox Comics Universe, Charlton Comics Universe and the Gold Key Universe and are now in the DC Universe, this complicates the issue.

Come to think of it this isn't dealt with in existing types or properties as far as I've been able to ascertain. Appears in these Fictional Universes deals with the fact that a character can crossover into other Fictional Universes through storyline or acquisition nicely. Primary Universe only deals with the Universe that a character is currently identified. There's no provision at present for the original Fictional Universe a character originated in.

Just looked up those characters and I see I have a lot of work ahead of me.

I'd use adaptation: this game is an adaptation of Episodes I-III while this one is an adaptation of Episodes IV - VI, and they're both works of fiction set in the Star Wars Universe (without personally caring "which" Star Wars universe that is, but I appreciate other people might).

I'm not sure that the LEGO theme and the video game series should be the same topic.

Well there is somthing like that by user duck1123

Should it be a topic-based property or simply a text-based propert (there are some topics existing for some of the more well-known alter-IDs).

Caught myself lamenting, again, the lack of a "date of birth" property on Fictional Character. By not having this property, absolutely no DOB can be entered under Fictional Character, Gregorian calendar or not. How is that better than adding at least a simple Date property to support at least those fictional characters lucky enough to have been born in a universe under a Gregorian calendar?

Or, a "simple, stupid" kind of solution: a slight denormalization of the handling of DOB via two properties: 1) Gregorian date of birth, simple property with Date as the expected type, and 2) Non-gregorian date of birth, a CVT of two fields: a) Calendar system, expected type: Calendar, b) date, expected type: string (since date representation is calendar-specific). How's that?

Two years later I found myself still wishing there were a way to link a Fictional Setting to its Fictional Universe.

I don't think a property "Appears in these fictional universes" would be weird displayed on a location that happens to exist in the real world, since it will be listed under the Fictional Setting type, and grouped with other fictional properties that we have no problem showing today. The type context should make it clear that the property refers to fictional universes.

Fictional object needs some love I guess.

Maybe the creation and destruction links should be to a kind of Fictional Event CVTs (Destroyed by, Destroyer, Note, Fictional Calendar Date/Time)? Should it have a Fictional Object Type (like we now have for Fictional Setting)? I am guessing I should just get rid of the date created and date destroyed, especially for objects from a universe that has it's own unique calendar (Star Wars, LoTR, Dune, etc.).

Considering the difficulty of modeling fictional dates, I'd say we could omit the date properties altogether, and go with two properties (rather than a CVT) for destruction: Destroyer and Destroyed By (Dumbledore and Gryffindor's Sword, respectively).

+1 for fictional object type. 

+1 for non-CVT Destroyer and Destroyed By. CVTs make everything difficult.

I think two new return types are warranted here: Fictional Object Destroyer (Dumbledore) and...what to call the second, something like Fictional Object Destruction Method (Gryffindor's Sword)?

Will this be what yer looking for? (I really wish we just we could add a Fictional flag for all existing types so we wouldn't end up replicating most of the types, just flag the data entered as Fictional and it would not display in the standard commons but in a fictional commons and possibly display in a grey text on topic pages with a fictional text prominent).

Ah, well. Here it be, as a test on sandbox: Fictional Organization Founder.

Simple stuff: no documentation on the properties. IMO, that automatically means it's not suitable for promotion.

More generally, I think this type should just be including fictional setting, rather than duplicating properties from it (or are they delegated? I couldn't tell from the schema view). At that stage, it's now got no properties of its own and I wonder if it would be better implemented as a new property of "setting type" which can take values "planet", "country", etc rather than as a type of its own. The phylogeny pattern used by fictional setting seems to me to be the right way to model this, rather than producing a heirarchy of types for "fictional planet", "fictional country", "fictional region", etc.

Any views?

Adding a "Setting Type" property on the fictional setting type in which one can choose "Planet", "Country", etc is a good idea for me.
Since my main concern was to be able for someone to efficiently have a good view of a set of fictional planets, this works!
Thanks for your ideas!

Looking forward to sort out the planets from the 'fictional setting' soon,
-Metapsyche

Yay! Thank you!
I now tried putting "Planet" to the "Setting Type" on several items. It felt kinda weird at first when putting a "real" thing (Planet) to a fictional setting but then I got a hang of it later. Seems the line between the real and imaginary is blurred when dealing with Exoplanets, heh!
And so, using the planet type as a "hook",  i was able to create a table/view of fictional exoplanets and added it to the Exoplanetology base just for fun: http://www.freebase.com/view/base/exoplanetology/views/fictional_planets

Please do let me know any of your thoughts! Thanks and happy weekend!

Regards,
metapsyche 

Personally (and I stress personally because it's by no means any kind of standard), I think it makes sense to use the better known name as the name of a topic. I apply this principle to real people as well as fictional characters. Additional names can always be added as topic aliases ("also known as").

There's a practical side to it. People are more likely to talk about (and search for) "Spider-Man", "Mark Twain", and "Sting" by these names, than by the lesser known "Peter Parker", " Samuel Clemens", and "Gordon Sumner". There's less information associated with the lesser known names. As an unfair example, I just searched for music on Amazon using "Gordon Sumner", and not surprisingly none of Sting's well-known albums showed up.

IMO, all egos deserve their own topic pages. How about something like an identity type with an alter ego property that links multiple identities? "Primary identity" would then be determined through other properties and the purpose of the declaration. This would allow Batman to have properties that are distinct from those of Bruce Wayne but they are still linked through an informative property.

Batman is a good case. Many of his story lines focus on whether Batman or Bruce Wayne is the primary identity. Both could be considered "secret identities". One is a caped crusader, the other is a public figure and never the 'tween shall meet (except in the Bat Cave, which is neutral ground). 

I would not attribute Batman as the owner of Wayne Industries. Whether or not Bruce Wayne could be considered a superhero or detective is a matter of debate.

On the flip side, citizens of Gotham are curious about the secret identity of Batman and they don't know to be curious about a secret identity of Bruce Wayne. 

Sting is an interesting case.. I don't really see Sting as an alter ego of Gordon Sumner. Sting is just a pseudonym/alias. Compare that situation to the acting roles that Sting/Sumner has played in film and television.

There are some superheroes that have multiple “primary identities”, and some “primary identities” have donned the costumes of multiple superheroes. Does the model handle those cases? It sort of does but not that well. See Batman vs Batman vs. Batman. Maybe addressing these situations could help refine the model.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "an identity type with an alter ego property that links multiple identities" essentially what duck1123's types do?

One "primary identity" with multiple superhero identities seems pretty straightforward: see Barbara Gordon. But the more complicated issue is when one superhero identity is assumed by multiple people. Is the Batman of "Batman Beyond" (Bruce Wayne's son in that continuity) really the same as the original Batman? And is either the same as the Batman persona assumed by Jean-Paul Valley while Batman/Wayne was temporarily out of commission?

The question of alternate-Earth Batmen seems more straightforward -- different characters with different alternate identities. So the alternate Batmen would have alternate identies of Earth-One Bruce Wayne and Earth-Two Bruce Wayne as appropriate.

I agree that pseudonyms are different than this. I think Faye's suggestion was simply that common use should determine the topic name, which I think is the right answer if we use the simpler model. But I'm inclined toward the alteregos model if we think it can work.

duck1123's types sort of do this but their names have are somewhat subjective (e.g., "primary") and therefore not as useful as they could be. Also see the third linked Batman topic. That redundant topic has an "Alternate persona" type that contains info that should really be linked to the first Batman topic but can't because that one is attributed with Bruce Wayne characteristics.

I prefer the way that Barbara Gordon is described compared to the way that Batman is described. For the most part, Barbara Gordon is a character that is distinct from Catwoman and Oracle but linked to them through alternate identies.  I would just rename "Primary identity" to "Identity". 

Primary identity is important in terms of who is most commonly associated with the other identity. There should be a way to distinquish that Bruce Wayne is the primary identity of Batman and not Jean-Paul Valley. However, that info  may be better pulled from the data in terms of # of story lines or similar value.  For example, who is the primary identity of Witchblade throughout history?

It's a bit of a judgement call, well known (ie fictional works that have inspired a myriad of fan-fiction and/or authorized novelizations of cannon-based/non-canon storylines) tend to have a topic instance already in existence...Firefly might have an existing 'verse but I couldn't find that Brazil has one.

 One could mark the Brazil topic for a split or better yet we can remove the fictional universe type association as it seems to have little value at this time.

 The Simpsons topic is based originally upon a Wikipedia article that is about the TV show, history, cultural impact other media, etc...It almost is a universe topic, just heavily weighted towards the TV series aspect. It can easily be marked as a split, but as is, it could remain a multi-typed topic.