Discussions on Pets
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I'm not sure that having "organism classification" as an included type for Dog Breed makes sense -- I don't think that dog breeds are considered to be taxonimically distinct from one another.
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Depends on your taxonomy. I don't personally have a problem with it because IMO "Organism classification" should be a generic type that is co-typed with a particular taxonomy type. However, Freebase currently seems to only give credence to ITIS. According to the ITIS documentation:
"Ranks in the animal kingdom below subspecies will not be included in ITIS regardless of their occasional inclusion in datasets, as these ranks are not allowed under the zoological code. The botanical code allows the ranks variety, subvariety, forma, and subforma."
Also worth noting on that page is that:
"ITIS does not intend to serve as a forum for cutting-edge taxonomic classifications. Rather, ITIS is meant to serve as a standard to enable the comparison of biodiversity datasets, and therefore aims to incorporate classifications that have gained broad acceptance in the taxonomic literature and by professionals who work with the taxa concerned."
Therefore, it is useful for taxonomic classifications to be crosswalked to ITIS but there is also reason to maintain other taxonomies. Whether or not this includes dog breeds should be up to the user. Perhaps "Organism classification" should be renamed "ITIS organism classification"?
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I don't know that Freebase only credits ITIS -- we also have NCBI keys, which collect some organisms not in ITIS, but I can't really speak to that. But if there is a taxonomy out there that classifies breeds, then you're right that it would make sense as a co-type. I just didn't think there were any, but it's not really my area of expertise.
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