Freebase: Discussion about jeff

Electron: Particle type?

2009-12-17T14:23:08.0005Z

Small bump here to keep this moving.

I've added a boolean "Self antiparticle" to the particle type and filled it in appropriately. It's not a perfect solution, but at least it lets us get the data into the graph. Still wondering what to do about the composition of π⁰.

30th Dáil: Members have terms beginning on 14 June 2007

2009-12-17T11:27:40.0013Z

I've changed my mind on this and reverted to the previous dates.

George W. George: Merge request

2009-12-17T09:46:26.0013Z

Select the "Merge with another topic" option from the bottom of the page :-)

George W. George: Merge request

2009-12-17T00:22:04.0005Z

How can I merge these two topics: http://www.freebase.com/view/en/george_w_george http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000012cfa3bf

and what exactly is the difference between these two...what's the word...ah yes: Topics?

Clearly, there are in fact two distinct entities--one has four types and the other has six.

Looks like I unwittingly created a new topic instead of adding to the existing one; I think I initially added a "record" to Rube Goldberg's topic...I think I initially created this article by adding a child to Rube Goldberg's topic. Oops.

Argh. Argh!

Joanna Tuffy: No end date for office

2009-12-17T00:16:40.0013Z

Since the 30th Dáil is still sitting, I've removed the end date.

30th Dáil: Members have terms beginning on 14 June 2007

2009-12-17T00:09:20.0000Z

There was a general election on 24 May 2007 (according to Wikipedia), but the 30th Dáil only started sitting on 14 June 2007 (see e.g. here). So by my understanding, any member elected in this election should have a term starting on 14 June 2007 (e.g. Joanna Tuffy).

Jeffrey Friedman: split

2009-12-16T18:53:17.0000Z

I know - I noted above that I had moved the film credits to the right one. The split process I refer to is to move the relevant keys/ids. Is that not the correct use of the term?

Jeffrey Friedman: split

2009-12-16T18:38:20.0013Z

No need to split, the topic of the right Friedman for the film business is here. Need to get the Entertainment Weekly Key moved to the right Jeff F.

Fictional employment tenure: Allow Multiple titles

2009-12-16T15:40:25.0019Z

Can we either allow a character to have multiple titles, (preferred) or add to/from fields so we can track the progression from one job/title to the next. If adding to/from fields, they would probably need to be typed as my Fictional Date/Time. As that type is not yet in the commons (I think it still needs to be refined) it's probably better to go with the former.

Long Island Press: Long and storied history

2009-12-16T05:16:41.0005Z

I created a placeholder for the other newspaper, Long Island Press and added a link to the Library of Congress' description(s). I'm not sure that Wikipedia's description (cribbed from the current LI Press?) is all that accurate, so you might want to research it a bit more when fleshing things out.

Long Island Press: Long and storied history

2009-12-16T04:58:13.0000Z

So the first thing that's obvious here is that there are two different Long Island Presses. Although Wikipedia distinguishes things mainly by name (thus two separate newspapers covered in the same article), Freebase has no problem with having two different newspapers of the same name, one ending a long run in 1977 and the other adopting the name in the last few years. Conversely, I'd add the various names of the original newspaper as aliases, as long as it was nominally the same paper in continuous existence. There will always be grey areas, so just use your best judgement as to whether something is the same thing with a different name or two different things.

Award category: Ties

2009-12-16T00:21:11.0006Z

Just enter two award honors, one for each winner. See Hugo Award for Best Novel for 1966 for an example.

Award category: Ties

2009-12-16T00:09:56.0015Z

Is there any special technique, or secret trick, that is to be employed when entering an award that is being given twice as a result of a tie?

Fictional Universes: Games "based on" existing works (e.g. films)

2009-12-15T23:09:07.0000Z

I thought about using the Adaptation type too...it would require an uncommon if not unusual interpretation of the word "adaptation". The Lego Star Wars games do follow the films' plot line closely, so I suppose it would make sense. Definitely will cotype with Work of Fiction.

Star Wars: Games "based on" existing works (e.g. films)

2009-12-15T23:09:07.0000Z

Newspaper: Writers; Are writers also employees?

2009-12-15T20:58:40.0005Z

Using the "columnist" type from krsalis's base is a good way to separate columnists from other writers. Any writer (columnist or otherwise) employed by a newspaper can additionally use the Employer relationship.

Newspaper Issue: Newspaper Columnist

2009-12-15T20:38:27.0027Z

That's a nice base -- I hadn't seen that before. It definitely fills a void in the publishing commons.

U.S. Politician: Requested move to commons

2009-12-15T20:07:28.0013Z

This work was completed at the end of September. There are now keys in the /authority namespace for the IDs (although the old keys still work too). Other duplicate keys were merged in, so everything is in a single namespace referenced by the following keys:

/authority/us/gov/congress/bioguide
/authority/us/gov/loc/thomas_id
/base/uspolitician/thomas_id
/user/jamie/sunlight/bioguide_id
/authority/sunlight/bioguide_id

Newspaper Issue: Newspaper Columnist

2009-12-15T19:52:29.0013Z

Hi Daniel,

The current publishing domain does not have a newspaper column type; however, I've started a Columns base, which may be what you're looking for. It will allow you to type a person as a columnist and then link the columnist to the name of his/her column. You may then link the column name to a syndication / wire service (Hearst Syndication?). Take a look at the Columns base at: http://www.freebase.com/view/user/krsalis/columns .You should go ahead and add New York Cavalcade as a new column and link that to Louis Sobol, the columnist. Please post a note if you have any further questions / suggestions. Thanks.

Chris

jeff: Should be a CVT

2009-12-15T18:13:51.0000Z

Oops! Fixed now, thanks.

Long list nomination: Should be a CVT

2009-12-15T18:13:51.0000Z

Oops! Fixed now, thanks.

Dublin Mid West: Politicial district not Governmental Jurisdiction?

2009-12-15T10:28:54.0013Z

I thought so.

I can fix these, but it looks like there's a whole lot of Teachta Dala constituencies which have been similarly mistyped ...

Newspaper Issue: Newspaper Columnist

2009-12-15T08:21:30.0018Z

Louis Sobol was a newspaper columnist, Quoting from his New York Times obituary of February 10, 1986:

Louis Sobol, a Broadway columnist for Hearst newspapers for four decades, died yesterday at Roosevelt Hospital after a long illness. He was 90 years old and lived in Manhattan.
Mr. Sobol wrote ''New York Cavalcade,'' a column that was a chronicle of show business in an era when Broadway still was the center of that industry.

It seems to my (very inexperienced) eyes that the Author type hasn't been created with newspaper columnists in mind.

Is there an alternative type that should be used for Newspaper Columnists or should we Author be adjusted to accommodate newspaper columnists?

Fictional Universes: Games "based on" existing works (e.g. films)

2009-12-15T08:15:39.0013Z

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.

Star Wars: Games "based on" existing works (e.g. films)

2009-12-15T08:15:39.0013Z

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

jeff: Should be a CVT

2009-12-15T08:05:05.0013Z

I think the Long list nomination type should be a CVT.

Long list nomination: Should be a CVT

2009-12-15T08:05:05.0013Z

I think the Long list nomination type should be a CVT.

Long Island Press: Long and storied history

2009-12-15T07:50:44.0018Z

The Long Island Press has a long and storied history that is missing here.

Any suggestions on how to record it?

Quoting the current wikipedia article: The Long Island Press was the name of a daily newspaper that lasted for 156 years. It was originally known as the Long Island Farmer which was founded in the 1840's. The paper changed its name to the The Long Island Daily Press in the 1920s, and then became simply Long Island Press in 1967. The Sunday edition bore the name Long Island Sunday Press. Both editions used a broadsheet format. It became known as the only New York paper to report on local government scandals until an extended strike by the Printing Pressmen's union forced the paper to go out of business on March 25, 1977[2]. Regular columnists included Walter Kaner.

How should this history, which includes multiple first issues be entered?

Newspaper: Writers; Are writers also employees?

2009-12-15T07:31:44.0018Z

Is there a standard way to add writers to a Newspaper Type?

Should I follow the instructions for Editors?

Should we also follow this methodology for columnists as well?

If I am correct when I say that a writer is someone who from time to time has articles published under their name, while a columnist is employed by the newspaper to produce a regular product, then should we make a distinction with another type?

O Jong Ae: Split Person from Olympic Event

2009-12-15T06:40:25.0018Z

Somehow a person and an Olympic event got merged. They need to be split back out.

Degree: A.M. and other names for a Master of Arts...

2009-12-15T06:24:04.0005Z

Also beware that there are semantically different Master of Arts degrees, which should be separate topics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Arts_(disambiguation)

Fictional Universes: Games "based on" existing works (e.g. films)

2009-12-15T00:45:51.0005Z

Hi,

How should I use to link a video game that either exists within the realm of or extends that of an existing work, such as a film? For example, I would like to say that the Lego Star Wars game series is derived from the Star Wars films, and is a part of the Star Wars franchise. There are several Franchise types but none pertains to video games. There's also Consumer Product with property Product Line that can probably be used to link books and films and games and toys of the same theme together.

Another possibility is to use Fictional Universe to indicate that a game is defined within a fictional universe. However, some fandoms are quite sensitive about Canon vs. Expanded Universe. Video games can be problematic when it comes to continuity.

Suggestions?

Star Wars: Games "based on" existing works (e.g. films)

2009-12-15T00:45:51.0005Z

Hi,

Suggestions?

Degree: A.M. and other names for a Master of Arts...

2009-12-14T22:30:23.0013Z

I agree that the reference to the degree should be as it was awarded, but unfortunately there's no way to do that currently with Freebase. The link is symbolic and the name at the end of the link is used universally for all occurrences so you can't have Artium Magister one place and Master of Arts another. The are occasional places in the schema where the actual value is preserved (Book Edition "credited as" for authors comes to mind), but when a literal string is used like that you lose the power of the symbolic connection. There isn't yet a good way to have your cake and eat it too.

Awards: Submissions

2009-12-14T21:31:29.0013Z

I've created a property and types for long-lists now. I think it should work pretty well. Let me know if anything's missing or needs to be clearer.

Degree: A.M. and other names for a Master of Arts...

2009-12-14T21:24:29.0000Z

The standard practice in Freebase is not to create multiple topics for things that are identical except in name, so the practice with degrees has always been to use the same degree topic, no matter how called by the granting institution at the time. Thus degrees of "Artium Magister", "Master of Arts", and "M.A." are all represented by http://www.freebase.com/view/en/master_of_arts. Or, in other words, the name isn't as important as what it represents. Hence, there is also some variability on how the degree topics themselves are named, based on whatever the user who created (or renamed) the topic entered. (E.g, Bachelor of Arts vs M.A.) I'd personally support expanding the names, since it's less ambiguous that way, but as long as aliases are entered for variants, they'll still show up for autocompletion and reconciliation, which is the most important thing.

Degree: A.M. and other names for a Master of Arts...

2009-12-14T21:01:23.0013Z

Some institutions use, or have used "the Latin degree names, such as Artium Magister (AM) or Scientiæ Magister (SM)." Though the wikipedia gives examples of institutions that currently use these names, "Harvard University, the University of Chicago, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania use the degree abbreviations A.M. and S.M. for some of their master's degrees." it does not say what institutions have used them in the past.

I suspect that the use of such names was much more popular in the past and many bio's list degrees as such.

See, for example: http://www.freebase.com/edit/topic/en/john_erskine_1879

My question--yes, there is a question--is: how should degree information be entered?

As awarded, or as known today? I think it should be as awarded, but I'd like to see a mapping to the current nomenclature, which I suspect exists, but I can't see in action.

Additionally, I'd like to see more discussion of this in the help text, right now it just says to enter info about the degree: http://rookery5.aviary.com/storagev12/2678000/2678399_95c4_625x625.jpg

It should give instructions as to how to enter the degree: In the original form. In fully qualified format and not an abbreviation. ...and other stuff

Dublin Mid West: Politicial district not Governmental Jurisdiction?

2009-12-14T19:29:47.0013Z

Yes, that's correct -- districts aren't usually going to be jurisdictions, and definitely not in this case. Unfortunately, we can't set up an automatic rule to detect this sort of thing because some "districts" are also jurisdictions -- US states function as the "district" for US senators, for example.

Country: Incorrect ID

2009-12-14T15:11:19.0013Z

Thanks for the clear explanation!

I understand that each URI is really just a GUID of sorts, and the data works fine when requested by that name. It just looked erroneous to be using that one as the primary ID when I queried for http://rdf.freebase.com/rdf/music.genre . It was an odd one out. I was a bit concerned that something with a UserID in the path may be sandbox data rather than canonic. Is there a way to promote http://www.freebase.com/view/en/country_music to being the 'preferred' or primary ID? ... Or not ... I see that is actually meaning a specific album name :-( . Dang.

FYI, the issue is: I'm testing a facility to import and reference shared vocabularies, and was planning to use the supplied URI/GUIDs as a primary key in an internal RDF triplestore. (Maybe I shouldn't do that, and just internalize the sameAs relations)

The given URI will still work (thanks for clearing that up) but just looked out of place in the diagnostic logs I was seeing. Partially (my fault) because my code is using the key found at the end of an URL as a temporary name for placeholder topics that haven't been individually fully retrieved yet. This is an ugly short-cut, but was returning sane results most of the time. My data queue listed : [ ... pop_music, trance_music, 00b3-10cd, breakbeat, black_metal ... ] ... I'll eventually be able to resolve that as I get the preferred name I guess. Just something to know! Thanks again. I think I'll be able to work with this..

Country: Incorrect ID

2009-12-14T14:08:44.0013Z

This is entirely expected. Each entity in Freebase can be referred to either by its GUID, or by an arbitrary number (possibly zero) of other IDs; there's then an algorithm which chooses the "primary" ID for each topic. Put simply, this algorithm chooses the shortest ID from the ones available, or uses the GUID if none exist.

In this case, the topic had not been assigned another ID (note that both /en/country and /en/country_music are used elsewhere), so when it was given an ID in Arthur's personal namespace, it started using that as its primary ID. However, nothing has changed here: you can still refer to this topic by its GUID or even by a number of Wikipedia keys, or even by its Wikipedia numeric article ID if you want. (The /wikipedia keys are never allowed to become the primary ID for a topic, which is why you weren't seeing those before). In the same way, you'll see raw GUIDs for any topics which don't have any other ID set.

Is this change of primary ID causing you a problem?

Country: Incorrect ID

2009-12-14T13:07:16.0014Z

Something has happened to this topic (Country Music). When the ID /user/avh/ellerdale.00b3-10cd was added to it, it seems to have taken over the identity of this resource. Now listings that include the concept of 'Country Music" Now instead include the concept of this odd User-defined Id

eg http://rdf.freebase.com/rdf/music.genre http://rdf.freebase.com/ns/type.type.instance [ http://rdf.freebase.com/ns/en.pop_music. http://rdf.freebase.com/ns/en.trance_music. http://rdf.freebase.com/ns/user.avh.ellerdale.00b3-10cd. http://rdf.freebase.com/ns/en.breakbeat. http://rdf.freebase.com/ns/en.black_metal ]

I can see when the erroneous ID was added http://www.freebase.com/history/view/user/avh/ellerdale/00b3-10cd But I can't see how to undo it.

I'm spotting a few other oddities (raw GUDs) in instances under music.genre as well.

Dublin Mid West: Politicial district not Governmental Jurisdiction?

2009-12-14T10:19:16.0019Z

Shouldn't Dublin Mid West be just a political district rather than a governmental jurisdiction? For example, Joanna Tuffy should have "Dublin Mid West" as her political district if (as I assume) she was elected in this constituency; to have this topic as her jurisdiction implies that she can only pass laws applying to Dublin Mid West.

jeff: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-12T12:02:58.0030Z

I'd really rather not end up with two properties to determine who worked where when: that's just going to make the life of anybody searching for data that much harder. I know it's not perfect, but how about just setting "start end" and "end date" to the year in question?

Employment tenure: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-12T12:02:58.0030Z

jeff: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-12T00:00:05.0004Z

Well, here it is -- not so enlightening after all. The main issue, schema-wise, is that the same problem potentially exists for all types with a date range, and is related to the perennial "circa" problem with single dates.

Employment tenure: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-12T00:00:05.0004Z

jeff: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-11T23:37:39.0047Z

But the admins are always open to suggestions for improvements! The best place to make the suggestion is on the discussion board for the type in question.

On the larger question of known good dates, I'm pretty sure this has come up before. Let me see if I can find the old discussions, in case they shed any light on the issue.

Employment tenure: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-11T23:37:39.0047Z

But the admins are always open to suggestions for improvements! The best place to make the suggestion is on the discussion board for the type in question.

On the larger question of known good dates, I'm pretty sure this has come up before. Let me see if I can find the old discussions, in case they shed any light on the issue.

jeff: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-11T22:47:29.0026Z

Spencer: I thought you were in Toronto? If so, I am in fact planning to be there in February and was going to talk to you about having a Freebase meetup while I'm there. It would probably be during the week starting Feb 8th.

Employment tenure: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-11T22:47:29.0026Z

jeff: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-11T22:38:25.0029Z

welcome to freebase dan~ the pink stuff comes from the schema documentation, which in the case of /people/person is locked with admin permissions so its only possible to improve documentation for types that you've created yourself... frustrating i know, because schema builders don't always properly document things. @workshop - lucky! those guys never seem to travel up to northern Ontario....

Employment tenure: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-11T22:38:25.0029Z

jeff: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-11T22:03:34.0009Z

...could also just name it During.

@ this point I am just getting my feet wet with FB (what's the preferred acronym that avoids confusion with Facebook?); Yesterday I attended the New York Freebase Workshop http://wiki.freebase.com/wiki/Freebase_Workshop_NYC_2009 where I met: Robert Cook, Jamie Taylor, and Will Moffat

Alas, I am currently doing my edits by hand and I am not a possessor of a large data-set with Freebase Potential...@ least not anything obvious, yet.

Here's a new question: Where can I suggest, or edit, the Help Text that displayed when you click on the (?) button...here's a link to a screengrab: http://aviary.com/artists/dme212/creations/freebase_helptext

--Dan

Employment tenure: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-11T22:03:34.0009Z

...could also just name it During.

Alas, I am currently doing my edits by hand and I am not a possessor of a large data-set with Freebase Potential...@ least not anything obvious, yet.

--Dan

jeff: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-11T21:34:49.0034Z

i like this idea. we could just hide the property. (cc-ing jeff) do you have much data?

Employment tenure: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-11T21:34:49.0034Z

i like this idea. we could just hide the property. (cc-ing jeff) do you have much data?

Jeffrey Friedman: split

2009-12-11T21:03:02.0017Z

I moved the film credits to the correct Jeffrey Friedman and removed those tyoes - the film credit related ID's still need to be moved.

jeff: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-11T20:45:35.0031Z

Currently, Employment Tenure is defined by two dates that connote the start and end of the tenure. I would like to be able to add supporting data to what is an unknown tenure that would assist future contributors. I suggest that we add a field called KnownToBeInPositionDuring. In this manner I could add a year that I believe someone held a position, but was not necessarily the first, or last, year of their employment. Alternatively we could always resort to the handy-dandy multi-purpose field name that is suitable for just about every occasion: Notes.

Employment tenure: Employment Tenure...variation of?

2009-12-11T20:45:35.0031Z

Electron: Particle type?

2009-12-07T22:12:10.0022Z

Phil: Ahh, I see. There is no way to make a model like that which will work in the client. MQL doesn't care about nested CVTs, but the client balks at them.

Electron: Particle type?

2009-12-06T18:40:32.0008Z

Jeff: composition is already non-unique. Ideally, what I'd like to end up with is something like the structure pictured here, but none of the "xxx" nodes make sense to be topics themselves.

Electron: Particle type?

2009-12-05T11:00:08.0020Z

I've deleted particle statistical family and group - the particle type is looking nice and clean now.

For π⁰, I guess we could have a formula (i.e. text) similar to a chemical compound formula, but then we lose the linkage to the quarks it makes up. Otherwise I think we'll have to leave composition of π⁰ etc and self antiparticles as open questions for now.

Another question: why doesn't the Browse view for an Electron display its particle properties?

Electron: Particle type?

2009-12-04T18:37:21.0013Z

Composition of π⁰: Could composition be non-unique, and defined as "possible compositions"?

Electron: Particle type?

2009-12-04T12:05:57.0011Z

I've added particle family to the particle type so I think we can now drop particle statistical family and group. I've also engaged in some property reciprocation.

Self antiparticles: ugh. The double links solution is pretty horrible. The only other solution I can think of would be to have a "self antiparticle" boolean, but that's probably even worse.

Composition of π⁰: in slight handwaving terms, the π⁰ can be thought of as alternating between being composed of (an up quark and an up antiquark) and (a down quark and a down antiquark), but never (an up quark and a down antiquark) or any of the other combinations. The only ways I can see to model this either end up with CVTs inside CVTs or creating a topic for something like "composition of the π⁰".

Spin: yeah, I screwed up the pion spins. Good catch. Now fixed, I think.

Electron: Particle type?

2009-12-04T00:49:03.0013Z

I like the hadron type!

I've changed spin to float and updated the spins that were already entered in (note: Wikipedia says pions have zero spin? also, should spins be negative?). I'll start moving types from my base to the new base soon.

Electron: Particle type?

2009-12-03T18:48:31.0031Z

Self antiparticles: There isn't a way to set a particle to be its own antiparticle using a sibling-relationship CVT -- the CVT has only one property to hold both particles, and you cannot enter the same topic as a value for a property more than one time. The only work-around would be to use something that resembled a phylogeny pattern, with two linked properties "antiparticle" and "antiparticle of". This is kind of ugly, but would handle the π⁰ case. The problem with this pattern is that you have to enter all the relationships in twice for all particles that aren't antiparticles of themselves -- once in the "antiparticle" property, and once in "antiparticle of".

Composition of π⁰: I'm not sure what "linear combination of (up-antiup) and (down-antidown)" means, but I can see in Wikipedia's list of mesons that there are several mesons with similarly complex compositions.

Uncertainties: we can do this -- see how we handled it for atomic masses.

Spin: Agreed -- let's make it just be a float for the particles. We can refactor the Particle Spin type separately.

Electron: Particle type?

2009-12-03T13:07:45.0013Z

More from me... it doesn't at the moment to seem possible to set a particle to be its own antiparticle (try it with the π⁰). Any thoughts on a way round this one?

Also, we need to find a way to model the composition of the π⁰, which is a linear combination of (up-antiup) and (down-antidown).

I'll shut up for a bit now and let other people get a word in edgeways :-)

Electron: Particle type?

2009-12-03T10:14:50.0012Z

Two more thoughts from the way to work: do we want to include uncertainties on properties like mass, etc? Also, I created a hadron type to model the composition of baryons and mesons.