Freebase: Discussion about thadguidry

Port of Call: Enumerated Type help

2009-11-28T19:19:51.0050Z

I was wondering if topics would need to be created to enumerate properly for those or not.

Seems like a round about way to handle all that, but I understand. ( Is there no alternative way ? )

Yes, I agree about the numerical data type for max vessel size, thanks for pointing that out.

Ok, I'll work on the harbor size, population of topics, and expected types and reciprocal link.

Thanks a million, Tom!

-Thad

Port of Call: Enumerated Type help

2009-11-27T01:06:29.0013Z

I had a quick look and cleaned up a couple of things. The stuff I changed is listed below, but before you commit to this schema, you should probably think about whether size categories are going to serve you best in the long term. They're nice and simple, but if someone changes the boundary between categories in the future or in a different geography, it'll be a real pain. It might be worth considering going with a simple number for maximum vessel size. You could then create filtered views for Medium and Large and a user could come along and create their own view for X-Large with berths of >750 feet. Now's the time to weigh these things because it'll be a lot more difficult than deleting a handful of property values to change the schema once you've got everything populated.

OK, having said that, here's what I did to implement the current schema:

deleted all harbor sizes and max vessel sizes so that the schema could be changed
added types for Vessel Size Category and Harbor Size Category
created two topics of Vessel Size Category called Large vessel and Medium vessel
switched the expected type for the Port of Call Max Vessel Size property from Text to Vessel Size Category

Separately I also created a reciprocal property/link back to Port from Harbor Type. This allows you to get a list of all harbors of a given type when looking at the topic page for that harbor type.

I didn't do the full schema work harbor size. I left that so you'd have something to play with as a learning exercise. You need to:

create topics of type Harbor Size Category with appropriate names. (Give them descriptions with the criteria too, so folks know when to use them).
change the expected type of the Port of Call property Harbor Size to expect the new type (don't forget to create the reciprocal link by going to the Harbor Size type and scrolling down to the bottom of the page)

You'll also need to repopulate the topics with data for these two properties when the changes are complete.

Port of Call: Enumerated Type help

2009-11-25T00:32:48.0010Z

Tom,

I'm having difficulty setting the enumerated type for that particular property of Max Vessel Size. Can you help ? I've added you as alternate administrator.

Let me know and thanks again, Thad

Port of Call: Schema suggestions

2009-11-25T00:20:15.0001Z

AH HA! So that's what enumeration should really be used for. Thanks Tom !!!

The S/M/L is in fact proportional to the length of either over or under 500 feet.

I did in fact add all those help tips on all of the properties. (but I've noticed you have to click the little help ? question mark on the individual little popup box) I wish Freebase would fix that and actually show the help tips with an actual help box as they do in other areas of the site. Maybe they are working on that ?

-Thad

Port of Call: Schema suggestions

2009-11-25T00:14:55.0045Z

Things are looking good here. I'd suggest adding documentation/help to the properties and types so that people who are doing data entry know what is expected. For instance, it wasn't clear to me that max ship size was Small/Medium/Large as opposed to a length. If it's going to stay a short list like that, I'd suggest making it an enumeration so that people can just pick one of the values.

I'll try to review more closely later, but just thought I'd give you some quick feedback on what I'd looked at so far...

Need help on this view

2009-11-24T20:56:43.0013Z

Thanks for your help!

Things are coming along (with several bugs I'm reporting) but so far so good.

Check it out at http://ports.freebase.com

Need help on this view

2009-11-24T18:42:13.0018Z

I'm kind of guessing here (perhaps someone who's actually done it can help out), but I think what you need to do is move your draft type into the new Ports of Call base and then add topics to the view there. To move the type, go to the "Your Types" tab on the left hand side of the home page, select Move in the upper right corner, check the box next to your Port of Call type and select the Ports of Call base in the pull down menu below.

I think you should get a new view related to the type in your base after you've done this. If you go to the view and add topics there, they should show up in the base.

Hopefully a staff member or someone who's actually done this will chime in and clarify the stuff that I'm guessing at if this doesn't work.

Need help on this view

2009-11-24T18:04:02.0001Z

I already have a Ports of Call type defined here... http://www.freebase.com/type/schema/user/thadguidry/default_domain/port_of_call

I can't seem to be able to "attach it" to the ports.freebase.com however, but my reading docs leads me to believe that your supposed to add topics to a particular base. I can't seem to add ANY of my Port of Call topics such as Port of Houston to my Port of Call base.

I am using the web browser and going into the base as an administrator.

Thanks for the help, Thad

Need help on this view

2009-11-24T06:02:41.0024Z

Can you explain what you tried and what results you expected, but didn't get? Are you using the web client at freebase.com or a custom app that reads/writes MQL?

When I look at the Ports of Call base (ports.freebase.com), I see no views defined and no types defined, so I'm not sure where you are looking when you talk about "this view."

A typical workflow would be: - create a base - create some types for the base (each type will end up with a default view/table that contains all topics of that type) - create some customized views which filter things or display on a map or ...

Does that sound similar to what you're trying to do?

Need help on this view

2009-11-24T04:51:09.0005Z

I am just learning bases and trying to get some of my ports of call topics loaded into this view. For some reason, none show. Tried adding Port of Houston and Port of Montréal

Can someone help explain ?

-THAD

thadguidry: Montreal Port Authority

2009-11-24T02:59:44.0014Z

Port of Call is already in the making. I'm beginning to gather properties from both US and International Maritime aspects, so it should be rather complete once I'm done. I am leaving out the overlap from Harbours (Engineering) since that is a slightly different base, but certainly linkable once that author puts more thought into his.

Regarding Port of Montreal , I agree that simply a Board of Directors doesn't equate to a Company, but those other properties are useful in regards to data and statistics of the business / organization that is Port of Montreal and others as I work through them. I'll have to perhaps move this conversation over to the Data Modeling email thread and ask there as I build up the use case for these Port Authorities.

Did you have some specific thoughts as to any of the Company properties that would NOT fit well for Ports ? I only saw the COMPANY type for the business commons as was going to use that.

All ears and toes, -THAD

thadguidry: Montreal Port Authority

2009-11-24T00:33:03.0014Z

Thank you for your thoroughness! It is great to see others that take this so seriously :)

I'm not sure if Freebase has a standard, clear definition of what a Company is. I'm not convinced that having a Board of Directors is enough, esp if the Board is solely comprised of state politicians/employees (they "report to" the government not shareholders, partners, etc). There is good reason these types of entities are called quasi-government (or quasi-corporate).

I'm trying to figure out if they deserve their own Type to show the quasi- bits. If we, Freebase as a whole, decide to stay with Companies, then at the very least they deserve a separate entry in Legal structure.

As for Ports - there should be a separate Port Type so it can capture port-specific data. If there isn't one already, you should create one!

thadguidry: Montreal Port Authority

2009-11-23T23:07:43.0035Z

Thanks for trying to be thorough, along with me. Your assumptions however are partly true, but...

The MPA finances all of its own projects, and does not receive any form of public funding. It was a public corporation setup by the Canada Marine Act. It does have an elected board of directors that are chosen at the different levels of Canada's government (elected officials in a way, but some do keep their day jobs as businessmen/women), but then autonomously chooses it's own chairman. Not in the least unlike any public corporation such as the over 1,000 created by New York State. (I plan to fill in the board of directors and other company data sometime in the next few weeks)

Secondly, I've already emailed and spoken to Ms. Sylvie Vachon, their president just to make sure of the above.

Thirdly, knowing that not everything can be taken at face value or black and white. I research extensively before committing my volunteer efforts here with Freebase. Case in point, not agreeing with the NGA.MIL lat/lon data provided by the US government and in fact emailing the Montreal Port Authority's head operations coordinator, Stephen Masters who has corrected it with 45 degrees 30'N and 73 degrees 33'W using his own maritime charts at the authority and GPS at Terminal 1, which reconciled (closely) with Google Earth's Data points, btw.

I plan to be very extensive, complete, & thorough as I begin to fill in the World Port Data & schemes, so I'm glad you asked about this, and I hope that you can provide more input as I go along. (Just for Montreal Port Authority alone, I spent over 5 hours of research, not counting their AIS datastream inspection along with IMO regulations, plans, etc. I'm just getting started.)

My primary concern is to have place holders for all the data that I'm assimilating. The Government Agency type in this case only partly fills a big void when it concerns Port Data. What will be most useful, and what I'm ultimately trying to model, is bring very complete data facts and statistics for Ports and the Authorities/Agencies/Companies that are assigned to run them. And the LINKED DATA model suggested by Tim Berners Lee is a part of my furthering motivation.

Thanks for caring, and I look forward to yours and others help!

Thad

thadguidry: Montreal Port Authority

2009-11-23T22:22:26.0013Z

This port authority appears to be a government agency and not a corporation, per their About page. Some authorities are corporations, others government agencies (mostly independent, but still considered an agency). Same with transportation authorities, and other such quasi-government agencies (they're not all the same, unfortunately!).