Re: Itemprop for person

I think it's a critical distinction, particularly given the plethora of fanfic out there. This is only increasing - publishing houses are seriously investing in "farm teams" of self-published fanfic. (S&S has a series similar to "50 Shades" coming out Penguin has bought Author Solutions and invested heavily in BookCountry.) So I see a growing need to designate fictional characters (which will be assigned ISNIs as well), rather than it being a special case. We are thinking about this a lot at Bowker, as a registration agent for ISNI.

Regarding two authors writing under a single name - I agree with Richard that this is rare. We haven't seen too much of this with our ISNI work.

On Nov 12, 2012, at 11:31 AM, Richard Wallis <richard.wallis@oclc.org> wrote:

> I think that 'better description', which should lead to better discovery, is the key to much of what we are about in this group.
> 
> To your broader points, I would suggest that the main use for a fictional Person would be in an ‘about’ relationship with a CreativeWork.   A pseudonym is not a fictional person, it is a real Person with more than one name, so the Person (with an author relationship to the CreativeWork with the name “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”) would have two name attributes “Samuel Langhorne Clemens” and “Mark Twain”. 
> 
> Two authors writing under a single name has me stumped at the moment, and I think we would have difficulty in convincing the Schema.org folks to make changes to cope with such an edge case.  Perhaps we should default to describing them as a Person with an explanatory note as a description (not liking that I have just said that.)
> 
> ~Richard. 
> 
> 
> On 09/11/2012 19:58, "Owen Stephens" <owen@ostephens.com> wrote:
> 
>> Not to mention fictional representations of real people in literature, film etc.
>> 
>> I understand the desire to label characters/organisations as fictional, but I'm not clear what the use case is? What are we trying to enable with this apart from 'better description'?
>> 
>> Owen
>> 
>> Owen Stephens
>> Owen Stephens Consulting
>> Web: http://www.ostephens.com
>> Email: owen@ostephens.com
>> Telephone: 0121 288 6936
>> 
>> On 9 Nov 2012, at 21:25, Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
>> 
>>> The "fictional" category here is a bit ambiguous, if I interpret this discussion correctly. There are characters that appear in fiction (Sherlock Holmes); there are named personae that represent a person, such as pseudonyms ("Mark Twain"), and there are also personae that are not 1-to-1 with a person, such as two or more authors who write together under a single personal name. The former is fictional, the latter two are real. To my knowledge, library cataloging treats these two cases, invented fictional characters and personae that function as creators, as two different things. Only one of these is an Agent in the sense of dc:creator.
>>> 
>>> Finding a bright line to separate these two types of "persons" is not easy. Film librarians have told me that users expect to find "Mickey Mouse" or "Nemo" in the same way that they would find the names of actors in a film. And the "Lassie" example is a real poser since Lassie was both a character but also the "actor" in the films. Library cataloging only treats the fictional characters as subject headings (and topical, not personal subject headings).
>>> 
>>> I think one needs to follow the example of FOAF and say that if someone gives it a personal name then it is a person. That's the reverse of what has been the main approach so far, which is "if it's a person, then code it as a personal name."
>>> 
>>> kc
>>> 
>>> On 11/8/12 1:29 PM, Richard Wallis wrote:
>>>> Assuming that you define a ghost as a Person, yes.
>>>> 
>>>> Presuming that we lobbied successfully to add a Boolean 'isFictional'
>>>> property to the Schema.org <http://Schema.org>  Thing class any other class that inherits from
>>>> Thing could use it.
>>>> 
>>>> Check out the description of the Person class <http://schema.org/Person> 'A
>>>> person (alive, dead, undead, or fictional).' and you will see the five
>>>> properties inherited from Thing listed at the top.
>>>> 
>>>> ~Richard.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On 08/11/2012 16:17, "Pilsk, Suzanne" <PilskS@si.edu> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> This is the discussion that goes on in the library cataloging standards group
>>>>> - that crops up when a new batch of catalogers are trained and are surprised
>>>>> by the "rules".
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Casper the friendly ghost - fictional to some, a real ghost to others.
>>>>> Lassie - the dog - a real dog - actually played by multiple canines.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I like the idea of a person is a person who is fictional vs taking a "fake
>>>>> personality" and making it a "thing".
>>>>> 
>>>>> We have a linked data project in the works with FAKE Botanists.
>>>>> 
>>>>> So Richard, are you saying it would be person (is fictional) - under "Thing"?
>>>>> 
>>>>> Suzanne
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Suzanne C. Pilsk
>>>>> Head, Metadata Unit
>>>>> Smithsonian Institution Libraries
>>>>> Connecting. Ideas. Information. You.
>>>>> 10th & Constitution Avenues, NW, NH2207
>>>>> MRC 154, P.O. Box 37012
>>>>> Washington, DC 20013-7012
>>>>> v. 202.633.1646
>>>>> PilskS@si.edu
>>>>> Please consider the environment before printing this email.
>>>>> 
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: Richard Wallis [mailto:richard.wallis@oclc.org]
>>>>> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 4:15 PM
>>>>> To: Dawson, Laura; public-schemabibex@w3.org
>>>>> Subject: Re: Itemprop for person
>>>>> 
>>>>> In the Schema.org world the 'Thing' class is what every other class inherits
>>>>> properties from, so a Person, an Organization, a Book, a Product, are all
>>>>> Things.
>>>>> 
>>>>> ~Richard.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 08/11/2012 16:12, "Dawson, Laura" <Laura.Dawson@bowker.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Is a fictional character a person or a thing?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Oooh, philosophy! "What is the nature of a thing?"
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Laura Dawson
>>>>>> Product Manager, Identifiers
>>>>>> Bowker
>>>>>> laura.dawson@bowker.com
>>>>>> ________________________________________
>>>>>> From: Richard Wallis [richard.wallis@oclc.org]
>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 4:07 PM
>>>>>> To: Dawson, Laura; public-schemabibex@w3.org
>>>>>> Subject: Re: Itemprop for person
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The more I think about it, the more inclined I am to suggest that this
>>>>>> is a suggested new property for 'Thing' - most any type of thing you
>>>>>> describe could be fictional.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ~Richard
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 08/11/2012 15:55, "Dawson, Laura" <Laura.Dawson@bowker.com> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I like this very much!
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Laura Dawson
>>>>>>> Product Manager, Identifiers
>>>>>>> Bowker
>>>>>>> laura.dawson@bowker.com
>>>>>>> ________________________________________
>>>>>>> From: Richard Wallis [richard.wallis@oclc.org]
>>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 3:48 PM
>>>>>>> To: Dawson, Laura; public-schemabibex@w3.org
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: Itemprop for person
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Interesting thought ­ also applicable for Organization (such as
>>>>>>> Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> ~Richard.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On 08/11/2012 15:35, "Dawson, Laura" <Laura.Dawson@bowker.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Could we possibly add an ³isfictional² tag? To identify characters
>>>>>>> (such as Sherlock Holmes)? Some fictional characters will eventually
>>>>>>> have ISNIs and we¹ll need to structure data around them.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Laura Dawson
>>>>>>> Product Manager, Identifiers
>>>>>>> Bowker
>>>>>>> Land: (908) 219-0082
>>>>>>> Cell: (917) 770-6641
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 




LAURA DAWSON
ljndawson@gmail.com

"Replicants are like any other machine. They're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, it's not my problem." - Deckard, "Blade Runner"