Re: Historical events

Hello Allison, hello all,

Thank you Allison for clarifying that an HistoricalEvent is not just any 
old Event in the past but an Event of historical significance. That was 
my understanding, and I think it addresses some of the objections raised 
earlier about being able to computer whether an event has passed. 
Perhaps Historic 
<https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/historic-or-historical> Event 
might be a better name (but I'm not going argue word-meanings with an 
English professor!)

(Like Owen) I am not convinced about Occurrence, or the interpretation 
of Event as being distinct from Occurance in that it is planned.  Cannot 
HistoricEvents be planned? Enthronements are.

On the properties of Occurence/Occurrent 
<https://sdo-occurrent.appspot.com/Occurrent> listed on appspot, the 
property HistoricalPeriod would work equally as a subtype, or a Type in 
its own right (and intagible), that could be used to provide information 
about HistoricalEvents, e.g.

<Long20thCent> a <HistoricalPeriod>.
<WW2> a <HistoricalEvent>.
<WW2> happenedDuring <Long20thCent>.

So, my inclination is toward the second of your options: 
Historic[al]Event as a subtype of Event (with clarified definition), 
plus HistoricalPeriod as a new type, possibly a subtype of Intangible.

I think we could look at how terms from other well-defined ontologies 
might be used with HistoricalEvent and HistoricalPeriod.

Hope this helps, Phil

On 14/06/18 05:16, Muri, Allison wrote:
> Hello, to all who have been commenting on this question. I have been 
> following with great interest whenever I can.
>
> I have tried two different approaches for what I originally called 
> historical events. I know I’ve got some things not quite right, but 
> the links below offer preliminary sketches with just a couple 
> examples. I’m leaning toward a new class, Occurrent, as the best 
> solution, because it wouldn’t interfere with the current use of, and 
> assumptions about, Event.
>
> To reiterate, I am not thinking that HistoricalEvent is the same as 
> merely a past event. What I’m thinking about is something that would 
> be of significant value to webmasters whose sites focus on history, 
> cultural history, natural history, literary history, literature, 
> diaries (e.g. the Diary of Anne Frank), news, political commentary, etc.
>
>
> https://sdo-occurrent.appspot.com separates Event and Occurrence into 
> their own classes, as follows:
>
>     *Event: *A planned or scheduled public, social, sporting, or
>     commercial event happening at a certain time and location physical
>     or virtual, such as a concert, lecture, meeting, or festival.
>     Ticketing information may be added via the [[offers]] property.
>     Repeated events may be structured as separate Event objects.
>
>     *Occurrent:* A thing that occurs, happens, or takes place; an
>     incident, especially one of significance.
>
>
>     More specific types for Occurrent would include such things as:
>
>     • ArmedConflict
>     • DiseaseOutbreak
>     • Election
>     • Enthronement
>     • HistoricalEvent
>     • Invention
>     • Investiture
>     • NaturalEvent
>     • PersonalEvent
>     • PoliticalEvent
>
>     I have examples here for Occurrent and HistoricalEvent.
>
>
> https://sdo-historicalevent.appspot.com includes HistoricalEvent as a 
> subclass of Event.
>
>     *Event:* An event happening at a certain time past or future and
>     location physical or virtual, such as a concert, lecture, meeting,
>     festival, or historical event. Ticketing information may be added
>     via the [[offers]] property. Repeated events may be structured as
>     separate Event objects.
>
>
>     Here there would be a somewhat odd jumbled list of more specific
>     types (the list of Properties from Event, which I haven’t started
>     adding, would be confusingly long and wide ranging in this scenario):
>
>     • ArmedConflict
>     • BusinessEvent
>     • ChildrensEvent
>     • ComedyEvent
>     • CourseInstance
>     • DanceEvent
>     • DeliveryEvent
>     • DiseaseOutbreak
>     • EducationEvent
>     • Election
>     • Enthronement
>     • ExhibitionEvent
>     • Festival
>     • FoodEvent
>     • HistoricalEvent
>     • Invention
>     • Investiture
>     • LiteraryEvent
>     • MusicEvent
>     • NaturalEvent
>     • PersonalEvent
>     • PoliticalEvent
>     • PublicationEvent
>     • SaleEvent
>     • ScreeningEvent
>     • SocialEvent
>     • SportsEvent
>     • TheaterEvent
>     • VisualArtsEvent
>
>
>     I have the example here for HistoricalEvent.
>
> One last comment, I was looking at http://schema.org/Corporation for 
> examples and thought it strange that the only example is for 
> http://schema.org/Store. Maybe that’s purposeful, but I was wondering 
> if there is an ommission there?
>
>
> Thoughts? Advice?
>
> - Allison
>
>
>
> On Jun 12, 2018, at 1:55 AM, Martin Hepp <mfhepp@gmail.com 
> <mailto:mfhepp@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> I think that it is problematic to have a subtype "HistoricEvent", 
>> because it will mean that the type for a object will depend on the 
>> temporal context. E.g., a day after a conference is over, it wil 
>> become a HistoricEvent.
>>
>> My feeling is that a lot of confusion stems from the fact that 
>> schema.org <http://schema.org> tries to avoid subclasses as long as 
>> they do not change the processing of respective entities by search 
>> engines. For instance, we do not need a subtype of places as long as 
>> all places are rendered the same way by Google et al.
>>
>> As a consequence, we attach properties that make sense only for some 
>> instances directly to the more abstract classes.
>>
>> This sounds unintuitive if you come from a knowledge engineering 
>> context, but it is actually so by design. A type in schema.org 
>> <http://schema.org> serves as a hookpoint for triggering / grouping 
>> computational operations over the data. If you have no algorithmic 
>> steps that require a certain distinction, then we do not have 
>> respective specializations of a type.
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Martin
>>
>>
>> -----------------------------------
>> martin hepp http://www.heppnetz.de
>> mhepp@computer.org <mailto:mhepp@computer.org>          @mfhepp
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 12 Jun 2018, at 09:08, Muri, Allison <allison.muri@usask.ca 
>>> <mailto:allison.muri@usask.ca>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Many, many thanks to those who have contributed to this interesting 
>>> discussion. I am working on examples for two types: first, 
>>> HistoricalEvent as a subtype of Event. The more I work through this 
>>> as a possibility the more I wonder how usable it would be.  The 
>>> second is Occurrent as a new type. This would have certain 
>>> advantages and disadvantages, just as HistoricalEvent as would 
>>> described above.
>>>
>>> I will add examples tomorrow and then hopefully generate a 
>>> discussion about the value and applicability of 
>>> http://schema.org/Event/HistoricalEvent as subclass of Event versus 
>>> something ttp://schema.org/Event/Occurrent to distinguish between an 
>>> event as is now used for mostly future events, and the following for 
>>> anthying that is an occurrencw the past.
>>>
>>> More to come tomorrow.
>>>
>>> - Alliaon
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jun 4, 2018, at 5:11 AM, Phil Barker <phil.barker@pjjk.co.uk 
>>> <mailto:phil.barker@pjjk.co.uk>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 03/06/18 00:07, Muri, Allison wrote:
>>>>> Maybe this won’t generate much interest, but I have obtained my 
>>>>> own fork of the Schema.org <http://Schema.org> GitHub repository 
>>>>> and also have set up a Google App Engine project to be share it 
>>>>> publicly. I take Phil Barker’s point that one should “first make 
>>>>> sure that schema.org <http://schema.org> is the best vocabulary 
>>>>> for this type of information, e.g. by thinking about use cases 
>>>>> that fall within the scope of its mission.” I really don’t know 
>>>>> the answer to that. Hopefully I can generate more conversations 
>>>>> about this in the future. Thank you, Phil, for the links to 
>>>>> Richard Wallis’ blog posts and videos.
>>>>>
>>>> You're welcome.
>>>>
>>>> This discussion has already lead to a suggested improvement in 
>>>> schema.org <http://schema.org>, so there is clearly some overlap 
>>>> between your interests and its scope. I like Richard's parallel to 
>>>> TouristAttraction.
>>>>
>>>> I think there are also issues around Periods, Events and historical 
>>>> reference points that could be unpicked.
>>>>
>>>>> Regarding “they already know those differences,” I think search 
>>>>> engines would not know that “Ætna groan” in the passage below 
>>>>> refers to the 1669 eruption of Mount Etna, a “NaturalEvent” (as 
>>>>> opposed to a satiric reference to a really firey, angry queen at 
>>>>> her coronation) without markup:
>>>>>
>>>>> Nor with more heavy strokes could Ætna groan,
>>>>> When Vulcan forg’d the Arms for Thetis’ Son.
>>>>>
>>>>> —Poems on Several Subjects, by Stephen Duck (1730)
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This is a good use case. This probably isn't the right forum to go 
>>>> into details of addressing it, but by way of illustrating a point 
>>>> ... [I think you mentioned microdata at one point]
>>>> Nor with more heavy strokes could
>>>>  <span itemprop="mentions" itemscope
>>>>        itemtype="Event"
>>>>        name="1669 eruption of Mount Etna">
>>>>     Ætna groan
>>>>     <link itemprop="sameas" href=
>>>> "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2411998"
>>>>>
>>>>     <meta itemprop="location" content="Mount Etna">
>>>>     <meta itemprop="startDate" content="1669-03-08">
>>>>  <span>,
>>>>
>>>> When Vulcan forg’d the Arms for Thetis’ Son
>>>> Follow the sameas URL and you will see that I cheated, but adding 
>>>> the relevant eruption would be possible, and what I did link to 
>>>> illustrates how machine readable information can be provided beyond 
>>>> the schema.org <http://schema.org> markup. I have been minimal in 
>>>> my description of the event in the inline schema.org 
>>>> <http://schema.org> markup, there could be a lot more there if 
>>>> required/useful.
>>>>
>>>> Phil
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>> Phil Barker. http://people.pjjk.net/phil
>>>> PJJK Limited: technology to enhance learning; information systems 
>>>> for education.
>>>> CETIS LLP: a cooperative consultancy for innovation in education 
>>>> technology.
>>>>
>>>> PJJK Limited is registered in Scotland as a private limited 
>>>> company, number SC569282.
>>>> CETIS is a co-operative limited liability partnership, registered 
>>>> in England number OC399090
>>>>
>>>
>>> ....................................................
>>> Allison Muri
>>> Department of English
>>>
>>> Arts 418
>>> University of Saskatchewan
>>> Saskatoon, SK, Canada
>>> ph: 306.966.5503
>>>
>>
>
> ....................................................
> Allison Muri
> Department of English
>
> Arts 418
> University of Saskatchewan
> Saskatoon, SK, Canada
> ph: 306.966.5503
>

-- 

Phil Barker <https://people.pjjk.net/phil>. http://people.pjjk.net/phil
PJJK Limited <https://www.pjjk.co.uk/>: technology to enhance learning; 
information systems for education.
CETIS LLP <https://www.cetis.org.uk/>: a cooperative consultancy for 
innovation in education technology.

PJJK Limited is registered in Scotland as a private limited company, 
number SC569282.
CETIS is a co-operative limited liability partnership, registered in 
England number OC399090

Received on Thursday, 14 June 2018 11:30:08 UTC