Re: Last Call for Comments ... Re: proposal for updates to http://schema.org/Event

Dan and group,

 

the IPTC has created data structures for events in the news exchange context
- the EventsML-G2 standard [1] for generic events and SportsML-G2 [2] for
sports specific events - and as many web pages showing lists of events are
fed by data from news agencies or other news providers our working groups
went over the changes to the schema.org/Events class proposed by Dan
Brickley [3] and the ESPN/Google proposal of sport (event) data markup [4]
and we have collected these comments:

 

** Overview

- the IPTC supports to have a generic event as super class of any classes
for sport events.

- the generic event class should support all properties which are not
clearly specific to a sports event

- sports event type specific sub classes should reflect the variations of
sport events and provide the specific properties only.

 

1) Comments on the proposed changes of schema.org/Event

 

1.1) on eventStatus: we support adding it. IPTC has already a controlled
vocabulary for that purpose [4] and we would be happy to add the two
proposed terms to it.

 

1.2) on eventCategory: IPTC supports adding this property.

Further EventsML has a more generic property named "subject" to which one
may apply a wide range of categories and therefore we propose to consider to
adopt an additional "about" property as it already exists for the
CreativeWork class with the same semantics.  (Example: Why not to apply a
horse category to the Ascot event? Will help finding it.)

 

1.3) on startDate and endDate: the EventsML-G2 structure for recurring
events follows the iCalendar design - http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5545 -
which is quite sophisticated, we know. However allowing more than one
startDate and endDate might not work either. There is nothing which
explicitly pairs a startDate with an endDate, using only the sequence of
properties for pairing is too open to simple syntax errors.

 

1.4) In addition we propose from the set of the core event properties of
EventsML-G2 to add these two properties:

 

1.4.1) organizer: Person or Organization. The party organizing the event.

 

1.4.2) registration: Text. The how and when to register for the event. Could
also include information about the costs and more.

IPTC adds: a complementary class for e.g. ordering tickets could be added
too.

 

2) Comments on the ESPN/Google sports schema proposal

 

2.1) First the IPTC comments on the proposal as it is [4]

 

2.1.1) on the hierarchy and the properties: a couple of properties of the
proposed Thing > Event > SportsEvent > SportsMatch class are not specific to
a sports match and IPTC proposes to add them to super classes: 


- association (if a property organizer is added to event there is no need
for association), stadium (the Event class already has a location - so why a
stadium at all) to the SportsEvent class

 

- broadcast, ticketsLink, liveStreamLink, timeStatus to the Event class

 

2.1.2) these other proposed properties of SportsMatch are explicitly
supported by IPTC:

series

statusText -- eg. bottom of 6th inning

competitors

previewLink

liveUpdateLink

recapLink

boxScoreLink

periods

 

2.1.3) The IPTC proposed to add these properties from SportsML:

- status: enumeration, -- pre-event, mid-event, post-event, forfeited, etc.

- official: Person. Ensures that the sports match is played according to its
rules.

- award: Thing. A medal, ribbon, placement, or other type of award for the
winner of the match.

 

2.2) The IPTC proposes a modification of the basic design of the ESPN/Google
draft:

The IPTC proposes to:

- enrich the SportsEvent class with the properties proposed for the
SportsMatch (see 2.1.2)

- not to define a SportsMatch class as subclass of SportsEvent to qualify an
event as sports match .

- . but to use the subEvent property of a SportsEvent instance to refer to
an event which is a match in a tournament.

Reason: the IPTC sees only minor differences in the definition of a class
SportsEvent and a class SportsMatch, having both raises ambiguity issues.

 

[1]  <http://www.iptc.org/site/News_Exchange_Formats/EventsML-G2/>
http://www.iptc.org/site/News_Exchange_Formats/EventsML-G2/ 

[2]  <http://www.iptc.org/site/News_Exchange_Formats/SportsML-G2/>
http://www.iptc.org/site/News_Exchange_Formats/SportsML-G2/ 

[3]
<http://www.w3.org/wiki/images/d/dc/Events-proposalforupdatedschema.pdf>
http://www.w3.org/wiki/images/d/dc/Events-proposalforupdatedschema.pdf 

[4]  <http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/Sports>
http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/Sports 

[5]  <http://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/eventoccurstatus/>
http://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/eventoccurstatus/ 

 

Thanks for considering our comments,

and sorry for being a bit late.

 

Michael

 

Michael Steidl

Managing Director of the IPTC [mdirector@iptc.org]

International Press Telecommunications Council 
Web:  <http://www.iptc.org/> www.iptc.org - on Twitter
<http://www.twitter.com/IPTC> @IPTC

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