Re: Planned changes to the VIAF RDF

On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 11:19 AM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
> Quoting "Young,Jeff (OR)" <jyoung@oclc.org>:
>>
>> That's how DBpedia seems to do it and I think it's helpful that way. Here
>> are the types for Jane Austen:
>>
>> rdf:type
>>
>>    * foaf:Person
>>    * yago:EnglishWomenWriters
>>    * yago:PeopleFromHampshire
>>    * yago:Person100007846
>>    * yago:EnglishNovelists
>>    * yago:WomenNovelists
>>    * yago:EnglishRomanticFictionWriters
>>    * yago:PeopleFromReading,Berkshire
>>    * yago:19th-centuryEnglishPeople
>>    * yago:WomenOfTheRegencyEra
>>    * yago:18th-centuryEnglishPeople

Those aren't really types.  It's just an indication that her Wikipedia
page was linked to from those various category/list pages.  Because
the categories are human curated, they can include all kinds of stuff
which doesn't make sense from a logical or type hierarchy point of
view.

> Couldn't these be deduced from other data? Using this method, you would only
> retrieve entities that have been given these particular classes, but if you
> turned these into data available to queries...
>
> sex:female
> dates: (whatever)
> primaryLocation: England
> language: English
> wrote: (name of novel)
>  (name of novel) --> has genre --> romantic fiction
>  (name of novel) --> has genre --> fiction (inferred?)
>
> etc. then you would be able to retrieve all or most of the above, plus
> perhaps more. It seems to me that trying to characterize every possible
> combination goes against the basic concepts of linked data. Actually, it
> might not even be particularly good as a metadata practice.

Absolutely.  You'd not only get better quality results by querying the
basic data directly, but you'd also get much more complete coverage
than Wikipedia categories provide.

Tom

>
> kc
>
>>
>> I admit the classes get a little crazy sometimes and wouldn't assume they
>> are used consistently, but I think most of them make intuitive sense.
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: public-lld-request@w3.org [mailto:public-lld-request@w3.org] On
>>> Behalf Of Dan Brickley
>>> Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 9:19 AM
>>> To: Ed Summers
>>> Cc: public-lld@w3.org
>>> Subject: Re: Planned changes to the VIAF RDF
>>>
>>> On 13 April 2011 14:50, Ed Summers <ehs@pobox.com> wrote:
>>> > Hi Jeff,
>>> >
>>> > First, let me just say I'm a big fan of the simplifications that you
>>> > and Thom are proposing ... they are clearly a big improvement. But I
>>> > am wondering about the foaf:focus pattern that you are promoting.
>>> >
>>> > I know I've said this before privately in IRC to various people, but
>>> > it's probably worth asking aloud here. Is it really necessary to use
>>> > URIs to distinguish between the thing itself, and the concept of the
>>> > thing?
>>>
>>> As a loose rule, I see value in the latter when the thing figures in
>>> some SKOS scheme, either to be mentioned alongside other related
>>> entities (also indirectly as concepts) or so that
>>> person_123_as_politician, person_123_as_parent, person_123_as_author
>>> could be distinguished as different topics. There is value in that,
>>> both for using those topic URIs to characterise information, but also
>>> to talk in more detail about skills/expertise. Someone might be a
>>> world export on "President George Bush snr. as a manager".
>>>
>>> I tend to see your question as a variant on "why both using SKOS RDF
>>> to describe concepts of thing, when I could just describe the world
>>> directly in RDF?".
>>>
>>> That's a fair question. I find
>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/REC-skos-reference-20090818/#L1045 still a
>>> useful overview...
>>>
>>> Dan
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Karen Coyle
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
>
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 13 April 2011 16:51:30 UTC