RE: Fictional Universe (was: Re: Comics and periodicals in schema.org)

I'd also recommend keeping fictional schemas distinct from the structural bibliographical ones.  Comics don't necessarily take place in a fictional universe (or are even fictional - see http://www.amazon.com/The-11-Report-Graphic-Adaptation/dp/0809057395).  Marvel's comics don't all take place in one continuity, and DC has many continuities (well, sometimes they do).  Additionally, fictional universes can span multiple media - The Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Buffy-verse, the Star Wars universes all span multiple media (including comics, TV and movies).  

- peter

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Scott [mailto:denials@gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, December 06, 2013 9:50 AM
To: Thad Guidry
Cc: Olson, Peter; public-schemabibex@w3.org; Henry Andrews
Subject: Fictional Universe (was: Re: Comics and periodicals in schema.org)

Hi Thad:

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 9:31 AM, Thad Guidry <thadguidry@gmail.com> wrote:
> The mention of the overlapping and continuing Comic Series of Xmen 
> over the years, reminded me of the need for a property to hold the 
> "fictional universe".
>
> I did not see a "fictional universe" that ties all series / brands 
> (from Peter's schema) / issues / stories.  Work in Progress ? (Comics 
> are fictional based, so any fiction-based periodical will probably 
> appreciate a property like that)
>
> We have the "Part of fictional universes" property in Freebase currently.
> As a guide, please read the description along the top of :
> https://www.freebase.com/fictional_universe/work_of_fiction?schema=

>
> and let's think about ways to incorporate it within the schema 
> proposal and where.

Interesting! To keep the relevant scopes manageable, perhaps we should develop a "fictional universe" proposal separately from the Periodicals & Comics proposal?

I could see something simple like the following quick and dirty approach working in the short term:

"""
New type: CreativeWork -> FictionalUniverse
Definition: ""Fictional universe", as used here, applies to the settings and characters of a fictional work or works.  The main purpose of the type is to gather works that belong to a common setting. Therefore, stand-alone works may not need to use this type.
For example, the Buffyverse for works about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or the Foundation Universe for Isaac Asimov's Robot, Empire, and Foundation series." (credit Freebase)

New property: partOfFictionalUniverse FictionalUniverse The fictional universe or universes that this work is associated with. (credit
Freebase) (Domain: CreativeWork)
"""

Beyond the short term, there are a number of properties at http://www.freebase.com/fictional_universe/fictional_universe?schema=

that would require us to define types for characters, languages (fictional), calendar systems (fictional), etc, all of which would need to be coordinated with the TV and Radio types (as they currently don't define "characters" for example). So if we want to go beyond just the simple "aggregation of CreativeWorks" level and start creating FictionalCharacter, FictionalLanguage, and FictionalCalendarSystem types, I think it really needs to be its own proposal :)

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Received on Friday, 6 December 2013 15:21:06 UTC