Re: Historical events

Thanks Phil for the name check and pointers to presentations and posts.

Chairing the Schema Bib Extend <https://www.w3.org/community/schemabibex/>
& Schema Architypes <https://www.w3.org/community/architypes/> groups, and
participating in several others; this discussion on the suitability, or
not, of Schema types and properties for a specific domain, or use case, are
very familiar.

Some of this comes from a subtle difference between a domain specific,
often constraining *ontology (classes, attributes)*, and a *vocabulary* of
terms (types and properties) to describe *things, *such as Schema.org.  As
I say this difference is subtle and the subject of philosophical
discussions beyond the scope of the particular concerns in this thread.

One spinoff of this however is the practical difference between the
definition of a *Class* and the description of a [Schema.org] Type such as
Event <http://schema.org/Event>.  The former tends to constrain usage, the
latter provides guidance to potential usage.

If the current description of Event contained a few extra words, I’m sure
this discussion thread would have a slightly different focus:

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.


With such a description, markup such as this would be acceptable:


   1. {
   2.   "@context": "http://schema.org",
   3.   "@type": "Event",
   4.   "location": {
   5.     "@type": "Place",
   6.     "name": "Runnymede",
   7.     "sameAs": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runnymede"
   8.   },
   9.   "name": "Magna Carta",
   10.   "startDate": "1215-06-15",
   11.
   12.   “sameAs": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta",
   13.
   14.
   15. }


Proposals to adjust descriptions of terms in Schema.org are not uncommon.

This brings me to the question of proposing a new type of *HistoricalEvent*.
My question being, what is special about a historical event - other than it
being [potentially a long time] in the past.

Also discussed here is how, with the current definition of ISO 8601, you
define open ended and other less common time periods. I think the
previously referenced movements around that area should solve those
problems.

Finally, I believe there is an issue with *Event* and its subtypes where it
is difficult to describe time periods too vague to usefully use the
combination of startDate, endDate & duration. Periods like “The Dark Ages”,
“The Bronze Age”, etc.  Maybe a new HistoricalPeriod type would be
appropriate, not sure, maybe one or two extra properties would do it - I am
open to suggestions.

A final general comment, to those who are uncomfortable with the way
properties are lumped into Schema types to cover many generic use cases,
All properties are optional. If your Volcano does not have a fax number,
there is no need to define it. If Ticketmaster did not offer tickets to the
signing of the Magna Carta, there is no need to describe the offer. Using
the *Event* Type in markup only infers that the entity you are describing
has taken place, or will do, at a known, or unknown location. It is the
selection of a subset of available properties that then starts to refine
that meaning.

~Richard


Richard Wallis
Founder, Data Liberate
http://dataliberate.com
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardwallis
Twitter: @rjw

On 1 June 2018 at 12:42, Phil Barker <phil.barker@pjjk.co.uk> wrote:

> Hello all, I've been following this discussion with interest, and can't
> resist jumping in now.
>
> Allison, I wouldn't read too much in to the semantics of a schema.org
> Type based on the properties of that type. Specifically, I wouldn't infer
> that schema.org/Event is a commercial event just because the Event type
> has properties that are relevant only to commercial events. Schema.org is
> generally 'lumping' in its approach to classifying, lumping stuff together
> rather than creating fine distinctions; put this together with the
> inheritance hierarchy of schema.org Types and you get such oddities as
> fax numbers for volcanoes.
>
> My own 2p-worth is that the defining feature of a schema.org/Event is
> that has a time and a location (and that the place can be abstract, like
> the Internet for webinars).
>
> I think a big change like moving the commercial properties out of Event
> into a subtype that sits alongside Historical Event would break too much of
> the existing data. Consequently, I think a type for Historical Events (i.e.
> events of historical significance, used as reference points in for other
> events, not just any old past event) would probably sit in schema.org as
> a subtype of Event, and inherit all those 'commercial' properties from
> Event. FWIW, I think WW2 would be a fine as an example of such an event.
>
> Also, I think there may be a case for something like a Named Period type.
> The Victorian Age, Paleocene Epoch would be examples. And yes, "WW2 era"
> could be a named period (if post-war and pre-war are, you kind of need
> something for the bit in between).
>
> I am not sure whether you would need both Historical Event and Named
> Period, but I think they might facilitate slightly different types of
> statement (something and Historical Event X were contemporary; something
> was a consequence of Historical Event Y, something happened during the
> Named Period Z [but wasn't part of it in an event/sub-event way]).
>
>
> As for extending schema.org, I've run a couple of W3C community groups. I
> would suggest first make sure that 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. This thread could be the start of this. Then
> raise an issue on the schema.org github issue tracker if you think there
> is anything that is unaddressed. Setting up a W3C community group is
> straightforward and worth doing if you have complex set of use cases and a
> need to build some sort of community consensus around how to address them.
> Then you just need to recruit participants and steer the discussions around
> a coherent resolution of meeting your use cases--that can be more of a
> challenge.
>
> Richard Wallis has written & presented a lot about extending schema,
> perhaps most usefully in this context would be his presentation about
> extend schema.org for bibliographic use:
>
>    - Schema.org: Part 1 - Fit For a Bibliographic Purpose
>    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiijJj1v1bQ
>    <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiijJj1v1bQ>
>    - Schema.org: Part 2 - Extending Potential and Possibilities
>    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKHw3UsD3r8
>    <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKHw3UsD3r8>
>
> (He has also written a 3-part series of blog posts on the technical side
> https://dataliberate.com/2016/02/10/evolving-schema-org-in-p
> ractice-pt1-the-bits-and-pieces/ )
>
> Hope this helps, Phil
> On 31/05/18 21:07, Muri, Allison wrote:
>
> I think, respectfully, Thad, that you might not be understanding what is
> needed. I would not really have a strong desire to use sameAs, myself. This
> isn’t about “too much work,” really. What I am trying to do, and I might be
> inferring correctly that Roger is, too, is to have a simple schema.org
> markup that addresses events other than commercial events. That would be
> either to have Event as a category under which commercial events and
> historical events are subcategories, or have Occurence or some such
> category.
>
> I am curious about Peter Patel-Schneider’s concern “about stretching
> schema.org/Event to cover … things like WWII whose location is certainly
> not ‘certain’, or even
> anything that is not the kind of event that has performers and attendees.”
> Why is that?
>
> I see, when I read about the Community Group and Steering Group (
> http://schema.org/docs/about.html#cgsg), that “other W3C Community Groups
> exist that are focussed partially or entirely on schema.org improvements,
> e.g. health and medicine <https://www.w3.org/community/schemed/>, sports
> <https://www.w3.org/community/sport-schema/>,archives
> <https://www.w3.org/community/architypes/>, libraries and bibliography
> <https://www.w3.org/community/schemabibex/>, autos
> <https://www.w3.org/community/gao/>…”
>
> I wonder if there is someone on this list who is knowledgeable about these
> other groups and could provide some information about what one might do if
> one wanted to improve on markup for, say, history and culture?
>
> - Allison
>
>
>
> On May 31, 2018, at 1:33 PM, Thad Guidry <thadguidry@gmail.com>
> <thadguidry@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Roger,
>
> Depends on what you are trying to do.
>
> I taking a stance that most of the time there's no need to tell a machine
> that something is historical if you can reconcile the entity before hand
> and provide data about that.
>
> Most machines will know and understand (if they are decently built and
> programmed) to know that "Battle of Gettysburg" is a historical event.
> There's no need to tell most machines that...
>
> HistoricalEvent: Battle of Gettysburg
>
> if you could possibly reconcile your entities (your welcome to use my
> community's latest OpenRefine against Wikidata for that)
> and instead of providing Strings...provide Things...
>
> HistoricalEvent: "Battle of Gettysburg
> sameAs: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q33132
>
> Machines can easily find out lots of information by parsing Wikipedia
> itself like Google does, if you provide a sameAs url, or perhaps even
> better a Wikidata or DBPedia url.
>
> Giving us a better example of what you are trying to do would be most
> appreciated by all.
>
> My hunch is that you don't so much care about "Battle of Gettysburg" but
> relations around it ?  What are those relations that you trying to
> establish ?  That it was partOf: American Civil War ?
> What else ?
>
> Help us and we can help you,
> -Thad
>
>
> ....................................................
> Allison Muri
> Department of English
>
> Arts 418
> University of Saskatchewan
> Saskatoon, SK, Canada
> ph: 306.966.5503
>
>
> --
>
> Phil Barker <http://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
>