Re: Public Interest legal aid markup

As always, I propose to use the same mechanism that the GoodRelations model uses for free products and services: Use a PriceSpecification with a value of zero USD/ EUR whatever. 

This ist much more flexible than a Boolean property, because it may be that a product or service is free only under some constraints, e.g.

- free only during a certain period of time
- free only up to a certain quantity per person
- free only to to a certain audience

etc.

Offer has mechanisms in place to model all that.

Now, may people think that this will blow up markup in comparison to a Boolean property, but there is an elegant way around that:

Schema.org could pre-define instances of a free offer or zero  price in the vocabulary, like so

http://schema.org/ForFree

schema:ForFree a schema:PriceSpecification;
 schema:price 0 .

and in the RDF of the vocabulary, define it as an instance of http://schema.org/PriceSpecification

foo:myOffer a schema:Offer ;
 schema:priceSpecification schema:ForFree ;
...

If you want to avoid that developers have to model the Offer, you could even provide a predefined "Free Offer" value in schema.org.

That trick will be invisible for Web developers who are marking up something, because schema:ForFree will be just a predefined value, like
https://schema.org/EBook.

But for someone querying the data for e.g. a service that costs less than 5 USD, the respective free service will still be returned.

This is IMO much more elegant as having extra properties for "free" things; it does not break the GoodRelations model and still adds no extra weight to markup.

Best wishes
Martin Hepp

-----------------------------------
martin hepp  http://www.heppnetz.de
mfhepp@gmail.com
@mfhepp










> On 11. Apr 2020, at 23:01, David Elie Raymond Christophe Ammouial <david.elie.raymond.christophe.ammouial@everis.com> wrote:
> 
> About the first point: what about price: 0?
> 
> Regards 
> David
> From: Margaret Hagan <mdhagan@stanford.edu>
> Sent: Friday, April 10, 2020 4:34:56 PM
> To: Richard Wallis <richard.wallis@dataliberate.com>; Guha <guha@google.com>
> Cc: schema.org Mailing List <public-schemaorg@w3.org>; Vicki Tardif <vtardif@google.com>; Stephen Hamilton <stephen@mettlepress.com.au>; Metin Eskili <meskili@stanford.edu>
> Subject: Re: Public Interest legal aid markup
>  
> Hi everyone!
> 
> Just wanted to bump this up. Do you thin it might be possible to do a profitStatus addition?
> 
> 
> Also — I have a few other questions on best practices for representing government or public interest services:
> 
> 1. How to signal free? We are having some debates about whether we should describe an entire organization’s free services in one of these 3 ways:
> 
> Option A: “isAccessibleForFree”: true
> Option B: “free”: true
> Option C: “priceRange”: “free"
> 
> 2. Can we make LegalService in a Service class, akin to a GovernmentService?
> We want to designate the legal aid organizations as LegalService type, but that is currently classified as LocalBusiness. We would prefer a type that is a Service class, so that we can represent them akin to how government services are presented.
> 
> In particular, we want to be able to represent their individual offices (like Legal Aid of Hawaii’s offices on individual islands) as ServiceLocations [akin to example1 on this page, https://schema.org/ContactPoint, that has government services offered at different locations. 
> 
> That example also has the availableChannel to describe specific clinics or hotlines for specific demographics. That is also one of our main needs in legal aid groups — to describe hotlines for housing questions, hotlines for Spanish-language speakers, clinics for elderly people, etc.
> 
> 
> Thank you so much for your help. We really appreciate your assistance in moving this forward, so we can get widespread legal aid markup as soon as possible! Best, margaret
> 
> 
> 
> On March 25, 2020 at 8:28:13 AM, Guha (guha@google.com) wrote:
> 
>> Yes, lets keep it moving ... there is going to be a lot of need for this kind of stuff
>> with the new relief programs
>> 
>> On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 8:20 AM Richard Wallis <richard.wallis@dataliberate.com> wrote:
>> Issue #246 seemed to get hung up on per country legal definitions and trying to identify specific subtypes of Organization..
>> 
>> May be still open to some interpretation, but this proposal seems to be more simple by adding a profitStatus property for both Organization and Service.
>> 
>> ~Richard
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, 25 Mar 2020 at 15:09, Vicki Tardif <vtardif@google.com> wrote:
>> Yes, we got hung up on non-profit status a few years ago in issue #246.
>> 
>> - Vicki
>> 
>> On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 2:01 AM Stephen Hamilton <stephen@mettlepress.com.au> wrote:
>> I agree with Richard, this is an important distinction.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Stephen Hamilton
>>  
>> Sent from mobile device
>> 
>>> On 24 Mar 2020, at 11:16 pm, Richard Wallis <richard.wallis@dataliberate.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> A not for profit status is potentially useful property to convey.   
>>> 
>>> However I believe there are two facets to this.   There are indeed not for profit organisations, there are also not for profit services that are not necessarily only offered by such organisations.  
>>> 
>>> Some for profit organisations offer charitable / pro bono / not for profit services alongside their commercial operations.   I have even worked for a not for profit organisation that offered for profit services to help support its other operations..
>>> 
>>> To support such distinctions it would be appropriate to add the profitStatus property to both the Organization and Service types.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Richard Wallis
>>> Founder, Data Liberate
>>> http://dataliberate.com
>>> Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardwallis
>>> Twitter: @rjw
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Tue, 24 Mar 2020 at 19:47, Alan LaFrance <stidotorg@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Andrew,
>>> 
>>> Good points.
>>> 
>>> Can you think of some test cases that would challenge either of the methods? Perhaps we can work the problem backwards and arrive at a more robust solution.
>>> 
>>> Alan
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 1:52 PM Andrew Crimer <andrew.crimer@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> (forgot to cc the list)
>>> 
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>>> From: Andrew Crimer <andrew.crimer@gmail.com>
>>> Date: Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 2:48 PM
>>> Subject: Re: Public Interest legal aid markup
>>> To: Margaret Hagan <mdhagan@stanford.edu>
>>> 
>>> 
>>> A note on the complexity here: there are many types of corporation and they vary substantially by jurisdiction. "profitStatus" probably can't effectively be made binary. Incentives, i.e. "will never charge you money," are probably even more complicated. In the United States, IRC section 501c has 29 subsections, each with various additional cases attached. I'm not advocating for encoding the US tax code into schema, but I do think it bears mentioning that "for profit" and "not for profit" are both subject to change over time and extremely broad generalizations.
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 2:44 PM Margaret Hagan <mdhagan@stanford.edu> wrote:
>>> Hi! 
>>> 
>>> I like the profitStatus property, because there are many non-profit organizations that do not primarily identify as an ‘NGO’ — but still want to communicate that they are non-commercial, public-interest, and will never charge you money/sell your data.
>>> 
>>> The ICNPO can be fine, though it’s definitely higher burden to do the classification than the profitStatus.
>>> 
>>> Thanks so much for your thoughts! Best, Margaret
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On March 24, 2020 at 11:37:03 AM, Alan LaFrance (stidotorg@gmail.com) wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Margaret,
>>>> 
>>>> I think this exposes a gap in the existing schema, as you mentioned.
>>>> 
>>>> I’d like to advocate for adding an optional property called profitStatus to Organization that notates the status of an org as “for profit” or “non profit.”
>>>> 
>>>> Alternatively, we could use ICNPO classifications as guidance for a more granular method. (See link below)
>>>> 
>>>> https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/13-015-X
>>>> 
>>>> Thoughts?
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Alan LaFrance
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 1:06 PM Margaret Hagan <mdhagan@stanford.edu> wrote:
>>>> Hi!
>>>> 
>>>> I’m working with various legal aid groups and other ‘public interest/non-profit’ legal groups on marking up their online resources.
>>>> 
>>>> I am running into a few limitations/areas for help.` If you have any thoughts, edits, reactions — I’d really appreciate it!  Best, Margaret
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 1) Organization Type: Should we be tagging a non-profit legal information/services as an ‘NGO’ or as a ‘Legal Service’? The ideal is that we are communicating to the public that the sites are:
>>>> - public interest and free
>>>> - offering info + services related to legal problems
>>>> 
>>>> Ideally there would be another category like ‘Non-profit Legal Service’ or ‘Legal Aid’
>>>> 
>>>> 2) Issue Expertise: What’s the best way to label the areas of law that a legal aid or free legal info site might help a person with? For example, to let people know they have help with domestic violence; child custody; landlord-tenant problems; migrant worker problems, etc? 
>>>> 
>>>> Right now, we are using ‘knowsAbout’ and then linking to a URL with a taxonomy entry for that legal problem. 
>>>> 
>>>> Has anyone used any other strategy for this?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 3) Jurisdiction Coverage: Ideally we could label the organization and services very precisely with what cities, counties, or states their info/services apply to. For example, some of the housing law pages are only for certain cities, while some family/child custody are only for people in a certain state. 
>>>> 
>>>> We are currently using Administrative Area and listing these different city/county/state units as text entries — but ideally we could be more precise than text. Has anyone used other strategies for communicating the jurisdictions that particular rules or services apply to?
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> 
>>>> For more detail, here are some of the sample drafts of markup that our groups are working on.
>>>> 
>>>> {
>>>>   "@context":
>>>>  "
>>>> http://www.schema.org",
>>>>   "@type":
>>>>  "LegalService",
>>>> 
>>>>   "name":
>>>>  "Idaho Legal Aid Services",
>>>> 
>>>>   "url":
>>>>  "
>>>> https://www.idaholegalaid.org/",
>>>>   "description":
>>>>  "Idaho Legal Aid Services is a nonprofit statewide law firm dedicated to providing equal access to justice for low income people through quality advocacy and education.",
>>>> 
>>>>   "logo":
>>>>  "
>>>> https://www.idaholegalaid.org/sites/idaholegalaid.org/files/ilas-logo-100.png",
>>>>   "address":
>>>>  {
>>>> 
>>>>     "@type":
>>>>  "PostalAddress",
>>>> 
>>>>     "streetAddress":
>>>>  "
>>>> 1447 S. Tyrell Lane",
>>>>     "addressLocality":
>>>>  "Boise",
>>>> 
>>>>     "addressRegion":
>>>>  "ID",
>>>> 
>>>>     "postalCode":
>>>>  83706
>>>> 
>>>>   },
>>>>   "areaServed":
>>>>  [
>>>> 
>>>>     {
>>>>       "@type":
>>>>  "AdministrativeArea",
>>>> 
>>>>       "name":
>>>>  "Idaho"
>>>> 
>>>>     }
>>>>   ],
>>>>   "telephone":
>>>>  "
>>>> 208-746-7541",
>>>>   "openingHours":
>>>>  [
>>>> 
>>>>     "Mo
>>>>  08:30-17:00",
>>>> 
>>>>     "Tu
>>>>  08:30-17:00",
>>>> 
>>>>     "We
>>>>  08:30-17:00",
>>>> 
>>>>     "Th
>>>>  08:30-17:00",
>>>> 
>>>>     "Fr
>>>>  08:30-17:00"
>>>> 
>>>>   ],
>>>>   
>>>>   "isAccessibleForFree":
>>>>  true,
>>>> 
>>>>   "knowsAbout":
>>>>  [
>>>> 
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/HO-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/FA-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/IM-13-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/BE-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/MO-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/NA-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     “https://taxonomy.legal/term/BE-07-00-00-00”,
>>>>     “https://taxonomy.legal/term/FA-15-00-00-00”
>>>>   ],
>>>> }
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> {
>>>>   "@context": "http://www.schema.org",
>>>>   "@type": "LegalService",
>>>>   "name": "Legal Services of North Florida",
>>>>   "url": "https://www.lsnf.org/",
>>>>   "description": "LSNF is a not-for-profit legal services organization serving only low-income individuals and families in sixteen counties across Florida’s central and western panhandle. LSNF’s priority areas are cases involving Family Law, Housing, Public Benefits, Employment, Education, and Health Care issues. It does not help with traffic tickets, car injuries, or defending criminal actions.",
>>>>   "logo": "https://www.lsnf.org/wp-content/themes/LSNFtheme/assets/images/Logo.png",
>>>>   "alternateName": "LSNF",
>>>>   "telephone": "(850) 385-9007",
>>>>   "address": [
>>>>     {
>>>>       "@type": "PostalAddress",
>>>>       "streetAddress": "2119 Delta Boulevard",
>>>>       "addressLocality": "Tallahassee",
>>>>       "addressRegion": "FL",
>>>>       "postalCode": “32303”
>>>>     },
>>>> ]
>>>> 
>>>> "areaServed": [
>>>>     {
>>>>       "@type": "AdministrativeArea",
>>>>       "name": "[“Bay County, FL”, “Calhoun County, FL”, “Escambia County, FL”, “Franklin County, FL”, “Gadsden County, FL”, “Gulf County, FL”, “Holmes County, FL”, “Jackson County, FL”, “Jefferson County, FL”, “Leon County, FL”, “Liberty County, FL”, “Okaloosa County, FL”, “Santa Rosa County, FL”, “Wakulla County, FL”, “Walton County, FL”, “Washington County, FL”]"
>>>>     }
>>>>   ],
>>>> 
>>>>     "isAccessibleForFree": true,
>>>> 
>>>>   "openingHours": [
>>>>     "Mo 09:00-17:00",
>>>>     "Tu 09:00-17:00",
>>>>     "We 09:00-17:00",
>>>>     "Th 09:00-17:00",
>>>>     "Fr 09:00-17:00"
>>>>   ],
>>>> 
>>>>   "contactPoint": [
>>>>    { "@type": "ContactPoint",
>>>>     "url": "https://floi.legalserver.org/modules/matter/extern_intake.php?pid=38&h=757e8c",
>>>>     "contactType": "Online Intake",
>>>>     "areaServed": "Florida"
>>>>   },
>>>> ]
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>   "availableLanguage": [
>>>>     {
>>>>       "@type": "Language",
>>>>       "name": "English",
>>>>       "alternateName": "English"
>>>>     }
>>>>   ]
>>>> 
>>>> "serviceLocation": [
>>>> {
>>>>     “@type”: “LegalService”
>>>>     “name” : “Legal Services of North Florida: Pensacola office”,
>>>>     “telephone” : “(850) 432-8222”
>>>>       “address”: {
>>>>   "streetAddress": "118 South Baylen Street",
>>>>        "addressLocality": "Pensacola",
>>>>        "addressRegion": "FL",
>>>>        "postalCode": 32502
>>>> }
>>>>     },
>>>>   {
>>>>     “@type”: “LegalService”
>>>>     “name” : “Legal Services of North Florida: Quincy Office”,
>>>>     “telephone” : “(850) 875-9881”
>>>>       “address”: {
>>>>   "streetAddress": "121 North Jackson Street",
>>>>        "addressLocality": "Quincy",
>>>>        "addressRegion": "FL",
>>>>        "postalCode": 32303
>>>> }
>>>>     },
>>>> 
>>>> {
>>>>     “@type”: “LegalService”
>>>>     “name” : “Legal Services of North Florida: Ft. Walton Beach”,
>>>>     “telephone” : “(850) 862-3279”
>>>>       “address”: {
>>>>   "streetAddress": "133 Staff Drive, NE",
>>>>        "addressLocality": "Ft. Walton Beach",
>>>>        "addressRegion": "FL",
>>>>        "postalCode": 32548
>>>> }
>>>>     },
>>>> {
>>>>     “@type”: “LegalService”
>>>>     “name” : “Legal Services of North Florida: Panama City office”,
>>>>     “telephone” : “(850) 769-3581”
>>>>       “address”: {
>>>>   "@type": "PostalAddress",
>>>>        "streetAddress": "211 East 11th Street",
>>>>      "addressLocality": "Panama City",
>>>>        "addressRegion": "FL",
>>>>        "postalCode": 32401
>>>> }
>>>>     },
>>>> {
>>>>     “@type”: “LegalService”
>>>>     “name” : “Legal Services of North Florida: Tallahassee office”,
>>>>     “telephone” : “(850) 385-9007”
>>>>       “address”: {
>>>>   "@type": "PostalAddress",
>>>>        "streetAddress": "2119 Delta Blvd.,
>>>>      "addressLocality": "Tallahassee",
>>>>        "addressRegion": "FL",
>>>>        "postalCode": 32303”
>>>> }
>>>>     }
>>>> ]
>>>> 
>>>> }
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> {
>>>>   "@context":
>>>>  "
>>>> http://www.schema.org",
>>>>   "@type":
>>>>  "LegalService",
>>>> 
>>>>   "name":
>>>>  "Law Help NY",
>>>> 
>>>>   "url":
>>>>  "
>>>> https://www.lawhelpny.org/",
>>>> "description":
>>>>  "
>>>> Access
>>>>  to legal information and free legal help for New Yokers in need of legal assistance.
>>>> ",
>>>>   "image":
>>>>  "
>>>> https://www.lawhelpny.org/files/B23B29BF-0DED-F7B9-2149-1DB14E1A7DE5/images/LHNY%203_20.png",
>>>>   "logo":
>>>>  "
>>>> https://www.lawhelpny.org/files/B23B29BF-0DED-F7B9-2149-1DB14E1A7DE5/images/LHNY%203_20.png",
>>>>   "isAccessibleForFree":
>>>>  true
>>>> ,
>>>> "areaServed":
>>>>  [
>>>> 
>>>>     {
>>>>       "@type":
>>>>  "AdministrativeArea",
>>>> 
>>>>       "name":
>>>>  "New York"
>>>> 
>>>>     }
>>>>   ],
>>>>   "knowsAbout":
>>>>  [
>>>> 
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/DI-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/FA-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/CO-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/HE-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/BE-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/HO-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/WO-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/MO-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/ES-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/GO-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/VE-00-00-00-00",
>>>>     "https://taxonomy.legal/term/RI-00-00-00-00"
>>>>   ],
>>>>   "description":
>>>>  "Legal information for New Yorkers who cannot afford an attorney.",
>>>> 
>>>>   "availableLanguage":
>>>>  {
>>>> 
>>>>     "@type":
>>>>  "Language",
>>>> 
>>>>     "name":
>>>>  [
>>>> 
>>>>       "English",
>>>>       "Spanish",
>>>>       "French",
>>>>       "Korean",
>>>>       "Russian",
>>>>       "Polish",
>>>>       "Vietnamese",
>>>>       "Haitian;
>>>>  Haitian Creole",
>>>> 
>>>>       "Arabic",
>>>>       "Italian",
>>>>       "Tagalog"
>>>>     ]
>>>>   },
>>>>   "email":
>>>>  "
>>>> info@nylawhelp.org"
>>>> }
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> acrimer.com
>>> schedule a call
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> acrimer.com
>>> schedule a call

Received on Saturday, 11 April 2020 22:16:55 UTC