RE: FictionalThing proposal added to Web Schemas wiki

Not only is it slippery, but potentially offensive.  As I think over the
list of names described as fictional in WorldCat Identities, I run into
polite variants.  "Deity" for instance.  Is Krishna "fictional"?  We
have his as a "Hindu deity".  Using this markup, are we going to mark
them as fictional, or have to propose another property?

Looking at the list of most frequently occurring words for our Subject
names, I see that the top one is not "fictitious", but "character".
That looks to me like the library community has made a distinction
between them over the years.  Are we going to combine them here?  (Yes,
I know this is better discussed on the Bibframe list, but the subject
came up here.)  Other top terms include: deity, legendary, mythology,
biblical, and imaginary.  As you can see, these are words to dance
around the use of "fictional".

Honestly, I'm not sure where to come down here.  I like the proposal for
a fictional attribute.  I'm just not sure that we can give clear
guidance on where it should be used.

Ralph

-----Original Message-----
From: ed.summers@gmail.com [mailto:ed.summers@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Ed
Summers
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 9:29 AM
To: Wallis,Richard
Cc: Michael Hopwood; Dawson, Laura; Martin Hepp; Thad Guidry; Web
Schemas TF; Gregg Kellogg
Subject: Re: FictionalThing proposal added to Web Schemas wiki

I agree with Martin about "fictional" being a pretty slippery slope.
But I am kind of curious about how people who are advocating for
FictionalThing anticipate it getting used.

//Ed

On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 9:19 AM, Richard Wallis
<richard.wallis@oclc.org> wrote:
> In pure data terms I partly agree with you - there is no difference 
> between the description of a real or fictional thing.  Except one of 
> them has the attribute of being fictional.
>
> In describing an identity, especially from the world of creative 
> works, there is an obvious difference between real and fictional 
> things - which we humans are interested in and need to describe.
>
> For example the first line from Sir John Falstaff's Wikipedia entry
reads:
> "Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in ...."
>
> It is fine for him to have an ISNI, something that could link to a 
> description that indicates that he is fictional.
>
> The fact that James White, used the same string of characters as a 
> pseudonym is an attribute of the descriptions of each of them - not an

> attribute of the name itself.
>
> This proposal came out of need to describe characters, or other
fictional
> things, in film/tv metadata.   A need that I believe is more generic
than
> that focussed requirement.
>
> ~Richard.
>
>
>
>
> On 19/02/2013 13:32, "Michael Hopwood" <michael@editeur.org> wrote:
>
>> Hmmm. I've followed this fascinating thread at a distance but I 
>> thought it's a reasonable point to chime in; it's not so much the 
>> edge cases, it's that in this context, everything is an edge case.
>>
>> In all the relevant ontologies and schemas I've dealt with, there 
>> simply is no fundamental difference; for example, Sir John Falstaff 
>> has an ISNI, although he's fictional; he's also a literary pseudonym
of James White...
>>
>> The reason for this is that in data, you don't describe actual people

>> (maybe FOAF or VCARD are exceptions), you describe public identities.

>> You can only tell the real ones from the fictional from their 
>> relationships; their properties are the same.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Dawson, Laura [mailto:Laura.Dawson@bowker.com]
>> Sent: 19 February 2013 12:50
>> To: Martin Hepp
>> Cc: Thad Guidry; Richard Wallis; Web Schemas TF; Gregg Kellogg
>> Subject: Re: FictionalThing proposal added to Web Schemas wiki
>>
>> There are many edge cases, but I think there are enough 
>> straightforward cases to warrant the attempt.
>>
>>
>
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 19 February 2013 15:01:26 UTC