RE: FictionalThing proposal added to Web Schemas wiki

It might be nice to have a variation of the Product Type Ontology that
assumes the owl:Class is a subclass of Thing rather than Product. That
way we could add types for 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_%28arts%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legendary_creature
etc.

Jeff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin Hepp [mailto:martin.hepp@ebusiness-unibw.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 10:26 AM
> To: Mo McRoberts
> Cc: LeVan,Ralph; Ed Summers; Wallis,Richard; Michael Hopwood; Dawson,
> Laura; Thad Guidry; Web Schemas TF; Gregg Kellogg
> Subject: Re: FictionalThing proposal added to Web Schemas wiki
> 
> On the other hand I would like to stress that the current proposal
> offers the option to mark an entity as a "fictional" one via
> additionalType. It nicely delegates any statement at the schema.org
> level on what entity types are fictional and which ones aren't to the
> user publishing markup.
> 
> Of course, resulting statements from using the attribute may be
> regarded as offensive, but they are then individual statements, which,
> in a free society, may happen to be offensive. You cannot stop anybody
> from making respective statements in HTML on the Web either, so there
> is no new problem.
> 
> Martin
> 
> 
> On Feb 19, 2013, at 4:07 PM, Mo McRoberts wrote:
> 
> > As I understand it, the BBC's internal archive classification scheme
> wrestled with precisely this issue - in the end it settled on
'people',
> 'fictional people' and 'religious entities', with some fairly clear
> guidelines about what to do if there was doubt about which of latter
> two somewhere should sit (and all three were considered mutually
> exclusive). At least then the consumer of the data can deal with the
> information as it sees fit.
> >
> > I'll readily admit it's by no means an easy thing to settle,
however:
> what about real people appearing 'as themselves' in a fictional work?
> The person themselves is as real as you or I, but the events in which
> they participate are fictional. I don't think we ever quite solved
that
> one in the archive classifications.
> >
> > M.
> >
> > On Tue 2013-Feb-19, at 15:00, "LeVan,Ralph" <levan@oclc.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> 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.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > --
> > Mo McRoberts - Technical Lead - The Space
> > 0141 422 6036 (Internal: 01-26036) - PGP key CEBCF03E, Zone 1.08,
BBC
> > Scotland, Pacific Quay, Glasgow, G51 1DA Project Office: Room 7083,
> > BBC Television Centre, London W12 7RJ
> >
> >
> >
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> 
> --------------------------------------------------------
> martin hepp
> e-business & web science research group
> universitaet der bundeswehr muenchen
> 
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Received on Tuesday, 19 February 2013 15:45:15 UTC