Re: schema.org/Place: replace faxNumber and telephone with contactPoint

We should have the description of http://schema.org/LocalBusiness be more
filtered and fine tuned to what it really is representing.  The current
description does not capture the reality as well as it should.

If we say that a LocalBusiness must have a few minimums to be typed as a
LocalBusiness, such as mailing address at a minimum, than put that into the
description.  Or a telephone number additionally, if that is also a minimum
requirement.

I would rather see better descriptions in Schema.org that help frame up the
realities of the Schema Types that we are trying to preserve based on those
minimum Schema properties that signify that particular Type.

Does that make sense Dan ?  Some descriptions we probably want to keep as
is and more open to interpretation, I know..., but others we really should
reel in a bit more in my opinion.



On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 9:55 AM, Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org> wrote:

> +Cc: Guha
>
> On 3 June 2013 07:04, Max Froumentin
> <Max.Froumentin@digital.justice.gov.uk> wrote:
> > Hi Matthias,
> >
> > Thanks for your response.  The fact that "telephone" and "faxNumber" are
> text makes contactPoint seem not so useful:
> >
> > writing:
> > <div itemprop="ContactPoint">
> (I think you mean @itemtype here?)
> > <div itemprop="contactType">Switchboard</div>
> > <div itemprop="telephone">02 42 68 53 00</div>
> > </div>
> >
> > is pretty much the same as
> >
> > <div itemprop="telephone">Switchboard: 02 42 68 53 00 </div>
> >
> > no?
>
> (so the issue is that you want to use the contact-oriented properties
> from Organization but Courthouse is only a subtype of Place, not of
> Organization. Organization has some but not all of the contact
> properties, and lacks 'contactPoint').
>
> The core issue is that some but not "Place" entities are
> "Organizations". Currently in schema.org this is handled as follows:
>
> http://schema.org/Organization and http://schema.org/Place both have
> several subtypes, but only one subtype (LocalBusiness) takes both of
> these as supertypes,ie. says "anything that is a LocalBusiness will
> always be both a Place and an Organization". This allows possibility
> that sometimes other entities fall under both types, though.
>
> * Place subtypes: AdministrativeArea CivicStructure Landform
> LandmarksOrHistoricalBuildings LocalBusiness Residence
> TouristAttraction
> * Organization subtypes: Corporation EducationalOrganization
> GovernmentOrganization LocalBusiness NGO PerformingGroup SportsTeam
>
> The only type inheriting from both is "LocalBusiness". I can see why
> you might not want to present a Courthouse as a LocalBusiness if you
> read "local business" in narrow terms. However we do have
> http://schema.org/GovernmentOffice (containing PostOffice), also
> http://schema.org/Library under LocalBusiness. LocalBusiness means
> more than 'Shop'.
>
> BTW the fact that we have contact info attached to Place is also
> sometimes awkward. Our microformats friends found it funny that a
> Volcano might have a faxNumber; and more recently I noticed that a
> Country (also a 'Place') can have 'opening hours'.
>
> My advice would be to publish in RDFa and mix-in both types at the
> instance level when it makes sense, rather have schema.org itself say
> for each type which one will also always be a place. We don't say
> anything that stops something being both a Courthouse and a
> GovernmentBuilding, for example. (in fact I think Microdata is fine
> with multiple types too, so long as they come from the same
> vocabulary, which they do in this case).
>
> While we could tweak the type hierarchy and add more Place subtypes
> under Organization (or LocalBusiness) that seems an endless task.
>
> We should probably add contactPoint into Place. (e.g. A Volcano having
> a contactPoint seems better than it having a faxNumber...).
>
> Does that help?
>
> Dan
>
> >>> One could claim that a phone number belongs to an organisation and not
> a place, but:
> >>> - the "telephone" and "faxNumber" properties are already on Place, as
> text.
> >>> - my use-case is court houses, which I annotate as Courthouse, which
> descends from Place, not Organization.
>
>


-- 
-Thad
http://www.freebase.com/view/en/thad_guidry