[Data-modeling] A proposal for consumer products

[Kirrily Robert]

Just talked to Jeff about this and wanted to run it past you all.   
I'll also crosspost to the Business domain.

Currently we have no link between "iPhone" and "Apple" in our schema.   
That is, the consumer product type has no property for the company  
that makes that product.  The problem is that if you talk about  
"Product manufacturer" you get all caught up in the fact that  
actually, some factory in China manufactures/assembles the iPhone.   
But I talked to some of our business guys and asked them, and they  
said that the term manufacturer, though imprecise, is the right term  
to use.  And we couldn't come up with anythign better.

So here's what I propose:

1) A type, "Product manufacturer".  The description for that type  
should explain that it applies to the company ultimately responsible  
for producing the product, and isn't intended to capture the actual  
physical manufacturing of the product eg. by subcontracted factories.

2) On the type "Consumer product", a property called "Produced by"  
which expects "Product manufacturer".  Calling it "produced by" will  
discourage people who are looking at the iPhone page from putting in  
the name of the Chinese factory.

3) Additionally, a type called "Product line" which has the properties  
"Parent product line" and "Includes sub-lines" (i.e. a phylogeny  
pattern) as well as "Products in this line" which expects "Consumer  
product".

4) On "Consumer product", a reverse property called "Part of product  
line"

It's not perfect but it seems good enough for now, and better than  
nothing.  Thoughts?

K.


-- 
Kirrily Robert
Freebase Community Director
kirrily at metaweb.com
http://freebase.com/