[Data-modeling] Proposed changes to pseudonyms

[Alec Flett]

Does this mean you're going to go back and re-type all the musical  
artists who were de-typed as a musical artist? because right now pages  
like http://www.freebase.com/view/en/david_bowie are missing this  
type, so they're missing all the really important properties like  
"albums"

I mean, I can always re-type david bowie by hand, but I have to  
imagine that a LOT of artists were de-typed, no?

Alec

On Jan 18, 2008, at 6:13 PM, Christopher R. Maden wrote:

> The current model for pseudonyms in Freebase is not working, and we
> propose to change it this coming week.  Please comment or object  
> here if
> you care about this issue.
>
> THE STATUS QUO:
>
> Currently, a Pseudonym is a type of its own.  It is linked to the
> Person, Musical Group, or other thing that it represents.  For  
> instance,
> Moby is a Pseudonym of Richard Melville Hall, a Person and Musical  
> Artist.
>
> Creative works produced under a pseudonym (currently, this only  
> applies
> to Musical Album and Musical Release) are credited to the actual
> creator, with a “Released by Pseudonym” property that points to an
> instance of Pseudonym.  The compilation album _Go: The Very Best of  
> Moby
> Remixed_ is credited to Richard Melville Hall, released by the  
> pseudonym
> Moby.
>
> This model is not working out.  Some creative artists, such as Sting  
> and
> Bob Dylan, are far better known by their pseudonyms than by their real
> names; even worse, at some point the real name and the pseudonym were
> merged, so we now have nonsensical data like _Dream of the Blue
> Turtles_, recorded by Sting, released by the pseudonym Sting.  It also
> does not address the careful collector’s desire for accurate crediting
> like Robert Heinlein vs. Robert A. Heinlein vs. Robert Anson Heinlein
> vs. R.A. Heinlein, but it does not make sense to establish each of  
> those
> variations as a discrete instance of Pseudonym.
>
> THE NEW PROPOSAL:
>
> We will eliminate the Pseudonym type.  A single person (band, etc.)  
> will
> have a single topic in Freebase; the community can decide on what the
> primary name is, and other working identities will be present as
> aliases.  (It is likely that “Moby” would a name for the topic with
> aliases of “Richard Melville Hall” and “Voodoo Child.”)  Existing
> instances of Pseudonym will be merged into their identities.
>
> A new supporting type for Creative Work will be created.  It will  
> have a
> machine-readable string property called “Credited to,” which will have
> the literal string present on the work (the spine of the CD, the film
> credits, the book cover).  _Go: The Very Best..._ will be linked to  
> Moby
> as the performer, with the “Credited to” property set to “Moby.”  This
> is redundant as long as the performer’s name is “Moby,” but if someone
> changes his display name to R. Melville Hall, the credit will remain
> correct.
>
> The drawback to this proposal is that it becomes a little harder to  
> find
> everything credited to a shared pseudonym such as Franklin W. Dixon.  
> One
> can filter all books by the “Credited to” property, as long as they  
> are
> all spelled correctly, but one would not be able to simply click on
> “Franklin W. Dixon” and then see all the books credited to “him.”
> However, the complications and confusion of the current model seem to
> outweigh this drawback.
>
> It is possible that the Pseudonym may re-emerge later to handle these
> interesting cases after we better understand the data involved, but  
> this
> simpler model seems like a cleaner way to approach the problem at this
> point.
>
> Thanks,
> Chris
> -- 
> Christopher R. Maden
> Data Architect
> Metaweb Technologies, Inc.
> <URL: http://www.metaweb.com/ >
> _______________________________________________
> Data-modeling mailing list
> Data-modeling at freebase.com
> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling