[Data-modeling] Current heads of state

[Jameson O'Guinn]

Since I requested the addition, I should probably throw in my two  
cents. From my perspective, adding a property or a property of a  
property to government officials that set them apart as the head of  
that country's government is necessary. At present, if I would like to  
pull only the heads of state in a list of countries, I would have to  
know how each was identified (e.g. President, Prime Minister, etc).

It seems to me that a property called "Top government official" or  
"Head of government" or something of that ilk would be a sufficient  
catch-all for most levels of government.

Hopefully that helps somewhat.

Jameson

Quoting Alec Flett <alecf at metaweb.com>:

> There have been so many discussions about this kind of
> denormalization, I wonder if we could establish some kind of link
> between the "current" and "historical" properties themselves, so that
> we could at least express within the schema "this is the current
> property, that CVT over there is the historical property"
>
> Then we could make gardening tools/bots that could automatically fill
> in the "current" properties when that is missing. We'd of course have
> to indicate stuff like "if the XXX field of the CVT is empty, then
> this one is current" and come up with a way to say "user edits on
> freebase.com trump any bot edits" but that could be done with
> attribution.
>
> Alec
>
>
> On Jun 24, 2008, at 4:36 PM, Ed Laurent wrote:
>
>> I agree with your options. However, a "Head of state title" type is  
>>   somewhat appealing to me in that it has utility for this and    
>> possibly other queries.
>>
>> -Ed
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 6:48 PM, Jeff Prucher <jeff at metaweb.com>  wrote:
>> That is definitely the problem with this kind of denormalization.    
>> That said, how would you propose identifying heads of state using    
>> the current model (which does include start/end dates)?  The only    
>> ways I can think of to do it are with a boolean "Is Head of State?"  
>>   property on the "Government office or title" property, or a   
>> property- less type called "Head of State" that would be co-typed   
>> with the  appropriate instances of "Government office or title",   
>> neither of  which I find particularly appealing.
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>> From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com   
>> [mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com ] On Behalf Of Ed Laurent
>> Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 3:35 PM
>> To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
>> Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Current heads of state
>>
>> I still lean towards a simpler model with start and end dates that   
>>  can be used to infer whether something is current or not but I  
>> also   see the value of this denormalization. An empty "current  
>> head of   state" would be easy to find for the initial data entry.  
>> However, I   don't think it is any more useful in the long term  
>> unless someone   keeps on top dynamic topic properties. Even then,  
>> the   denormalization could make for really clunky data entry  
>> unless  there  was a way to automatically update both the current  
>> and  historical  properties when changes occur. Empty fields and a  
>> lack  of updating  can throw a monkey wrench into either approach.
>>
>> -Ed
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 5:53 PM, Jeff Prucher <jeff at metaweb.com>  wrote:
>> There's a discussion thread started by user joguinn on the /location  type
>> that I'd like to get more input on. The original thread is here:
>> <http://www.freebase.com/discuss/threads/location#/guid/   
>> 9202a8c04000641f8000
>> 0000086ea1f8>  (it's the last few comments in the thread "City Parks/ Golf
>> Courses").
>>
>> The request is to include a property for "current head of state" on  
>>   the type
>> Country. This would be a partial denormalization of the Governing  Officials
>> property on the Governmental Jurisdiction type, but consistent with a
>> pattern that we've seen several times lately.  It would also have some
>> additional semantic value, since we have no way in the current model  to
>> assert that any particular office represents the head of state.  The  reason
>> I'm bringing it up here is that I can imagine this snowballing into  a slew
>> of "Current X" properties on various location types ("Current Mayor",
>> "Current Legislators", "Current Insurance Commissioner", etc.) and  I'd like
>> to hear what people think about either the proposed property as it  stands,
>> or the potential proliferation of similar properties.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jeff
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Data-modeling mailing list
>> Data-modeling at freebase.com
>> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Data-modeling mailing list
>> Data-modeling at freebase.com
>> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Data-modeling mailing list
>> Data-modeling at freebase.com
>> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling