[Data-modeling] Current heads of state

[Jameson O'Guinn]

I agree. Maybe I should have been more clear. My concern isn't as much  
with the "current" aspect, I think that can be taken care of with the  
date, but lies more with the "Head of state" aspect. There are a lot  
of variations to check for within a government (e.g. United States  
Senator, United States Representative, President, King, Member of  
Parliament, etc.) and a head of state property would make searching  
for the actual head of state much easier than having to sift through  
all the results.

Jameson
Quoting Tom Morris <tfmorris at gmail.com>:

> I think the denormalization will cause more trouble than it's worth.
> Another advantage to the dated approach, perhaps with some UI
> enhancements that can help users query "current," is that it's fault
> resilient.  If I ask for the mayor as of 1 July 2008 and the latest
> entry is Joe Smith 2004-2006, then I know I don't have a valid value
> to work with.
>
> Doing the "current" processing during the query is more robust than
> storing this information in the database.
>
> Tom
>
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 6:35 PM, Ed Laurent <spatial.db at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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
>