[Data-modeling] Olympics domain for review

[Robert Cook]

I believe we should use abstract types minimally, and instead use  
domain-specific models.  Ultimately, to support the queries you  
suggest, we could have meta-structures in the schema that equate  
properties among different types that are semantically equivalent.

Abstract types are a kind of contingency bet where you are assuming  
you will need generality and you are willing to take a near-term hit  
in complication and user confusion.  I think the near-term cost of  
that bet is too high in most cases.  If Freebase gains enough  
information where cross-domain queries start to make sense, then the  
higher-order semantics can be added without impinging on the freebase  
users who care about their specific domain.

Over-abstraction is like premature optimization.  It's nice to think  
you "got it right" from the beginning, but that almost never happens.

R

On Mar 26, 2008, at 4:33 PM, Bryan Cheung wrote:

> I think this is a great start.
>
> This may be a little off topic, but hopefully a pertinent conversation
> for data-modeling:
>
> I'm interested if we can generalize some of these types to use them
> across all sports types.  For example, let's say I wanted to know all
> the events Michael Jordan has won.  He was part of the Mens Basketball
> Dream Team that won gold in 1992, also part of the Chicago Bulls which
> won numerous NBA Championships, and who knows how many celebrity golf
> tournaments, or, hypothetically, a minor league baseball championship.
>
> If we had a general Sports Event, with a Sports Event Winner and other
> types to support the model, then we wouldn't have to query the Olympic
> Sports types, Basketball types, Golf types and Baseball types to find
> all the events Michael Jordan (or a team he was on) won.
>
> However, it may be rare that we have many crossover athletes like
> Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson, or perhaps a decathlete that wins sporting
> events across different domains.  Additionally, the nuances of each
> sport can make it hard to abstract a specific sporting event into a
> general one.
>
> Do data-modelers see any benefit to normalizing the sports event /
> championship award?  Or should we contain each different sport within
> its own domain?
>
> Bryan
>
>
> On Mar 26, 2008, at 11:26 AM, Kirrily Robert wrote:
>
>> So I have this user domain about the Olympics, at http://www.freebase.com/view/user/skud/olympics
>> and I'd love some people to take a look at it.
>>
>> The main thing that I'm undecided about is that the events contested
>> in a given Olympic Games and the medals awarded are kind of
>> redundant/denormalised.  That is, the same information is appearing
>> twice.  But if you make it so it only appears once, under medals
>> awarded, it would seem to discourage people from entering in events
>> for which the medals are not yet awarded or are unknown.
>>
>> The other thing I'm considering adding is demonstration events/ 
>> sports.
>>
>> Comments welcome.
>>
>> K.
>>
>> -- 
>> Kirrily Robert
>> Freebase Community Director
>> kirrily at metaweb.com
>>
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