[Data-modeling] Multiple Fictional Universes

[Kirrily Robert]

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K.

On 30/10/2008, at 7:03 PM, Kirrily Robert wrote:

> Just to clarify for those not in the know... we're in the middle of a
> new release which will rename user domains to "bases", and making them
> more prominent on the site.  You should be able to see this REALLY
> soon on freebase.com, but you can take a look right now on sandbox if
> you want.
>
> K.
>
> On 30/10/2008, at 6:06 PM, Warren Harris wrote:
>
>> This might be somewhat "off base," but it seems like there's some
>> overlap between the concepts of fictional universes and bases. Both
>> represent a context for facts. In a universe, a familiar character
>> may have a different set of facts associated with them (e.g. as a
>> fictional character, George Washington might be 12 ft tall). In a
>> base, we create a subset of types from the commons, and add co-types
>> to extend them with base-specific properties.
>>
>> These 2 concepts seem very similar. Although we don't currently
>> define fictional universes as overlays on real-world topics (instead
>> they reference them), we could. This might make fictional universes
>> easier to define (just start with the real world and change it, e.g.
>> the fictional LA of Bladerunner could be an overlay on the real LA
>> topic -- part of the Bladerunner fictional universe base).
>>
>> So it might be interesting if all fictional universes were "head
>> starts" at bases (actually were bases put out there to invite people
>> to expand on them). It might also be interesting if bases could be
>> defined hierarchically -- the direction you're going here, but with
>> Parent Base and Sub-Bases (e.g. the SNL base might be a sub-base of
>> a larger Comedy TV base).
>>
>> I know we're just getting bases off the ground, but I thought this
>> overlap was worth pointing out,
>>
>> Warren
>>
>>
>> On Oct 30, 2008, at 4:04 PM, Jeff Prucher wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com
>>>> [mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of
>>>> Tadhg O'Higgins
>>>> Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 12:39 PM
>>>> To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
>>>> Subject: [Data-modeling] Multiple Fictional Universes
>>>>
>>>> How should we treat fictional universes within other
>>>> fictional universes? Or "alternate universes" within, e.g.,
>>>> the Star Trek universe?
>>>>
>>>> My initial thought is to have "Parent Universe" and "Sub-universes"
>>>> properties, but I'm not sure they cover all the cases. In
>>>> addition, we might run into the problem of having to use the
>>>> Star Trek universe as a hold-all, containing both the "main"
>>>> Star Trek universe (which most people will want to see data
>>>> about when they arrive at the page) and also the minor
>>>> alternate universes (e.g. from
>>>> <http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f80000000002
>>>> 1eea5>) as separate topics connected as sub-universes.
>>>>
>>>> Any thoughts on how these relationships should be handled?
>>>
>>> This is a really good question. All the alternate universes that
>>> appear in
>>> the Star Trek series are part of the same setting (which we also
>>> call a
>>> universe). So in a sense, the literary construct that we call the
>>> "Star Trek
>>> universe" is separate from the primary universe in which the
>>> stories take
>>> place, which exists on par with the Mirror Universe and whatever
>>> other
>>> alternate universes show up in the franchise. So parent and sub-
>>> universes
>>> would work pretty well, I think. The trick would be to label or
>>> describe the
>>> parent multiverse (which contains the Mirror Universe and the
>>> universe in
>>> which the series are primarily set) from the primary universe it
>>> contains,
>>> so that people can link to the topics reasonably consistently.
>>>
>>> Jeff
>>>
>>>> Tadhg
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>>>
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>
> -- 
> Kirrily Robert
> Freebase Community Director
> kirrily at metaweb.com
>
>
>
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-- 
Kirrily Robert
Freebase Community Director
kirrily at metaweb.com