[Data-modeling] Are Influence Nodes necessarily persons?
Gordon Mackenzie
gordon at metaweb.com
Fri Oct 31 08:08:55 UTC 2008
I always took peer as a necessary part of the influence node...There are some relationships in influence where source ---> recipient is not valid, but influence was present, usually bi-directionally.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexander Marks" <al at metaweb.com>
To: "Freebase data modeling mailing list" <data-modeling at freebase.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 5:54:17 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Are Influence Nodes necessarily persons?
I think the peer property should be deprecated because it's a denormalization that makes every query to the model a painful two step process; you can't ask "who influenced X?" without also asking "who is a peer of X?".
I would support expanding influence node to every type, since it's easy to add a /people/person type constraint, but I wouldn't support adding any more types to the model.
Al
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Prucher" <jeff at metaweb.com>
To: "Freebase data modeling mailing list" <data-modeling at freebase.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 5:37:56 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Are Influence Nodes necessarily persons?
I wasn't actually proposing making Peer a type, so you can't second it! I
was raising it as an objection to deleting Influence Node because we'd be
replacing one type with three.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com
> [mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of Faye Harris
> Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 5:31 PM
> To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
> Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Are Influence Nodes necessarily persons?
>
> Ah yes, "Peer" -- I'd second it as a type. I knew I was
> forgetting something.
>
> And yes, breaking James's application on who influenced whom
> would be a concern. It's unfortunate. But I do feel that this
> would constitute a necessary move in the right direction.
> Data on influence between two persons would be an easily
> query-able subset of data on influence between any two topics
> of arbitrary type.
>
> The resulting ability in the new schema to model influence
> between any two instances would be a clear gain.
>
> -- Faye
>
>
> Jeff Prucher wrote:
> > I think the phylogeny pattern fits this type of data better than a
> > two-type system. Because influence is a chain (X influence Y who
> > influenced Z), a phylogeny is a lot cleaner; otherwise Y
> needs to be
> > both an influencee and an influencer, which seems unnecessarily
> > complicated. Influence node also has the Peers property,
> which would
> > presumably have to be handled by another type (Peer?), if
> we get rid of the Influence Node type.
> >
> > As regards person vs. other influencable thing, I don't
> have a strong
> > opinion, but I do want to note that there are applications that use
> > this model which may be affected by changing the usage.
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com
> >> [mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of
> Faye Harris
> >> Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 4:59 PM
> >> To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
> >> Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Are Influence Nodes
> necessarily persons?
> >>
> >> I've actually given this some thought recently, hence the
> relatively
> >> quick response. :)
> >>
> >> As data models go, "Influence Node" is sort of an odd ball.
> >> It doesn't tell you immediately if an instance is an
> "influencer" or
> >> "influencee"
> >> (pardon the coinage), just that it has data related to influence.
> >> Normally, types in Freebase model an "Is-A" relationship. San
> >> Francisco "Is-A" location, and we apply the "Location" type to the
> >> topic for San Francisco to represent that relationship.
> >>
> >> So a comparable schema for influence would ideally have separate
> >> "Influencer" and "Influencee" (or "Influenced", or whatever name)
> >> types, applied to topics where... well, applicable. As a
> generalized
> >> concept the included type of "Person" is rather unnecessary.
> >> Influence may be between two things of the same type, or
> any type, or
> >> between things of different types. A film can influence an
> author, a
> >> philosophy can influence an art movement, etc.
> >>
> >> If asked between 1) remodeling the current "Influence Node"
> >> type to two separate types without "Person" as an included
> type, and
> >> 2) creating a new pair of types to duplicate the same influence
> >> relationship without "Person" as an included type, I'd choose the
> >> former. It'd take a little reshuffling, but I think it'd be a lot
> >> less confusing in the long run, than having two sets of similar
> >> types, one a subset of the other.
> >>
> >> -- Faye
> >>
> >>
> >> Tadhg O'Higgins wrote:
> >>
> >>> Would Influence Node be more useful/interesting if it
> didn't assume
> >>> personhood for its instances? Books, Films, Games, and
> >>>
> >> Musical Groups
> >>
> >>> are all examples of things that seem like Influence Nodes
> >>>
> >> but are not
> >>
> >>> persons.
> >>>
> >>> We should consider removing the /people/person included type from
> >>> Influence Node for that reason. The alternatives I can see
> >>>
> >> are to a)
> >>
> >>> create an "Influence <thing>" in each domain that might
> >>>
> >> support one,
> >>
> >>> or
> >>> b) create an "Influence Thing" type that's just like
> Influence Node
> >>> but doesn't include personhood. Neither of those seem as good a
> >>> solution as widening the scope of Influence Node.
> >>>
> >>> Thoughts?
> >>>
> >>> Tadhg
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Data-modeling mailing list
> >>> Data-modeling at freebase.com
> >>> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
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> >>
> >
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> >
>
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