[Data-modeling] Modeling uncertainty

[Gordon Mackenzie]

How would this effect timeline views? I suspect it wouldn't be a happy  
result.

That said, I have some Roman Emperors that lack birth dates, and this  
would give me something to enter to approximate their ages when the  
almost inevitable assassination/murder/deposing occurred.

~ Gordon

On Feb 16, 2009, at 3:24 PM, Kirrily Robert wrote:

> I wonder whether, for events at least, we could have a co-type for  
> uncertainly dated events that specify a range of uncertainty.  Jeff  
> would kick me for this (if he weren't off having a baby) but call it  
> something like "Uncertainly timed event" and have two properties,  
> "Degree of uncertainty of start date", and "Degree of uncertainty of  
> end date".  These expect a CVT which is an integer and a unit of  
> time, eg. 3 days, 6 months, 1000 years.  For "Spring 1985" assuming  
> it were the northern hemisphere, you could just put in a date of 1  
> May 1985 and allow 6 weeks' uncertainty, or thereabouts.
>
> This would leave you able to put an estimated date in the ordinary  
> date fields on event, allowing it to appear neatly in timelines and  
> whatnot, but also provide the information about the degree of  
> uncertainty.
>
> K.
>
> On 16/02/2009, at 3:09 PM, Scott Blomquist wrote:
>
>> I just encountered a scenario today that would benefit from the  
>> same solution as your date example. I found some events whose times  
>> I've only been able to pin down so far to "Spring 1985", and I  
>> don't think I have any good way to represent that in an event today.
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 10:28 AM, Tom Morris <tfmorris at gmail.com>  
>> wrote:
>> Is anyone doing work on modeling uncertainty?  I'm specifically
>> interested in dates and locations.
>>
>> Location - If I'm told that something is "near" or "in the vicinity
>> of" a location, currently my choices are to either not record the  
>> fact
>> or to guess at a way to reduce the precision in a way that's still
>> accurate.  I could say that something which is "near Boston" is "in
>> Massachusetts," but a) that might not be true and b) that's not the
>> information that I have.
>>
>> Dates - The simple case is "circa," but it would also be useful to
>> deal with both open and closed ranges (e.g. before 1945, after 1999,
>> or September 2008-December 2008).  Currently the only type of range
>> that can be encoded is ones which can be made by truncating precision
>> (ie 2009 == 1 Jan 2009 - 31 Dec 2009).
>>
>> Tom
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>>
>>
>> -- 
>> http://scott.blomqui.st
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>
> -- 
> Kirrily Robert
> Freebase Community Director
> kirrily at metaweb.com
>
>
>
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