[Data-modeling] structure2: using the Project schema

[Kirrily Robert]

On 26/02/2009, at 2:23 PM, Ed Laurent wrote:
> The parent/child phylogeny is good for nesting projects (I also used  
> that approach) but I referred to "Project focus" in my fourth point,  
> not the project parent/child relationship. You used "Project focus"  
> and I used "Coordinated program" to describe the purpose of  
> projects. My interpretation was that these types were similar and I  
> was just providing an example of the properties that I had found  
> useful for describing them.


I think there's some misunderstanding around my "Project focus"  
property.  It's the thing the project is about.  In your schema, I  
think that's "focal taxa".  For instance, a project to add a new wing  
to a library has a project focus of that library; a project to add  
bike lanes to Foo Street has its focus as Foo Street; the project to  
design and release Firefox 3 has Firefox 3 as its focus; a project to  
research and document the mating rituals of the New Guinea highlanders  
has the New Guinea highlanders as its focus; a project to find a  
vaccine for AIDS has AIDS vaccine as its focus.

There might be several uncoordinated efforts with the same focus.  For  
instance, in the early modern period there were numerous attempts to  
discover the Northwest Passage by various governments and commercial  
entities; all of these could be modeled as projects with "Northwest  
Passage" as their focus, even though they weren't a co-ordinated  
program.

K.

-- 
Kirrily Robert
Freebase Community Director
kirrily at metaweb.com