[Data-modeling] Chemist & other types that are professions - was Re: State of the commons (C-F)

[Faye Harris]

Types in Freebase can be divided into two camps: those that were deemed 
as necessary, either internally, with partners, or by user requests; and 
those that stemmed from personal projects, from domain admins or 
promoted from bases to Commons by domain admins.

Types in /film may fall into the first category, but I would assert that 
types like /chess/chess_player (one property mostly empty on instances), 
and /computer/computer_scientist (no property) would fall into the 
second category. It will surprise you, Robert, that there is indeed a 
Physician type, to which as a /medicine admin, I'll 'fess up. By which I 
stand by my earlier statement that type coverage is uneven in Freebase. 
This is more evident running topics through /api/trans/notable_types.

If the policy on adding profession-related types is changing, becoming 
more transparent, whereby the practice is overall discouraged unless 
deemed absolutely necessary, then I welcome this change. As long as 
there is a way to capture the properties I'm interested in (and by 
glancing at an email from Spencer, I think we can work out something), I 
withdraw my request for keeping/starting chemist/physicist.

-- Faye


Robert Cook wrote:
> Typically, I think professional types should be created only out of  
> necessity.  If there is a lot of useful data around that profession  
> (say, which movies you acted in), then it's a good thing to have.  If  
> we add Chemists and Physicists, why not Nurses, Physicians and Plumbers?
>
> Speaking of professions and professional types, I recently got another  
> request from a startup using Freebase data to synch up these  
> denormalizations using automatic data processes to copy data back and  
> forth between the representations.
>
> That is, if somebody is typed as politician, he/she should have the  
> profession set to politician.  Not all profession/type pairs would  
> have this mapping, and even fewer would have them symmetrically (/film/ 
> actor -> profession: actor is definitely one way).
>
> On Jul 1, 2009, at 5:21 PM, Faye Harris wrote:
>
>   
>> As for the lack of properties I have a few to propose. Every
>> science-oriented profession has specialties: In chemistry we have
>> analytical chemistry, organic chemistry, electrochemistry. In  
>> physics we
>> have astropysics, quantum physics, etc. An existing type with
>> specialties is /medicine/physician. Also, scientists make discoveries:
>> see /astronomer/astronomy which captures astronomical bodies  
>> discovered.
>> They develop theories, and a property here will finally link
>> /en/albert_einstein to /en/theory_of_relativity in Freebase, thus
>> uniting two inseparable scientific entities. Working scientist yet to
>> make earth-shattering discoveries have research topics -- another
>> property that can be reciprocated. These professions also tend to be
>> regulated, and require qualification or licensing; Canada, for  
>> example,
>> licenses "professional chemists".
>>
>> Is that enough to save "chemist" and start "physicist"?
>>     
>
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