[Data-modeling] Proposed changes to Deity properties

[Ed Laurent]

While y'all are thinking about this topic of deities and religions, I
thought I'd mention that Aztec mythology and Roman mythology topics are
typed as fictional universes.

http://www.freebase.com/view/en/roman_mythology
http://www.freebase.com/view/en/aztec_mythology

Although I belong to neither religion (not that there's anything wrong with
that), to me this sets bad precedent. Maybe these topics just need to be
retyped and/or renamed, but there was something about the combination of
topic/type names/descriptions that led to this judgment.

Equally judgmental, I created a Folklore base as a Sanctuary (pardon the
geeky scifi pun) for holding "mythical creatures" that don't fit existing
models. Some of these topics could probably be moved into various religion
bases as they develop. To help this along, I added an "area of occurrence"
property as a way of aggregating creatures spatially so that other
commonalities might be easier to identify.

http://folklore.freebase.com/

Combined, this gets me wondering where the lines are drawn among religion,
folklore, mysteries, and fictional universes in Freebase... Fictional
universe seems the easiest for setting defined boundaries and perhaps those
distinctions should be made clearer in its description.

-Ed



On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 7:38 PM, Jeff Fry <jfry at metaweb.com> wrote:

> Kirrily Robert wrote:
> > We could just change the display name, which isn't even a schema
> > change.  I'd fully support this.  I prefer "Religion(s) that worship
> > this deity".
> >
> > K.
> >
> Yes, the display name was all I was talking about changing here, and I'm
> happy to go with "Religion(s) that worship this deity", unless someone
> wants to discuss this further.
>
> What about a property for spheres of influence? This applies more to
> polytheistic deities, but it looks like folks have been looking for a
> place to enter this sort of info.
>
> > On Mar 5, 2009, at 4:01 PM, Jeff Fry wrote:
> >
> >
> >> I just noticed a pile of topics that had been mistyped as religions,
> >> including: Fire, Commerce, Wine, and Spring. Looking at Fire
> >> <http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000000ece0>I
> >> couldn't understand why this happened  ...Until I drilled into Vulcan
> >> <http://www.freebase.com/view/en/vulcan>. Asserting that he is a
> >> "Deity
> >> of" Fire is quite reasonable, and the fact that we expect a Religion
> >> here isn't obvious.
> >>
> >> It seems like we need to (a) give the deity_of property a less
> >> ambiguous
> >> name, and possibly also (b) add a new property to capture things like
> >> that Vulcan is a fire god -- possibly something like "Sphere(s)" or
> >> "Domain(s)" with an ECT like "Religious Sphere".
> >>
> >> As far as (a) my first inclination is to name the property "Diety Of
> >> (Religion)". Another option: "Religion(s) That Worship This Deity",
> >> which follows the grammar of "People of this ethnicity:",
> >> "Organizations
> >> in this sector:", etc...though it's a longer name.
> >>
> >> For (b) I'll propose a new property named Sphere with an ECT of
> >> Religious Sphere. This would enable, say, a view of fire gods across
> >> religions.
> >>
> >> If this sounds good to folks I'll go ahead and make these changes.
> >> Thoughts?
> >>
> >> Jeff
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> Data-modeling at freebase.com
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> >>
> >
> >
>
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