[Data-modeling] Proposed changes to Deity properties

[Jeff Fry]

FYI, Deity Of has been changed on production to Religion(s) That Worship 
This Deity.

Tom's question of whether saints and deities can share a property that 
tracks both Vulcan's domain of influence and the things a saint is a 
patron of is interesting. They don't currently share a common type, so 
that would mean coming up with one or delegating a property. Given that 
a saint's patronage currently just accepts text, there's no point in 
delegating that. My inclination right now is to just create a Sphere(s) 
of Influence property on Deity, with and ECT of Sphere of Influence. 
This could be delegated to Saint at some future point, if useful. I've 
gone ahead and set Spheres of Influence up on sandbox for review.

One can now list that Vulcan governs Fire and Technology 
http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/en/vulcan

And more interestingly, this gives us views like 
http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/religion/views/fire_gods

Note, I've also created a reverse property on Sphere of Influence, e.g. 
http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/en/fire

I welcome any feedback on the model or on names of types/properties.

Bonus can of worms: Now I kind of want to be able to see what gender my 
fire gods are, or a view of the spheres of influence of female gods. Do 
we add a gender topic to Deity? How about Parents, Children and 
Siblings? If we want this sort of detail for deities it's applicable to, 
are we better off using a cotype?

Jeff F



Tom Morris wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 7:01 PM, Jeff Fry <jfry at metaweb.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> 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".
>>     
> ...
>   
>> 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 it can be done without warping your model too much, it would be
> good to be able to cover religious figures who aren't gods e.g. Patron
> Saint of <foo> where <foo> is either a subject (travel, lost things)
> or a place.
>
> Tom
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