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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=171254421-02072009><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Delegating the existing properties to a new type would be
the least breaky way to implement this -- there would be no actual change to the
schemas, so nothing would break, but all subject types would still be kept
together. (Delegating the other direction would be a much larger
task, since we'd have to re-write all the existing properties. It would allow
the piecemeal deletion of types, but I think that we either want separate
subject types or we don't -- I don't know what there would be about one subject
type that wouldn't also be true of another, in terms of wanting to keep it
around.)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=171254421-02072009><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=171254421-02072009><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Jeff</FONT></SPAN></DIV><BR>
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<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B> data-modeling-bounces@freebase.com
[mailto:data-modeling-bounces@freebase.com] <B>On Behalf Of </B>Ed
Laurent<BR><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, July 02, 2009 12:54 PM<BR><B>To:</B>
Freebase data modeling mailing list<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Data-modeling]
Types for subjects<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>I like the idea of having a single "Media subject" type. Another
option might be to keep all the existing types and have them include or
delegate from the new generalized type. Then the existing subject types could
be evaluated on a case by case basis by base members to see if they should be
deleted or merged.<BR><BR>-Ed<BR><BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Faye Harris <SPAN
dir=ltr><<A href="mailto:faye@metaweb.com">faye@metaweb.com</A>></SPAN>
wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid">+1.
Way too many "foo subjects" types. And the expected type of<BR>something
with a media subject would be a generic media type...<BR>Something that
would resolve DA-445, perhaps?<BR><FONT color=#888888><BR>-- Faye<BR></FONT>
<DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=h5><BR><BR>Jeff Prucher wrote:<BR>> <<A
href="http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000b912218"
target=_blank>http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000b912218</A>><BR>><BR>>
This is a thread in which it is proposed that we collapse all the
various<BR>> media subject types (book subject, film subject, etc.) into
one big (new)<BR>> Media Subject type. Functionally, this would
result in one type with many<BR>> properties, rather than many types with
one property each.<BR>><BR>> The main advantage I can see to this is
that users wouldn't have to add new<BR>> types if they wanted to indicate
that a topic was a subject of a type it<BR>> didn't already have (that
is, if you wanted to say that a particular radio<BR>> program had a
subject of, say, "Porcupines", but the Porcupine topic was<BR>> only the
subject of a book currently, you wouldn't have to add the type<BR>>
"Radio Subject" -- you could just fill in the property).<BR>><BR>> A
minor advantage _might_ be that people creating types in bases would
have<BR>> a type they could all reference if they had a new type that
needed a subject<BR>> property. Although this also has the disadvantage
that these properties<BR>> would not be reciprocated, whereas if the user
created a new "foo subject"<BR>> type, it would be.<BR>><BR>> This
would also be a fairly major change, since we'd be nuking a lot of<BR>>
types, which would potentially break all kinds of things (we could keep
the<BR>> old property keys, but I'm not sure about the type keys). It
also has<BR>> implications for other places where similar patterns exist
(media genres and<BR>> ficitional characters are two that come to
mind).<BR>><BR>> What do you think about this?<BR>><BR>>
Jeff<BR>><BR>> _______________________________________________<BR>>
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