[Developers] [Data-modeling] Proposed refactoring in the publishing domain

Thu Jan 3 20:06:53 UTC 2008

The links in my previous message have expired, so please disregard them.
I'd like to revisit this, now that most folks will be back from the
holidays, and hopefully publish it to Freebase.com soon.  There are two new
types: "written work" and "illustrated work". These will be used as
"supporting types" on all manner of written and/or illustrated topics (book,
book edition, poem, short story, review, short non-fiction, play), and will
replace some of the redundant properties on these types (author, editor,
poet, playwright, illustrator, cover artist). They also provide more
flexibility, and allow (for example) an illustrator to be added to a book
(in cases where every edition of the book has the same illustrations) or a
book edition (where different editions may have different illustrations), or
for an editor to be added to a book edition, rather than a book.

The schemata are here:
http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/schema/book/written_work
http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/schema/book/illustrated_work

Examples can be found in the topics lists for these types, but I want to
call out a few:
http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000006e83b03
("Kipling's Science Fiction": a book with an author and an editor, and which
has different cover artists in different editions)

http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000006e83b60 (The
Norton Critical Edition of "Middlemarch", which has an editor on the book
edition, but not on the book itself [this is not possible in the current
schema]).

http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000006e83bea (An
interview -- the new types will make the existing "interview",
"interviewer", and "interviewee" types unnecessary)

Please take a look around, and let me know what you think.

Jeff

  _____  

From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com
[mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of Jeff Prucher
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 3:41 PM
To: 'Freebase data modeling mailing list'
Cc: 'For discussions about MQL,Freebase API and apps built on Freebase'
Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Proposed refactoring in the publishing domain

I've put in the illustration model: take a look here:
http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/schema/book/illustrated_work
I've put in two samples: one in which all editions of the book have the same
illustrator (http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/make_way_for_ducklings), and
one (well, two) in which there are different illustrators for different
editions of the book:
http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000006df9af5 and
http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000006df9c6f

This will of course be deleted come next Monday, and I'll be offline until
after Christmas, but please take a look and let me know what you think!

Jeff

  _____  

From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com
[mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of Jeff Prucher
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 5:11 PM
To: 'Freebase data modeling mailing list'
Cc: 'For discussions about MQL,Freebase API and apps built on Freebase'
Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Proposed refactoring in the publishing domain

The cover artist thing is a good idea. I'm now imagining a "illustratorship"
type (I know, that's a lame name; I won't really call it that) that could be
used similarly to authorship, but which could be applied to magazine issues,
book editions, and books (and maybe some other things). Enum properties
would probably include "illustrator", "cover artist", "cover design", and
maybe some of the comics values -- pencillor, colorist, inker, letterer; but
this list will grow organically. An open question would be whether the
subject of an artist's monograph would properly be in the "writer" field or
"illustrator" field. But this is tractable.  I'll have to re-post the schema
when sandbox refreshes, so I'll see if I can add this to it as well.

Jeff

  _____  

From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com
[mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of Daniel Renfer
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 5:41 PM
To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
Cc: For discussions about MQL,Freebase API and apps built on Freebase
Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Proposed refactoring in the publishing domain

While this will make it slightly harder to find information for the simple
case (author of a book) I think this will make it much easier to model the
more complex types of contributions to a published work.

You should consider replacing Magazine's Cover Artist with a Cover
Contributor. I'm sure there are a few other types where this could replace
multiple properties. (ie. Comic Books) 

On 12/13/07, Jeff Prucher <jeff at metaweb.com> wrote: 

There have been several requests made, over the last few months, to allow
for more flexibility of attributing authorship and other contributions to
written works, and also to add various properties to a number of types in 
the publishing domain. Toward this end, I've created a new type, "written
work" that will be an included type on all the various types that represent
written works -- book, short story, poem, short non-fiction, review, and 
translation.

The new type is currently on sandbox. I'd appreciate it if anyone who is
interested could take a look at it and let me know what you think. Please
look before Monday evening (Pacific Time), since sandbox will be refreshed 
then.
http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/schema/book/written_work

I've filled out the contents of the April 2007 issue of the Magazine of 
Fantasy and Science Fiction as an example. Click the various items in the
contents property to see the type in action.
http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000514f951
<http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000514f951> 

One feature is to treat authorship (or similar form of creative
contribution) as a compound value type which will allow for multiple types
of contribution to be recorded in the same property and for all the 
disparate types of works to be listed together on the contributors' pages.
Currently, author and editor are treated as separate properties; having a
single property will allow Freebase to reconcile more easily to other 
data-sources, which usually store these in the same field. This will also
allow us to record books where the illustrator is tied to the book itself,
rather to individual editions (as in most children's picture books, but as 
opposed to, say, an illustrated edition of Huckleberry Finn).
See http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000006c3521e
<http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000006c3521e> 
and http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/make_way_for_ducklings for some further
examples.

Another of the new type is that a number of other properties can usefully be

shared by all types of written works, rather than being distributed onto
each. These properties are: original language, date written, copyright date,
date of first publication, and online versions. Others will probably arise, 
but this seems like a good set to start with.

(I'm copying the developers list in case anyone is writing an application
using any of the publishing domain types.)

Thanks in advance,
Jeff Prucher 
Type Librarian & Ontologist
Metaweb

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