[Developers] Updating the API Documentation

[Alexander Marks]

Actually, point 3 (citations) is not really addressed by our recent extension to the attribution system, which is intended to support only high level groupings of freebase writes for administrative reasons. Such attributions are not guaranteed to stay attached to any particular assertion over time, and can only be written once. Supporting fact-level citation is really a different problem entirely that we don't currently have a solution to.

Al

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kirrily Robert" <kirrily at metaweb.com>
To: "For discussions about MQL, Freebase API and apps built on Freebase" <developers at freebase.com>
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2008 12:38:29 PM (GMT-0800) America/Los_Angeles
Subject: Re: [Developers] Updating the API Documentation

Interestingly, there is work afoot to permit almost every single thing  
you mention here.

I should upload my talk from the last user group meeting, about the  
"Freebase Commons" and our new user domain features, I guess, as it  
addresses points 1 and 2.  (See also http://www.freebase.com/view/user/robert/default_domain/my_favorite_things 
  for example -- and don't be surprised if you see stuff like that  
becoming more prominent.)

There is work being done with "attributions" which will offer some  
features pertinent to point 3.

As for points 4 and 5 I'm not sure exactly what's planned but I know  
that both these are things that are under consideration.  Just because  
they're not there yet doesn't mean they never will be.

K.

On May 30, 2008, at 12:32 PM, Jeff Thompson wrote:

> Up front in the documentation it is also important to say what  
> Freebase is *not* for.
> Even on this mailing list, many have come to Freebase thinking they  
> can use it for
> a general purpose knowledge representation system only to be told to  
> scale back their
> expectations. Freebase is good for lots of things but it is not  
> built to handle:
> * Information beyond a certain level of detail.  For example if you  
> are an expert on
>   Elvis, you still will not be able to braindump everything you know  
> into Freebase
>   (such as Elivs's pets, cars, etc.)
> * Personal information that attracts people to Facebook, etc. such  
> as my
>   favorite music or friends, my goals, any changing data that would  
> make
>   me want to visit my Freebase page every day.
> * Citations - who said that a piece of controversial data is true  
> such that a Freebase
>   topic can serve as an encyclopedic entry.
> * No property inference.  You cannot specify a property as  
> transitive so that a page
>   will automatically generate, e.g., all of a person's ancestors.   
> Hence Freebase
>   is "flat": you must enter all data about a topic directly on the  
> topic.
> * No inference rules and no plans for them.  You cannot specify the  
> "uncle" relation
>   as inferred from the "parent" and "brother" relations.
>
> Phil Gochenour wrote:
>> Hey everybody,
>>
>> If you read the Freebase blog you've probably already seen my  
>> little intro,
>> but in case you haven't, I'm Phil, the new documentation manager,  
>> aka Doctor
>> of the Docs, here at Metaweb. Over the next several weeks I'm going  
>> to be
>> doing a little clean-up on the API documentation, and wanted to see  
>> if you
>> all had any comments, suggestions,  etc,. on anything from the  
>> document
>> content to the way it's organized. My main concern is making sure  
>> that it's
>> all consistent and accurate, and I'm guessing that you all have far  
>> more
>> experience in working with it than I do. Also, if you've got any  
>> other ideas
>> or feedback for other developer documentation, I'd be happy to hear  
>> from
>> you.
>>
>> Looking forward to working with you all in the future,
>>
>> Phil
>
>
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> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/developers

-- 
Kirrily Robert
Freebase Community Director
kirrily at metaweb.com
http://freebase.com/




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