Consider need for new superclasses (Thing, Agent, Entity)

popolo-project / popolo-spec

International legislative data specifications

http://www.popoloproject.com/

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Consider need for new superclasses (Thing, Agent, Entity) #115

Open jpmckinney opened 8 years ago

jpmckinney commented 8 years ago

e.g. owl:Thing, foaf:Agent, prov:Entity.

In OpenCorporates, it's sometimes unknown whether something is a Person or Organization. See openc-schema. The issue with using "Agent" in their use case is that a mutual fund, for example, doesn't have agency.

For such use cases, it may be useful to recommend an appropriate class for entities that is more generic than Person or Organization.

akuckartz commented 8 years ago

Can unions be allowed? See #118 for a use case for a union of Organization and Person.

jpmckinney commented 8 years ago

I think it's simpler (especially outside RDF) to declare an explicit superclass than to refer to an anonymous class that is the union of other classes.