[deepamehta-devel] multi-lingual topic values

[Jörg Richter]

Hi Malte,

sorry for not responding earlier.

I see multi-linguality as a cross-cutting concern which is quite challenging.

But I think DM's particular "semantic" data model (composites of typed topics/associations) and the REST concept (one resource, multi representations) leads us the way. I would see e.g. "Köln" and "Cologne" as 2 *representations* of the *same* topic. That is a topic of type "City" which carries the semantics of "Germany's fourth-largest city".

DM could store the several translations of a topic in the topic's properties and the topic value would always reflect the translation that matches the request's Accept-Language header.

This should not be too difficult to implement in the DM core, or even as a DM plugin.

3 advantages of this approach:
  - No explosion of complexity (API, storage, performance).
  - No proliferation of the DB (and possibly the user interface!) with redundant ("un-semantic") topics.
  - Maintaining the topic's relationships remains a manageable task (e.g. Karl moves from Cologne to Berlin).

Cheers,
Jörg


On Jun 6, 2015, at 15:41, <mre at deepamehta.de> <mre at deepamehta.de> wrote:

> Meanwhile, for storing multi-lingual values of a "Wikidata Item" in DM 4:
> 
> For text values i now use a foursome of values, defined in a custom
> wikidata composite as "org.deepamehta.wikidata.entity_value" of which an
> item can have _many_.
> 
> "Label, Alias and Description" are the three values (half the part of an
> ItemDescription in Wikidata) which correspond with a "ISO Language Code".
> 
> The drawback is, as described here earlie, now I have to load all child
> topics of this composite type and can not filter for (select just) those
> with the child-topic value set to e.g. "en".
> 
> Just wanted to let you know about the developments, for more see (or
> details of the complete model i currently wrap wikidata), e.g. line 65
> https://github.com/mukil/dm4-wikidata-toolkit/blob/geo-fronts/src/main/resources/migrations/migration3.json
> 
> Cheers!