McBride, Brian wrote: > I’m looking at converting the information represented in the XML files > on http://ukparse.kforge.net/parlparse to RDF in linked open data > style. If anyone is already doing this, please let me know so I can > either help or get out of the way.
There has definitely been discussion in the past by people like Keith Alexander and Graham Higgins - e.g. http://semwebdev.keithalexander.co.uk/blog/posts/twfy-rdf-mapping and http://project.knowledgeforge.net/semwebparlparse/ > I’d like to understand the semantics of the id attributes in files like > all-members.xml. For example, the first member element describes Diane > Abbott representing Hackney North and Stoke Newington from 1997-05-01 > to 2001-05-14 and has an id of “uk.org.publicwhip/member/1”. Yep. You also want people.xml which is meant to match all the member IDs of one person to one person ID. > Basically I would like to understand how these ids might change with > time. That particular ID will certainly never change. > I’d also like to understand the semantics of the various hansard ids. They are/were for matching up with the historic Hansard data Parliament made available, they're not actually used by TheyWorkForYou itself. > Leaving aside processing errors etc, is it possible that in a future (or > earlier) published version of all-members.xml a different id might be > used to identify the same “member” or record i.e. same person > representing the same constituency for the same period? No. A member ID is even more limited than that - it's the same person representing the same constituency for a particular party/name for that period. ie. a name change/ party change mandates a new entry and a new member ID. This does mean that it's possible for a correction to be made to a previous ID (say someone got married halfway through a Parliament, changed their name, and we missed it - unlikely, but say - then we would need to create a new member ID for their new name and change the date range for the old member ID). > Leaving aside processing errors etc, is it possible that in a future (or > earlier) published version of all-members.xml the id > “uk.org.publicwhip/member/1” might be used to identify a different > “member” or record i.e. where the person or the constituency or the > period is different? Only to correct an error as above (I'm not sure if that's what you meant by processing error) - it (and all its details) would never change if they're correct, and the ID would certainly never point at a different person. > Are any of the ids used in the various xml files intended to remain the > same across time and this be suitable for constructing URIs? All member and person IDs are meant to remain the same. There are/ will be anomalies in the person IDs where e.g. we have two entries for someone who was both an MP and a Lord and we didn't "join them up" - in which case one of the two person IDs will be removed (and not reused) and both member IDs will be matched to that person ID. Constituencies are a bit more haphazard - historical ones are again based on the historical Hansard data and the from/to of those are broadly just name-based, but with some other things too. I wouldn't infer anything about constituency IDs beyond they cover a range - ie. for the next general election, it's probably easiest to create new constituency IDs for all the English/Wales/NI constituencies given they've all had boundary reviews, even if actually a few of them have had no changes. Plus some have had substantial changes but kept the same name. > I’m figuring out how to create URIs for members, constituencies etc so I > need to know the scope in which the various ids in the xml files > identify things. Hope that's helpful. ATB, Matthew _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public
