Tom Wetmore wrote: > On Tuesday, October 2, 2012 10:17:03 AM UTC-4, singhals wrote: > >> The obvious problem with creating hierarchies is -- who gets >> the final say on what goes in? > > Experts and historians do this work. Whoever provides the > data. If it's full of errors we turn somewhere else. We depend > upon the knowledge of experts for every aspect of our lives. > >> Then since clearly hierarchy means something different to >> each of us, does your hierarchy begin in the Milky Way >> Galaxy and work its fumbling way down to 123 West Main >> Street or does it go the other direction? In either event, >> does a church parish out-rank a civil parish (where both >> exist -- or, I guess, at all). > > If you'd read what I wrote and understood it, you > would realize we are talking about a forest of hierarchies, Good thing I've never been as blonde as you seem to think. > a directed graph of place names that can be used to handle > multi-dimensions of time periods, languages, ecclesiastical > dimensions, political dimensions and so on. Do you know > what a graph is? This the basic mathematical underpinnings > needed to provide the modeling for these services, and it > is among the simplest of mathematical concepts to > implement as a data structure and write algorithms for. > It is the graph structures that allow multiple pure containment > hierarchies to coexist. The parallel hierarchies have no "ranking" > with respect to each other. They are different hierarchies. > This is a subtlety you need to grasp before you > can comment meaningfully. > >> And, in either event of either event -- how will the >> hierarchy indicate to the reader that "Glaxon Parish" as a >> place-name is incomplete, or whether said parish is civil or >> church? > > Uh, by indicating it. I covered this in what I wrote before. You > enter a partial place name. You do or do not try to limit that > partial place name to a time, language, region, religion, etc. You > push a button. Out comes all the fully qualified names from > all the hierarchies in all the dimensions you are interested in. > How will this magic gazetteer *know* which "Somerset" is meant if the only word given it is Somerset? Cheryl