This happened over and over during Phase 2 of the Linked Digital Future initiative as we continued modelling activities in Wikidata. Words can be ambiguous. A single word can convey multiple meanings (polysemy) while different words can denote the same thing or concept (synonymy). For example, the term “conductor”. Is this an occupation, a position within an organization or a role in a production? It turns out it could be all three. When representing this work-related concept as an RDF triple (subject-predicate-object), you may need a distinct predicate or property to represent the occupation, the position and the role.

In the last year, we worked with Conseil québécois du théâtre, Culture Creates and others to define good practices for representing performing arts information as linked open data. This required us to set words aside and to focus on a simple, high-level concept that they represent. Then, we had to describe these concepts in clear, domain-neutral ways, so that they would convey the same meaning to other people across languages and domains. In one case, for example, we borrowed the concept of ‘group’ from the CIDOC-CRM ontology to represent all performing arts groups, ensembles, troupes and organizations, no matter their legal form (see the resulting Wikidata item and the discussion).

By the end of Phase 2, we had achieved significant progress towards a harmonized performing arts ontology – the semantic layer in the vision for a linked open data ecosystem for the performing arts. This progress was documented in the WikiProject Performing arts and in the Artsdata.ca documentation. But much still needs to be done. Modelling efforts continue in collaboration with the Performing Arts Information Representation Community Group and the LODEPA community (Linked Open Data Ecosystem for the Performing Arts).