Using the Thing type for nested performer entities

[fjjulien]

A growing number of performing arts organizations are describing performer entities in their structured data. This is great thing!

However, @dlh28 @Greensleeves88 and I, occasionally stumble upon sites where the same default type appears to be used for all performers. For example, the Fredericton Playhouse and the Imperial Theatre are using the Person for all their performer entities. This can lead to inaccurate data, as can be seen in this example.

If an arts organization does not have the capacity to customize the performer type for each event, should we be recommending that they use the type Thing as their default value?

Schema's documentation says that the expected values for the performer property are Person and Organization (or sub-types thereof). And Person and Organization both are direct subtypes of Thing. Therefore, stating that a performer entity has the type Thing would not be inaccurate.

Of the two evils, which is the least? Using a broader but correct type? Or using a narrower yet wrong type?

And could the Thing type trigger constraint violations in systems that only allow Person and Organization?

@saumier Please advise.

[saumier]

@fjjulien I have also come across this problem many times. The schema.org doc says that range for schema:performer is schema:Person and schema:Organization including sub-types. A sub-type is more specific like a schema:PerformingGroup. The schema:Thing is not a sub-type of schema:Person or schema:Organization. I don't know why the schema.org validator is not showing a performer of type schema:Thing as an error.

If only there was an Agent like entity that could include both schema:Person and schema:Organization, but sadly there is not.

My approach is currently to try to reconcile the performer entity with Artsdata when minting, and then use the Artsdata entity type instead of the supplied performer type. This can 'correct' the problem when there is a match.

[saumier]

I prefer https://schema.org/PerformingGroup if the performer type is unknown. A group could be a solo artist.

[fjjulien]

If schema:PerformingGroup is a subclass of schema:Organization, then a solo artist should not be given that type. This will unavoidably lead to issues down the road.

[fjjulien]

As discussed in this discussion thread, many external classes can be used to denote an "agent" type. Anyone of these could be used as an additionalType in conjunction with the Thing type.