I’ve been looking around to see if Eurovision data exists as linked data, or openly in any format. I can find relatively little, mostly just data about one of the recent contests, or about UK performances. None of it is RDF or linked. I suspect that some linked but not open data of this sort may be held by the BBC or the EBU, but can’t see any trace of it.
In some ways I am not disappointed as it means I can have a go at playing with the idea myself, both for fun and as something to learn from. The idea would be to do something similar to what I have done with this Sandy site, preferably also with a Sparql endpoint if I can figure out how to set one up. It would have the twin benefits of being a larger pool of data than I entered in the Sandy site but also reasonably finite: there are only so many contests and so many entrants each year. It would also be of interest to a somewhat wider group of people.
There are two main differences that make creating the new site more tricky: the data needs to be modelled a little more rigorously; and, I am looking at creating my own elements and properties, although I will use existing ones where possible. Below is a sketch of a simple Eurovision Song Contest linked data (escld:) model with the data types I would need to establish. My main aim is to record songs, artists, countries, positions, and total points. Links out can enrich this too. Recording the individual voting scores (who gave douze to whom) is not my immediate concern although I wouldn’t want to rule it out. I’ve therefore had a stab at how it could be done. I think it would need something clever like blank nodes. The purpose of the sketch is to get an idea of structure rather anything like anĀ exhaustive list of possible relationships to be included.
Any comments or suggestions on this set up would be most welcome!
Entities:
<contest>
<country>
<song>
<artist>
<composer>
Relationships:
<inCity>
<performedBy>
<composedBy>
<representing>
<position>
<score>
<receivedPoints>
<pointsFrom>
<noOfPoints>
Example triples (lazily punctuated and laid out) using namespace escld
<escld:Eurovision Song Contest 2010> <dc:date> "2010" <escld:inCity> <dbpedia:Oslo>
<escld:Germany>
<escld:Satellite> <escld:performedBy> <Lena Meyer-Landrut> <escld:composedBy> <Julie Frost> <escld:composedBy> <John Gordon> <dc:date> "2010" <escld:representing> <Germany> <dc:title> "Satellite" <escld:position> "1" <escld:score> "246" <escld:receivedPoints> _:rP1 _:rP1 <escld:pointsFrom> <UnitedKingdom> _:rP1 <escld:noOfPoints> "12"
<escld:Lena Meyer-Landrut> <foaf:name> "Lena Meyer-Landrut" <escld:Julie Frost> <foaf:name> "Julie Frost" <escld:John Gordon> <foaf:name> "John Gordon"
How about another entity for “arranger”. They tend to feature a alot in the world of Eurovision.
That’s a good idea, as some of them do seem to be quite prominently mentioned, although I’m wary of adding too much detail (producer as well?). That said, it doesn’t really matter if it is not easily findoutable for all entrants.