Re: [Ag Meinungsfindungstool] [MG] Common business entity model

["marc" <marc AT merkstduwas.de>]

Michael Allan wrote:
> Marc said:
> > Here is a first draft of our idea of a Common Business Entity Model
> > (where 'Business' means it's not a 'Data' Entity Relationship Model
> > assignable to a database schema, it's just objects found in the real
> > world - the database schema might look totally different):
> > http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/wiki/images/4/45/DSFS-BusinessEntityModel.jpg

> I have some questions about the model.  To keep them separate from my
> other questions, I opened this thread.

> (a) Why is discussion itself not modeled?  It's crucial of course, but
> I don't see it anywhere.

This model is currently meant to be the base solely for the discussion 
system!
Therefore the discussion itself is a 'Process' or 'Workflow' not an 
'Entity'.

> (b) Why is a vote included as an actual (real world) entity?  Myself,
> I think of voting as a formality of the system, something new we
> introduce.  It does have *correlates* in the real world, but people
> don't actually go about casting votes in order to form their opinions,
> not yet.

Ok. Sorry. This is definitely a problem in translation. Please read 'RATING' 
instead of 'VOTE' here!

> (In fact, most of the right side seems to be modeling a
> artificial system yet to be deployed, not the real world.  I probably
> mistook your meaning for "business entity".)

Yeah, that's me too ;o) Business Entity is not a good term at all. What it 
wants to express is, that it is not a DATA ENTITY, that can be mapped 
directly to a database schema. Even if sometimes it would ;o)

In fact we are modeling the entities of an artificial system here. But maybe 
we can use the term 'Domain Entity' as George Anadiotis suggested. That's 
more close to what I think the entities are all about.

> Looking at the left side, I see a few possible errors:

> (c) An opinion is not really (in itself) a document.  A document can
> be involved in the formalization and expression of an opinion, but the
> opinion is not bound to that form.

Yes you are right. So it is not realy about real world entities but more 
about the domain entities that are reflected by the system. So sorry for 
misleading you!

In our working group we decided, that the Discussion System is only able to 
deal with textual input. No video or audio processing capabilities. That's 
why at the end everything boils down to some combination of characters.

> (d) Likewise, a point of view is not an opinion (at least not in
> English).  It is one's outlook from a personal situation.  It may
> influence opinion in peculiar ways, but is not an opinion in itself.

Ok. That's unfortunately also lost in translation I believe. Please read 
POSITION instead of POINT OF VIEW. The groups position is a consensus of all 
individual opinions of the group members.

> (e) Group membership is not a closed composite relation, but rather an
> open aggregate.  One can be a member of many groups.

That's true. But IMHO if a Group is composed of 2..* Participants, that 
doesn't mean a Participant can't be member of several Groups. So maybe we 
need a * multiplicity at the Groups side?

> Although I don't have a full understanding yet, I suspect it will be
> difficult to find the right model to code by.  It may take a while.
> Later (in the other thread), I'll try to suggest a way of buying time
> and (possibly) evolving some of the models by discovery.

Ok. Thank you!

Cheers
Marc