
KBA 2013 Assessor Guidelines
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The assessing task for KBA CCR is to identify texts that would cause a
change to an *already* up-to-date profile of an entity.  Entities can
be people, organizations, and facilities.

The distinction between the top two relevance rating levels of "vital"
and "useful" is different from KBA 2012.  Assume that you already have
an up-to-date profile for the entity.  Vital documents would change
that up-to-date profile.  A document that you might use when building
an initial profile is merely Useful, not vital.  The issue of what
constitutes "up-to-date" is a subjective judgment made by the human
assessor.  These guidelines help to clarify that issue.


What goes in a profile?

 * basic attributes, e.g. age, gender

 * professional background and activities

 * family history and current family situation

 * Describe reasons for notoriety, if they are noteworthy enough for a
   Wikipedia article.

 * If not noteworthy, then just describe what they do with their time,
   which is typical of twitter entities.



Vital: would motivate a change to an already up-to-date profile

Entity took action or experienced action, e.g. scored a goal, read a
poetry in public, was the site of a crime.  Since essentially all the
text is written after the fact, one must assess the time lag between
the reporting and the event.

Tempo: The difference between an vital update and background
biographical info can be subjective in several ways.  One particular
aspect of subjectivity involves judging whether an event that changed
the entity is being mentioned way after the fact.  For example, a text
might explain when an entity was born --- fifty years after the fact.
Such reporting is obviously biographical (therefore "useful") and not
sufficiently timely to be vital.  Borderline examples exist.  For
example, should we consider this passage timely?

   "Sara helped start NXIVM in 2007."
   (reporting date 2011)

No, that's not timely enough.  That's useful, not vital.  If the
posture of the reporting language is itself biographical, it is even
easier to discern:

   "In the past, Sara had helped start NXIVM -- around 2007."
   (Reporting date not needed to judge as useful, not vital.)

More challenging examples exist.  Is it timely that "Halmark, one of
Bob's customers, experienced a website outage."

Each entity has a tempo or rate of change relevant to its behavior and
nature.  If the posture of the reporting does not easily distinguish
background biographical events from current timely events, then the
assessor must judge whether the current reporting is about an event
that has happened sufficiently recently, relative to the publication
time of the reporting.




Borderline Vital

Target entity is on a board of directors, and several new people join
the board.  If this event has direct bearing on the target, such that
you would change their profile, then it is vital.  Otherwise, it is
useful because it substantiates the fact that they are on the board,
which you could use when creating the profile from scratch.

Target entity is deceased and his/her estate is being divested.
Significant personal positions are being auctioned.  If the estate is
short-lived and not an long-lived institution in its own right, then
treat the estate as the current embodiment of the entity.  Ask whether
the reporting would trigger an update to the profile, and if so, then
it is vital.  If the estate is long-lived, then it is only useful
because it could be used in initial creation of a profile for the
deceased entity.

Politician is "another sponsor" of a current bill -- useful.

Politician suddenly makes a big stink or public outcry about a topic -- vital.


Borderline Useful:

Target entity is mentioned in a short snippet of text along with other
biographical information, such as a book authored by the entity or
description of a professional affiliation.  This is useful if the
snippet is clear enough that you could use it as substantiation for an
element of creating a profile.  If the content isn't clear enough to
provide substantiation, but it is still recognizable based on
knowledge of the entity, then it is neutral.


Borderline Neutral:

Target entity is mentioned in a confusing context or fragment such
that one cannot decide with high confidence whether this is the
target, then it is garbage.  
