Difference between revisions of "Global taxonomies"

Latest revision as of 08:46, 8 August 2024

Introduction

Open Food Facts uses multiple taxonomies for its inner workings. These taxonomies run from simple word lists with their translations, to complex hierarchies with relations between entries and attributes. The taxonomies are used to analyse and structure the information found on products.

The Languages taxonomy for instance lists the most important languages in the world, translated into these languages. The Ingredients taxonomy lists all the ingredients that OFF has discovered on food products.

This page gives an overview of the taxonomies and some guiding principles that are valid for all taxonomies. For each specific taxonomy there is a specific wikipage.

Presentations

There are several other presentation and descriptions on taxonomies, which you might to look at, before diving into the details:

Quick presentation of the taxonomies
Lightning talk about taxonomies by Léonore (Open Food Facts days 2023) and the slides
A short intro by Yukti on her blog.

Principles

There are some general principles that are valid for all taxonomies. A taxonomy consists of terms and stopwords.

Stopwords

Stopwords are words that can be ignored. These words can be found among ingredients, for instance, but are not ingredients themselves. Each language can have its own stopwords.

In the ingredients taxonomy, for instance, contains is not an ingredient.

Stopwords can be used to further extend synonyms. e.g. if "à" and "la" are stopwords for French, then "Yaourts fraise" will automatically be mapped to "Yaourts à la fraise".

Generic synonyms

These are words that can be added to multiple names, but have not much meaning. This allows the system to filter them out so that you no not have to introduce them everywhere.

Terms

The main part of a taxonomy is a (very) large list of terms. A term consists of list of names in different languages, an optional parent and a list of properties.

Name

A name can be a specific ingredient, label, language, etc, depending on the taxonomy.

A name consists of two parts: a language code (see the Languages taxonomy) and one or more values. The language code determines the language of the values that follow. Thus one can find the value Authentic Trappist Product in the English language in the Labels taxonomy.

If a name can be translated to another language, a new name can be added for that language. For instance for the English name Banana you might want to add the name in Afrikaans (Piesang) or Amharic (ሙዝ).

Canonical term/value

Each term identifies a primary language that is used to identify the term. This is the canonical name for the term. Preferable this is the English name.

Synonyms

For each name it is possible to add synonyms. These will be used during ingredient recognition for instance. However only the main name will be used. For instance the Spanish translation for the english name Banana is Plátano, to which the synonym Banana has been added.

Simple synonyms (simple singular) are done automatically when possible.

Synonyms are recursive: if Yoghurt is a synonym of Yogurt, then Banana yoghurt will automatically be added as a synonym of Banana yogurt.

Parents

Each term can have one (or more) parent terms. This allows to define an isa-relation between terms. For instance Fruit is the parent of Banana. The term Whole black olives in the categories taxonomy has the parent terms Black olives and Whole olives.

Properties

In addition to names, one or more properties can be added to a term section.

For a full listing of the properties that are used see Taxonomy Properties. he following properties are supported: Each specific taxonomy might use additional properties.

Structure

The taxonomy is not a strict hierarchy: sections can have multiple parents. But cycles are not allowed. Formally it can be seen as a Directed Acyclic Graph.

For instance in the categories taxonomy the category Apricots, can have the parent Fresh Food and the parent Fruit.

Implementation

Each taxonomy is implemented as simple text file. See Taxonomy implementation

Maintenance

Anyone can contribute to the maintenance of these taxonomies. You might want to add a translation, add synonyms, new entries or parents. Have a look at Taxonomy Maintenance.

Taxonomy editor

We have a new tool to allow editing taxonomies. The source code and bug report/feature requests are located on GitHub. We would welcome feedback on it.

Overview

The list of taxonomies in use is (these are the files in the taxonomies folder on Github:

Additives classes taxonomy
Brands taxonomy for the producers of products and their corresponding brands. This taxonomy is not in use and still under construction (5-oct-2022);
Categories taxonomy used to put similar products together, so that they can be compared, averages calculated and analysed as a group. For instance an orange juice of a specific brand can be compared to all orange juices;
Countries taxonomy has a list of all countries, regions, areas, etc. in the world;
Ingredients taxonomy for ingredients found on product ingredients lists. Some specific ingredients have been put into separate taxonomies, as these need special handling due to legal requirements:
- Additives taxonomy
- Allergens taxonomy
- Amino acids taxonomy
- Ingredients processing taxonomy
- Minerals taxonomy
- Nucleotides taxonomy
- Other nutritional substances taxonomy
- Vitamins taxonomy
Labels taxonomy for every logo and claim by producer about product quality, supply chain, sourcing, diets, etc.;
Languages taxonomy with a list of world languages in multiple languages;
NOVA groups taxonomy
Origins taxonomy
Packaging/recycling taxonomies have been spread out over several specific taxonomies:
- Materials taxonomy with a list of all possible materials that can be used;
- Shapes taxonomy which describe all the packaging parts the packaging can consist of;
- Recycling taxonomy with all ways packaging can be recycled;
States taxonomy which describe how complete the data of a product on OFF is;

Ideas

If you have any ideas for taxonomies, contact us on Slack and describe a proposal on this wiki.

Draft Taxonomies

There are some ideas of creating other taxonomies:

Access

The taxonomies can be viewed on Github, via the products on the website and with an API. This is detailed on a separate page: Taxonomy access.

Get in touch

Slack channel

#taxonomies

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-[[Category:Global Taxonomies]]
 == Introduction ==
+'''Open Food Facts''' uses multiple '''taxonomies''' for its inner workings. These taxonomies run from simple word lists with their translations, to complex hierarchies with relations between entries and attributes. The taxonomies are used to analyse and structure the information found on products.
-Open Food Facts uses global taxonomies for fields such as categories, brands, labels and countries. This page explains how taxonomies work in Open Food Facts and how they can be updated and enhanced.
+The [[Languages taxonomy]] for instance lists the most important languages in the world, translated into these languages. The [[Ingredients taxonomy]] lists all the ingredients that OFF has discovered on food products.
-== Features ==
+This page gives an overview of the taxonomies and some guiding principles that are valid for all taxonomies. For each specific taxonomy there is a specific wikipage.
-* A global hierarchy / taxonomy for each type of data field (categories, brands, labels, countries etc.)
+== Presentations ==
-* Translations for every language of each field value
+There are several other presentation and descriptions on taxonomies, which you might to look at, before diving into the details:
-* Multiple synonyms for each field value in each language
+* [https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zL2fA3d_fuPvKKKmCGJ5aV_Ug-R-gXQbwSCcxf3dbo4/edit?usp=sharing Quick presentation of the taxonomies]
-* Stopwords for each language/field type
+* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0xRwU_De9Q Lightning talk about taxonomies by Léonore] (Open Food Facts days 2023) and [https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_QPKTCyDXNK6HgwHQ0W-ebYCfkB3U3NcL0xLQJJZ9TU/edit#slide=id.p the slides]
+* A [https://yuktea.wordpress.com/2022/06/22/three-generations/ short intro by Yukti on her blog].
-== Generalities ==
+== Principles ==
+There are some general principles that are valid for all taxonomies. A taxonomy consists of '''terms''' and '''stopwords'''.
-=== Languages ===
+=== Stopwords ===
-Each language has a 2-letter prefix. e.g. "en" for English and "fr" for French.
+Stopwords are words that can be ignored. These words can be found among ingredients, for instance, but are not ingredients themselves. Each language can have its own stopwords.
-Whenever possible, the canonical language for each field value should be English. e.g. en:soups is the canonical value for the Soups category.
+In the ingredients taxonomy, for instance, '''contains''' is not an ingredient.
-A value can be defined in another language (which becomes the canonical language), e.g. fr:soupes-a-l-oignon could be the canonical value for "Onion Soups" if we don't have an English translation yet.
-New values (e.g. categories that do not exist yet) should have an English canonical value.
+Stopwords can be used to further extend synonyms. e.g. if "à" and "la" are stopwords for French, then "Yaourts fraise" will automatically be mapped to "Yaourts à la fraise".
-Each field value can be translated to any language.
-When a field value needs to be translated to a target language, if the translation does not exist yet, English is shown (or the canonical language if the English translation does not exist either).
+=== Generic synonyms ===
+These are words that can be added to multiple names, but have not much meaning. This allows the system to filter them out so that you no not have to introduce them everywhere.
-==== Remarks ====
+=== Terms ===
-* Which standard is used for the codes?  It can be the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639-1 ISO-639-1] standard, eventually this can be extended the 3-letter codes.
+The main part of a taxonomy is a (very) large list of terms. A term consists of list of names in different languages, an optional parent and a list of properties.
-=== Singular or plural? ===
+==== Name ====
-Generally, we use the plural for categories but some of them are in singular. We don't put the plural form when it has a different meaning. For example Beef and Beefs. We are talking of the meat and not the animal, so there is no "s". But "Rillettes" in french (and others languages) doesn't have a singular form.
+A name can be a specific ingredient, label, language, etc, depending on the taxonomy.
-Sometimes plural or singular depends on the language. The situation for dutch is described in [[Dutch translation issues]].
+A name consists of two parts: a language code (see the [[Languages taxonomy]]) and one or more values. The language code determines the language of the values that follow. Thus one can find the value '''Authentic Trappist Product''' in the English language in the [[Labels taxonomy]].
-If the category is in plural form, the translations should be in the plural form.
+If a name can be translated to another language, a new name can be added for that language. For instance for the English name '''Banana''' you might want to add the name in Afrikaans ('''Piesang''') or Amharic ('''ሙዝ''').
-<pre>
+==== Canonical term/value ====
-@stephane new proposal (not yet adopted, to be discussed)
+Each term identifies a primary language that is used to identify the term. This is the canonical name for the term. Preferable this is the English name.
-In the categories taxonomy, always use the plural (en:beers, fr:bières).
-Then add the singular (especially if it's not a simple rule like removing the final s) in a property:
-singular:en:beer
-singular:fr:bière
-For the ingredients taxonomy, do the reverse:
-always use the singular for the main entry, and then add the plural:
-en:tomato
-plural:en:tomatoes
-</pre>
-=== Synonyms ===
+==== Synonyms ====
-In each language, each value can have a number of synonyms.
+For each name it is possible to add synonyms. These will be used during ingredient recognition for instance. However only the main name will be used. For instance the Spanish translation for the english name '''Banana''' is '''Plátano''', to which the synonym '''Banana''' has been added.
 Simple synonyms (simple singular) are done automatically when possible.
-Synonyms are recursive: if en:yoghurt is a synonym of en:yogurt, then en:banana_yoghurt will automatically be added as a synonym of en:banana_yogurt
+Synonyms are recursive: if '''Yoghurt''' is a synonym of '''Yogurt''', then '''Banana yoghurt''' will automatically be added as a synonym of '''Banana yogurt'''.
-=== Remarks ===
-* What are the simple synonym rules? How does translate to other languages?
-* Not that recursion does not work for languages, where the adjectives changes based on gender.
-=== Stopwords ===
-Stopwords can be used to further extend synonyms. e.g. if "à" and "la" are stopwords for French, then "Yaourts fraise" will automatically be mapped to "Yaourts à la fraise".
-In the ingredients taxonomy, stopwords are also words that can be ignored. For instance ''contains'' is not an ingredient.
+==== Parents ====
+Each term can have one (or more) parent terms. This allows to define an isa-relation between terms. For instance '''Fruit''' is the parent of '''Banana'''. The term '''Whole black olives''' in the categories taxonomy has the parent terms '''Black olives''' and '''Whole olives'''.
-=== Taxonomy architecture ===
+==== Properties ====
-The taxonomy is not a strict hierarchy: values can have multiple parents. But cycles are not allowed.
+In addition to names, one or more properties can be added to a term section.
-== Format ==
+For a full listing of the properties that are used see [[Taxonomy Properties]].
+he following properties are supported:
+Each specific taxonomy might use additional properties.
-<pre>
+=== Structure ===
-# stopwords
+The taxonomy is not a strict hierarchy: sections can have multiple parents. But cycles are not allowed. Formally it can be seen as a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed_acyclic_graph Directed Acyclic Graph].
-stopwords:en: some,stopwords
-stopwords:fr: word,that,are,removed,when,matching
-# synonyms that are not field values but that are contained in field values
+For instance in the categories taxonomy the category '''Apricots''', can have the parent '''Fresh Food''' and the parent '''Fruit'''.
-synonyms:en: global,international
-en: value, a synonym value, another synonym value
+== Implementation ==
-fr: valeur, une valeur synonyme, une autre valeur synonyme
+Each taxonomy is implemented as simple text file. See [[Taxonomy implementation]]
-<en: value
+== Maintenance ==
-en: a child value, a synonym for a child value
+Anyone can contribute to the maintenance of these taxonomies. You might want to add a translation, add synonyms, new entries or parents. Have a look at [[Taxonomy Maintenance]].
-fr: une valeur enfant, un synonyme d'une valeur enfant
-<en: value
+== Taxonomy editor ==
-en: another child value
+We have [https://ui.taxonomy.openfoodfacts.org/ a new tool to allow editing taxonomies]. The source code and bug report/feature requests are [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/taxonomy-editor located on GitHub]. We would welcome feedback on it.
-<en: a child value
+== Overview ==
-<en: another child value
+The list of taxonomies in use is (these are the files in the [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/tree/main/taxonomies taxonomies folder] on Github:
-en: a grand-child value
+* ''Additives classes taxonomy''
+* ''Brands taxonomy'' for the producers of products and their corresponding brands. This taxonomy is not in use and still under construction (5-oct-2022);
-# properties
+* ''Categories taxonomy'' used to put similar products together, so that they can be compared, averages calculated and analysed as a group. For instance an orange juice of a specific brand can be compared to all orange juices;
-en: value
+* ''Countries taxonomy'' has a list of all countries, regions, areas, etc. in the world;
-fr: valeur
+* ''Ingredients taxonomy'' for ingredients found on product ingredients lists. Some specific ingredients have been put into separate taxonomies, as these need special handling due to legal requirements:
-description:en: a property of value
+** ''Additives taxonomy''
-description:fr: french version of the property
+** ''Allergens taxonomy''
-country_code:en: a property that is the same for all languages -> use English suffix en:
+** ''Amino acids taxonomy''
-wikidata:en:Q89
+** ''[[Ingredients processing taxonomy]]''
+** ''Minerals taxonomy''
-</pre>
+** ''Nucleotides taxonomy''
+** ''Other nutritional substances taxonomy''
-== Taxonomies ==
+** ''Vitamins taxonomy''
+* ''[[Labels taxonomy]]'' for every logo and claim by producer about product quality, supply chain, sourcing, diets, etc.;
-The definitions can be edited on this wiki, they are periodically synchronized on the Open Food Facts database and web site.
+* ''[[Languages taxonomy]]'' with a list of world languages in multiple languages;
+* ''NOVA groups taxonomy''
-=== Taxonomies ===
+* [[Origins taxonomy]]
-'''(on Github, account and VCS knowledge needed)'''
+* ''Packaging/recycling taxonomies'' have been spread out over several specific taxonomies:
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/test.txt Test taxonomy] showing the basic taxonomy definition features
+** ''Materials taxonomy'' with a list of all possible materials that can be used;
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/ingredients.txt Global ingredients taxonomy]
+** ''Shapes taxonomy'' which describe all the packaging parts the packaging can consist of;
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/categories.txt Global categories taxonomy]
+** ''Recycling taxonomy'' with all ways packaging can be recycled;
-* [[Global brands and companies taxonomy]]
+* ''States taxonomy'' which describe how complete the data of a product on OFF is;
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/labels.txt Global labels taxonomy]
-* [[Global labels taxonomy logos]]
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/languages.txt Global languages taxonomy]
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/countries.txt Global countries taxonomy]
-* [[Global origins taxonomy]]
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/additives.txt Global additives taxonomy]
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/additives_classes.txt Global additives classes taxonomy]
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/vitamins.txt Global vitamins taxonomy]
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/minerals.txt Global minerals taxonomy]
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/amino_acids.txt Global amino acids taxonomy]
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/nucleotides.txt Global nucleotides taxonomy]
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/other_nutritional_substances.txt Global other nutritional substances taxonomy]
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/allergens.txt Global allergens taxonomy]
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/states.txt Global states taxonomy]
-* [https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/blob/master/taxonomies/nova_groups.txt Global NOVA groups taxonomy]
+== Ideas ==
+If you have any ideas for taxonomies, contact us on Slack and describe a proposal on this wiki.
 === Draft Taxonomies ===
-* [[Global packaging taxonomy]]
+There are some ideas of creating other taxonomies:
 * [[Global stores taxonomy]]
 * [[Global Religious Certification taxonomy]]
@@ Line 134: / Line 103: @@
 * [[Global IGP taxonomy]]
 * [[Global EC marks taxonomy]]
+* [[Diets taxonomy]]
+== Access ==
+The taxonomies can be viewed on Github, via the products on the website and with an API. This is detailed on a separate page:
+[[Taxonomy access]].
+[[Category:Taxonomies]]
-== More info ==
+== Get in touch ==
-For detailed information specific for the ingredients taxonomy see [[Project:Ingredients ontology|Ingredients Ontology]].
+{{Box
+ | 1     =  Slack channel
+ | 2     =  [https://openfoodfacts.slack.com/messages/C02VDSWHT/ #taxonomies]
+}}