Wikidata:Property proposal/Natural science
Property proposal: | Generic | Authority control | Person | Organization |
Creative work | Place | Sports | Sister projects | |
Transportation | Natural science | Computing | Lexeme |
See also edit
- Wikidata:Property proposal/Pending – properties which have been approved but which are on hold waiting for the appropriate datatype to be made available
- Wikidata:Properties for deletion – proposals for the deletion of properties
- Wikidata:External identifiers – statements to add when creating properties for external IDs
- Wikidata:Lexicographical data – information and discussion about lexicographic data on Wikidata
This page is for the proposal of new properties.
Before proposing a property
- Search if the property already exists.
- Search if the property has already been proposed.
- Check if you can give a similar label and definition as an existing Wikipedia infobox parameter, or if it can be matched to an infobox, to or from which data can be transferred automatically.
- Select the right datatype for the property.
- Read Wikidata:Creating a property proposal for guidelines you should follow when proposing new property.
- Start writing the documentation based on the preload form below by editing the two templates at the top of the page to add proposal details.
Creating the property
- Once consensus is reached, change status=ready on the template, to attract the attention of a property creator.
- Creation can be done 1 week after the creation of the proposal, by a property creator or an administrator.
- See property creation policy.
On this page, old discussions are archived. An overview of all archives can be found at this page's archive index. The current archive is located at 2024/05. |
Physics/astronomy edit
- Please review Wikidata:WikiProject Physics before proposing. Ping members of project using {{Ping project|Physics}}
- See also Wikidata:Property proposal/Pending for approved items awaiting the deployment of currently unavailable datatypes.
- Please look at Wikidata:List of properties/science/natural science before proposing a property.
Biology edit
- Please visit Wikidata:WikiProject Taxonomy for more information. To notify participants use {{Ping project|Taxonomy}}
- Please visit Wikidata:WikiProject Biology for more information. To notify participants use {{Ping project|Biology}}
Life stage edit
Description | Life stage of an animal, plant, or other taxa |
---|---|
Data type | Item |
Domain | item |
Example 1 | Leptobatopsis mesominiata (Q2855459) has image (P18); needs qualifier life stage → adult (Q80994) |
Example 2 | Chaoborus (Q2707905) has image (P18); needs qualifier life stage → larva (Q129270) |
Example 3 | Tortula muralis (Q71869) has image (P18); needs qualifier life stage → sporophyte (Q647173) |
Example 4 | Crocothemis nigrifrons (Q1318898) has characteristic (P1552) aquatic (Q441122) needs qualifier life stage → larva (Q129270) |
Source | phase of life (Q1811014) |
Motivation edit
My primary use case is as qualifiers for images of individuals on commons, i.e. but this may also be used for if there is an item about a particular life stage of an animal, i.e. Chaoborus (Q2707905), which is an image of the larval stage, probably because the larval form is more well known, though in most species the adults form is more well known. Mvolz (talk) 13:14, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
Discussion edit
- @ Mvolz: Can you fix up your examples so they look like Wikidata statements? They should have a subject item and then the value (which is presumably what your current list is of allowed values?) - if you intend this as a qualifier for images or something like that you may need to clarify more how it should be used. See other property proposals for how to do this. ArthurPSmith (talk) 19:42, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
- Gave it an attempt - is this okay? Wasn't sure since it's all qualifiers Mvolz (talk) 10:33, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
- Question Do we have any items that represent life stages of taxa? If so, how would (a) such a modeling of life stages as separate items relate to (b) distinguishing by life stage using qualifiers the images of (and potentially other statements about) full-lifecycle taxon items? Would it be worthwhile to try to settle on either (a) or (b) as a general rule? If (b), then yes, this property would be useful as a qualifier. But I imagine that statements with a lot of properties might eventually get this qualifier (think weight, size, number of feet, prey, vernacular name), so there may be reasons to consider (a). In that case, those images might be linked from the life-stage items, and those items would have to be characterized by a property like this, which would probably not be used as a qualifier. Notified participants of WikiProject Biology. Thoughts? ―BlaueBlüte (talk) 12:08, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
- @BlaueBlüte: We have a good number of items representing life stages of individual species, e.g. flaxseed (Q911332) , mouse embryo (Q105811019) , chicken embryo (Q70071341) . There are also some that represent life stages for larger taxonomic groups, e.g. tadpole (Q168525) or hatchling (Q2892050) . --Daniel Mietchen (talk) 21:10, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
- @ Mvolz:: Maybe you are refering to biological life cycle (Q513359)? Shouldn't be flaxseed (Q911332) an instance of seed (Q40763)? As a common trait of all seed plant (Q25814)? --Succu (talk) 21:33, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
- The cycle refers to the entire cycle. Each part of the cycle is a different phase. A flaxseed is for sure an instance of seed. But, on any given species, how do you represent what stage the image is of? We often default to showing the adult, but that's not the case for every animal. Some animals are more famous for their larval form than the adult form. - Mvolz (talk) 17:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Shouldn't your example Chaoborus (Q2707905) refined to Nematocera larva (Q27477239) rather than to larva (Q129270)? --Succu (talk) 22:36, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
- I guess? The purpose is a generalised term for use on species items that don't have a separate item for the larval form. Not every species needs separate items for each life stage. Either would probably be fine. - Mvolz (talk) 17:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Shouldn't your example Chaoborus (Q2707905) refined to Nematocera larva (Q27477239) rather than to larva (Q129270)? --Succu (talk) 22:36, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
- The cycle refers to the entire cycle. Each part of the cycle is a different phase. A flaxseed is for sure an instance of seed. But, on any given species, how do you represent what stage the image is of? We often default to showing the adult, but that's not the case for every animal. Some animals are more famous for their larval form than the adult form. - Mvolz (talk) 17:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Question As a further modeling concern, how would use of this property as a qualifier on statements linking taxa and Commons images relate to the use of structured data directly on those same Commons images? ―BlaueBlüte (talk) 22:21, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
- Question How does this relate to biological phase (P4774)? --Lagewi (talk) 16:25, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
- I would see Jenniferhammock's comment below. - Mvolz (talk) 17:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Question Could this property also be used as a qualifier for properties that represent traits of taxa? See Wikidata:WikiProject Biodiversity/Traits This would be useful, for example, in cases where adults are terrestrial but larvae are aquatic. Sylverfysh (talk) 14:58, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don't see why not! I've added an example about (Example 4). I've actually added the qualifier to the item using biological phase (P4774) but it does show a constraint error- Mvolz (talk) 17:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Support --MinRo60 (talk) 20:47, 28 Feb 2023 (UTC)
- Support --Jacquelineparedessanchez (talk) 20:52, 28 Feb 2023 (UTC)
- Support --User:Delia_Gonzale_Marin (talk) 21:05, 28 Feb 2023 (UTC)
- Support Sylverfysh (talk) 18:15, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose - A lot of unanswered questions. --Succu (talk) 19:50, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Mvolz: Can you clarify the relationship with biological phase (P4774). @Sylverfysh, MinRo60, Jacquelineparedessanchez, Delia_Gonzale_Marin: why are you casting support votes when the question about whether biological phase (P4774) fulfills the use case is open? ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 12:46, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
- biological phase (P4774) has an "as main value" property constraint, so it cannot be used as a qualifier on statements for properties that represent traits of taxa. I think this is an important use case, and "life stage" is the familiar terminology for this type of metadata. Sylverfysh (talk) 13:26, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
- biological phase (P4774), according to its existing uses, may be a superclass of "life stage". It applies not only to life history (eg: Q14905385) but also to other timescales- the cardiac cycle (eg: Q7663898) and the cell cycle (eg: Q130996) Jenniferhammock (talk) 13:08, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
- @Mvolz:, could you please clarify all the comments above. Otherwise, we have to close as "not done"! Regards, ZI Jony (Talk) 13:48, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- I've addressed all the comments I could. In example 4 I tried using biological phase instead. I guess we could change the constraint to use it in this manner, but if you look at other ontologies, they are not treated as the same, i.e. https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ols4/ontologies/go/classes/http%253A%252F%252Fpurl.obolibrary.org%252Fobo%252FGO_0044848 and https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ols4/ontologies/fbdv/classes/http%253A%252F%252Fpurl.obolibrary.org%252Fobo%252FFBdv_00007012 are different. Biological phase has superclass biological process, and life stage has superclass developmental stage. The most recent common ancestor is "occurrent". A biological phase is part of being a biological process. Whereas in life phase, the specific biological process in this is development. So a direct subclass relationship isn't quite possible. -Mvolz (talk) 17:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Mvolz:, could you please clarify all the comments above. Otherwise, we have to close as "not done"! Regards, ZI Jony (Talk) 13:48, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Mvolz: Can you clarify the relationship with biological phase (P4774). @Sylverfysh, MinRo60, Jacquelineparedessanchez, Delia_Gonzale_Marin: why are you casting support votes when the question about whether biological phase (P4774) fulfills the use case is open? ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 12:46, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose changing the constraint on biological phase (P4774) would be better. The two OBO links are from two different ontologies. The life stage one is specifically for Drosophila.
- https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ols4/ontologies/ecao/classes/http%253A%252F%252Fpurl.obolibrary.org%252Fobo%252FUBERON_0000105?lang=en has in UBERON "life cycle stage". If we create a new property reusing the Uberon name would likely be better than the one specifically for Drosophila. I however don't see that the added complexity of having two properties provides any benefit here. Changing the constraint works for this usecase and nobody showed that we would have a problem if we just reuse it here.
- Given that the existing constraint was set automatically by a bot and not by any human I just changed it to allow usage on qualifiers. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 18:31, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
World Species ID of an ecoregion edit
Description | MISSING |
---|---|
Data type | External identifier |
Domain | ecoregion (Q295469) |
Example 1 | Admiralty Islands lowland rain forests (Q19634429)→AA0101 |
Example 2 | Andaman Islands rain forests (Q73649988)→ IM0101 |
Example 3 | Atlantic mixed forests (Q773074)→ PO402 |
Formatter URL | https://worldspecies.org/ecoregions/display/$1 |
Motivation edit
That’s an useful data base about wwf ecoregions. There is a detailed map, really precise data about climate, species, land use… Sincerelly. Uchroniste 40 (talk) 22:56, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
Notified participants of WikiProject Biology
Discussion edit
- @Uchroniste 40: It feels to me like "World Species ecoregion ID" would be more according to our usual naming schema. As far as the description goes, it's completely missing in this case and a description that ideally give a bit of information about the property that's not in the label would be good. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 10:56, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- @ChristianKl: ok for this name. What do you mean « description missing » ? It’s a database about WWF ecoregion, and for more information you could go on one of the links in the green box. Uchroniste 40 (talk) 11:24, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Wikidata properties have a label and a description. MAYA site company ID (P10817) for example has the label "MAYA site company ID" and the description "identifier for a company traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange on the MAYA website". There's a field in the template for the description where you can enter a description in your proposed property. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 11:38, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- I don’t know how to do it, sorry. Could you help me ? Uchroniste 40 (talk) 11:40, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Wikidata properties have a label and a description. MAYA site company ID (P10817) for example has the label "MAYA site company ID" and the description "identifier for a company traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange on the MAYA website". There's a field in the template for the description where you can enter a description in your proposed property. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 11:38, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- @ChristianKl: ok for this name. What do you mean « description missing » ? It’s a database about WWF ecoregion, and for more information you could go on one of the links in the green box. Uchroniste 40 (talk) 11:24, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose You can just add additional information in the discussion if you want. There seem to be a property for this already WWF ecoregion code (P1294), so I'm voting accordingly. You can add more aliases or formatters to the existing property, just make sure one of them is marked with preferred rank. Infrastruktur (talk) 07:04, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Not at all the same thing, just click on the link ! Yes it’s about the same thing, but it’s like if you said VIAF and ISNI are the same thing because it’s about the same thing. Uchroniste 40 (talk) 09:36, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- What I meant is that the identifier code is identical, or am I missing something here? Sure, one takes you to a map when you click on it but that is just a convenience. Infrastruktur (talk) 09:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Ok I understand what you mean. Yes it’s the same code because none of both created this cause, it was created by scientists in the 90s, so they both use the same code, but that’s a different website, ruled by different organization and with differents informations. Same code but not same identifier. Sincerely. Uchroniste 40 (talk) 10:08, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- What I meant is that the identifier code is identical, or am I missing something here? Sure, one takes you to a map when you click on it but that is just a convenience. Infrastruktur (talk) 09:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
YList ID edit
Description | identifier for Japanese species (and infraspecies) of plant in the YList database |
---|---|
Represents | BG Plants: Japanese name–scientific name index (YList) (Q98090379) |
Data type | External identifier |
Domain | taxon (Q16521) |
Example 1 | Alnus hakkodensis (Q15378007) → 22165 |
Example 2 | Phacelurus latifolius (Q5700194) → 3 |
Example 3 | Persicaria thunbergii (Q27236033) → 49319 |
Source | http://ylist.info |
Number of IDs in source | 39714 rows in the 2021-05-14 download [1] |
Expected completeness | eventually complete (Q21873974) |
Formatter URL | http://ylist.info/ylist_detail_display.php?pass=$1 |
Applicable "stated in"-value | BG Plants: Japanese name–scientific name index (YList) (Q98090379) |
Wikidata project | WikiProject Taxonomy (Q8503033) |
Motivation edit
A Template:Taxonbar (Q22741012) identifier (Q853614) with scientific names, Japanese/Chinese/Korean names, and bibliographic data, for Japanese plants; thank you, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 16:36, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
- Note: citation data may be preferable to that in International Plant Names Index (Q922063), eg, Alnus hakkodensis (Q15378007) [2] vs. [3], Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 16:48, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
Discussion edit
- Question How do you deal with taxonomic changes? It seems they treat Japanese common names as axes, not scientific names, so IDs will not make sense in some cases. For example, I show you hamayabukarashi (Jap.: ハマヤブカラシ) case where they abandoned connection of ID 37340 with Cayratia maritima Jackes, replacing the latter with its recombination Causonis maritima (Jackes) Jackes (vide 13 April 2023 et 24 February 2024). Currently Cayratia maritima has ID '49489' instead. --Eryk Kij (talk) 07:57, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
- Hmm, I guess it might be possible to look up changes between a future download and the current, but there is no apparent log of changes and the download(s) are not regularly updated; in your example, 37340 shows a data-editing date that is before the change you note; it might be possible to structure the proposed property formatter URL instead as a search (like the Wikispecies template), but I fear maintenance issues as YList is currently operated make this identifier non-viable; thank you, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 10:11, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
- @エリック・キィ:, would you like to give your opinion based on the response? Regards, ZI Jony (Talk) 07:12, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
- Hmm, I guess it might be possible to look up changes between a future download and the current, but there is no apparent log of changes and the download(s) are not regularly updated; in your example, 37340 shows a data-editing date that is before the change you note; it might be possible to structure the proposed property formatter URL instead as a search (like the Wikispecies template), but I fear maintenance issues as YList is currently operated make this identifier non-viable; thank you, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 10:11, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
Biochemistry/molecular biology edit
- Please visit Wikidata:WikiProject Molecular biology for more information. To notify participants use {{Ping project|Molecular biology}}
Chemistry edit
- Please visit Wikidata:WikiProject Chemistry for more information. To notify participants use {{Ping project|Chemistry}}
Medicine edit
- Please visit Wikidata:WikiProject Medicine for more information. To notify participants use {{Ping project|Medicine}}
Mineralogy edit
- Please visit Wikidata:WikiProject Mineralogy for more information. To notify participants use {{Ping project|Mineralogy}}
Computer science edit
- Please visit Wikidata:WikiProject Informatics for more information. To notify participants use {{Ping project|Informatics}}
Geology edit
Please visit Wikidata:WikiProject Geology for more information.
Geography edit
Linguistics edit
Please visit Wikidata:WikiProject Linguistics for more information. To notify participants use {{Ping project|Linguistics}}
Mathematics edit
Please visit Wikidata:WikiProject Mathematics for more information. To notify participants use {{Ping project|Mathematics}}
Material edit
Please visit Wikidata:WikiProject Materials for more information. To notify participants use {{Ping project|Materials}}
Meteorology edit
Glaciology edit
All edit
model for and its inverse property modeled by edit
Description | what the subject is a conceptual or scientific model/theory for |
---|---|
Represents | model (Q1979154) |
Data type | Item |
Domain | item (instance of/subclass of conceptual model (Q2623243) or formula (Q976981) or model (Q1979154) or theory (Q17737)… ) |
Example 1 | data model (Q1172480) → data (Q42848) |
Example 2 | database model (Q267136) → database (Q8513) |
Example 3 | abstract data type (Q827335) → data type (Q190087) |
Example 4 | Navier–Stokes equations (Q201321) → fluid dynamics (Q216320) |
Example 5 | Peano axioms (Q842755) → non-negative integer (Q28920052) |
Example 6 | hybrid system (Q2665508) → cyber-physical system (Q1120057) |
See also | has role in modeling (P6530), computes solution to (P2159), approximation algorithm (P1171), is the study of (P2578) Property sometimes abused for this relationship : is the study of (P2578), for example used in the relativity theory item to link to spacetime. |
Motivation edit
There are many conceptual models and formulas that are a model for some thing.
It would be nice to be able to express these relations with a simple property instead of
having to use awkward statements such as abstract data type (Q827335)subclass of (P279)mathematical model (Q486902)
There is also has role in modeling (P6530) but that does not express the same relation "has role in modeling X" does not mean that it's a model for X ... but rather that it is a part of a model for X.
Other properties (by User:Fgnievinski like represents/represented by are misused to represent this relationship.
- Previously
- a 2016 proposal ; a more recent one (this one is basically a reopening of the previous more examples, from the discussion)
- User:Push-f, the creator of the last proposal, withdrew the proposal with reason I withdraw my proposal in favor of using statements like Xhas use (P366)scientific modeling (Q1116876)
of (P642)Y, and the discussion was closed by a property creator asking for a new one, which is this one. There were only support the property.
I reopen because the model proposed by Push-f is using of (P642) qualifier on a usage Search statement which is deprecated, and because I think this is a genuine relationship, very common and many examples that deserves its own property. It's also simpler, note that the model does not seem to be much used only 4 results to a corresponding query.
@ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2, YULdigitalpreservation, ArthurPSmith, Andrew Su, Salgo60, Andrawaag: @Yair rand: (also pinging the participants to the has role in modelling discussion as I discover this was the initial proposal and it is related to [the OBO discussion https://github.com/oborel/obo-relations/issues/288] that discussed more specific properties. author TomT0m / talk page 10:05, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
discussion edit
Notified participants of WikiProject Physics
Participants of the old discussion ping : @Push-f, The-erinaceous-one, Tinker Bell, Fgnievinski:
I reiterate my Support to the proposal. author TomT0m / talk page 10:18, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
- Being a proposer you don't have to vote for your own proposal. Please note that having your own vote does not give you an advantage when creating a property. See WD:PCC. Regards Kirilloparma (talk) 00:32, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Kirilloparma Please consider the circumstances, this is actually a reopening of an old proposal I actually voted for. It's recreated, actually, after the property creator closing which is actually questionable because the initial proposer closed it with a bad idea and the proposal actually had only support. Creating a regular proposal on Wikidata is usually an arduous journey, please don't be a cold actor making this actually more difficult. We have very few reviewers in a lot of cases, and this is the third attempt for this important and legitimate one. author TomT0m / talk page 15:59, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
- Being a proposer you don't have to vote for your own proposal. Please note that having your own vote does not give you an advantage when creating a property. See WD:PCC. Regards Kirilloparma (talk) 00:32, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
- No/reject. I'm responding to the posting over at WPPhys. My knee-jerk reaction is that this is a terrible idea, demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of physics and/or science in general. If you're going to link spacetime to general relativity, then what happened to Newton or Cartan or MOND? Are you pronouncing all these other theories of spacetime to be bad/wrong/rejected? What about Kaluza Klein? Is your space-time 5-dimensional, with hidden dimensions? Kaluza-Klein did their work in the 1920's; Einstein himself spent decades on it, its a foundational concept in string theory, but you're going to reject it because you've got some preconceived notion about spacetime that matches what the folks on reddit talk about? As to the equations themselves: they also apply to fluid mechanics, and to configurations of lattices, e.g. the black hole solution (schwarzschild solution) is a soliton, that is, a Lax pair, (Belinski-Zakharov), so are you going to link Lax pairs to gravitation? Or to water (KdV eqn) or to nuclear physics (say, Skyrme model)? The QCD confinemnt of the skyrme model, the quarks can be unconfined by shrinking Einstein spacetime to about 3-4 times the size of a nucleus, at which point, the Skyrmion kind of melts and releases all the quarks: confinement is gone, due to high local space-time curvature. So is nuclear physics all about space-time, now? Yes, I've written a tirade here, but the point is to show that classifying relationships in the sciences are necessarily vague and tenuous when they're correct, and inhibit forward progress, becoming dangerous when enforced by some cultural committee. 67.198.37.16 17:38, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
- You can link several theories to one kind of objects, this is not a monopolistic claim, no problem with that, it's just a claim about what theory is about what kind of object is all. You can link both Newton and MOND and Cartan to "spacetime" if that's relevant. author TomT0m / talk page 17:43, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
- Will you link space-time to 5-dimensional spacetime? There are several kinds of 5D spacetimes: the KK one, mentioned above, but also the recent results on 5D black holes with naked singularities and Cauchy horizons. They're two different kinds of 5D spacetimes. Then of course, the affine lie algebras are 26-dimensional spacetimes, unless they're fermionic, in which case they're 10-D. The obvious solution is to say "if wikipedia article X has a wikilink to topic Y in it, then X and Y are related". But to try to then say "the relationship between X and Y is that of theory and model" runs afoul of the details. 67.198.37.16 18:05, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
- (p.s. looking at above examples: the descriptive set theory people and the reverse mathematics people might not like your link of peano axioms to the non-negative integers. Seems like a flawed understanding of what the peano axioms are trying to do, and what they are actually used for, in day-to-day applications: how people actually use them, and what they are good for, as opposed to the ostensible "thing they describe": They describe a fragment of set theory; that fragment has a model which happens to include the non-negative integers. But what matters are the results of model theory, and not that one possible model just happens to be the non-negative integers.) 67.198.37.16 17:55, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
- The Peano axioms are used to define the integers, in a formal model, and addition, etc. The fact that there are other models is not a problem for this property, as already said before.
- As for your previous point, this property is not intended to solve all the problems nor to model every possible relationship like "this article as a link to that other one", this is nonsense. But yes, N-dimensional theories about spacetime may be link to space and time, what would precisely be the problem ? author TomT0m / talk page 18:32, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
- (anyway, the sentence about the links on Wikipedia pages seems to imply you are kind of against the whole Wikidata idea, so … why coming here commenting, upset about me talking about this on enwiki ?) author TomT0m / talk page 19:01, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
- Could somebody explain why the property 'objet of a theory' is not sufficient to link a theory to an object ? The idea of model (in science) has been much discussed in history of science and it is historically strange to apply this for instance to the Peano axioms. Perhaps, one should change the name of "object of a theory" to "important object in or for a theory", but "model" for me describes a very specific type of link (perhaps too specific for a property in Wikidata, as it may lead to debates, depending on one's epistemologic views). Thank you in advance. --Cgolds (talk) 09:13, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Cgolds What property are you referring to precisely is the study of (P2578) (it's intended to link academic fields to their objects) ? has role in modeling (P6530) (which may fit but I find the example stranges, it links gene items to deseases) ? I can't find anything searching that label.
- I understand that in "model theory" in maths indeed this is kind of reversed, as the "specification" (the axioms) and the objects that have theses properties (natural numbers for peano axioms) are called "models" of the theory, so yes, the term seems to be a bit off but this is the exception ? If we look at the article about « fr:Modèle scientifique », although there are not many sources, kind of reflects what is usually understand as a scientific model nowdays, and it's in that sense I think it's used.
- For I dug a bit, because the "gene - disease" relationship seems way to broad, a gene is not by itself a model or a theory for a disease in any sense, that's why they renamed it : see this related discussion on the OBO ontology in link with the discussion on Wikidata about the proposal. They are talking about more specific relationships if needed, in relationship with Wikidata, and I think that's exactly related to this proposal. A gene may indeed "has a role" in modeling a disease, but it's usually far from being a whole model by itself ? They broadened the label from "is model of" to "has role in modelling" out of practical problems it seems, because it was in practice or they wanted to use it like that. I think Wikidata is larger so I think we could benefit from clarity. author TomT0m / talk page 10:00, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- @TomT0m I was indeed refering to objet de la discipline (P2578), but if I understand you well, this property means "what is the object(ive) of the discipline" (and it would have been better to call it "subject" then :), not "an important object of the discipline". Or is your problem with "discipline" instead of "theory" ? It is true that "model" is not very appropriate for mathematics, but even in physics you may have a lot of discussions (see above !). For the (general) relativity theory, I understood that it modelizes gravitation more than spacetime (although of course the issue theory vs model(ization) is already a difficult topic). We are looking for for "object playing an important role in" or something of the kind. Cgolds (talk) 11:19, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Cgolds yes, this is this meaning, "objet" have both meanings this may be ambiguous (I think I proposed the property, and it was labelled study of but properties have a way of living their life in Wikidata, I can't fully tell what happened after). I make a difference between the process of studying something and the body of knowledge this process produces. Theories and models are output. If physics eventually everything is bound to model the real world if you take a realistic point of view, which I think we should do. Something else like "nominalism" is self-referential, in practice we reflect visions and descriptions of the world, but … how different visions are tight to each over ?
- I don't think it's a problem to model both gravity and spacetime, why should this be exclusive. Although yes, "spacetime" if you look at the wikipedia articles like en:spacetime is actually defined as a class of model in which space and time are intimately tight. But in the real world it can be translated as "if we take two clocks in two referentials that moves relatively fast from each other you cannot get them synchronised, you have to take into account there speed relative to each other (and the mass repartition, for GR) to make sense of it.
- There is also the distinction of a theory and a model, a theory can be entirely abstract but if you want to make a model of the world, say a climate model, you have to take measures and datas from the real world to feed the equations, of course. Is it a real problem here ?
- "object playing an important role in" really feels like a catch all almost meaningless relationship. The question is "but what role is this ? What kind of importance" ? (oh, it's too hard and philosophical, so we gave up). If you can link almost anything to almost anything it's probably a bad idea, I think we should avoid such properties. We have a couple of them like facet of (P1269) that people sometimes use when they don't know what to use. I think it's not really good because we don't then make the effort of asking ourselve if there is a more precise and purposeful relationship that could be created.
- To take the example of a climate model and the earth climate "has a role in modeling" is really an understatement. "simulates" would be a much better choice. author TomT0m / talk page 17:54, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
- I have a real problem with this, because space-time and gravitation do not play the same role in (general) relativity theory. Would you say that Newton's theory modelizes space (or time for that matter) ? Space and time (or later space-time) is a constituent/a fundamental element of the theory, but the theory does not modelize (or theoretize or simulates or ... whatever is your philosophical viewpoint on the issue) it. A climate model modelizes the earth climate, but neither the earth nor the PDEs at the basis of the model (if it is a model with PDEs). Perhaps we need indeed two properties, something like "modelizes" (gravition, earth climate etc) and something like "is a constituent of" or "a constitutive element of" or something of the kind (space-time, PDE, ...). It would be nice to have some other inputs, would not it ? Cgolds (talk) 18:46, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
- @TomT0m I was indeed refering to objet de la discipline (P2578), but if I understand you well, this property means "what is the object(ive) of the discipline" (and it would have been better to call it "subject" then :), not "an important object of the discipline". Or is your problem with "discipline" instead of "theory" ? It is true that "model" is not very appropriate for mathematics, but even in physics you may have a lot of discussions (see above !). For the (general) relativity theory, I understood that it modelizes gravitation more than spacetime (although of course the issue theory vs model(ization) is already a difficult topic). We are looking for for "object playing an important role in" or something of the kind. Cgolds (talk) 11:19, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- Could somebody explain why the property 'objet of a theory' is not sufficient to link a theory to an object ? The idea of model (in science) has been much discussed in history of science and it is historically strange to apply this for instance to the Peano axioms. Perhaps, one should change the name of "object of a theory" to "important object in or for a theory", but "model" for me describes a very specific type of link (perhaps too specific for a property in Wikidata, as it may lead to debates, depending on one's epistemologic views). Thank you in advance. --Cgolds (talk) 09:13, 16 April 2024 (UTC)