Wikidata:Requests for comment/Merge article interwikis and category interwikis

An editor has requested the community to provide input on "Merge article interwikis and category interwikis" via the Requests for comment (RFC) process. This is the discussion page regarding the issue.

If you have an opinion regarding this issue, feel free to comment below. Thank you!

THIS RFC IS CLOSED. Please do NOT vote nor add comments.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Note: The RfC is not the best organised so the following outcome may not be clear.

After reading the RfC and the proposed suggestion and following solutions a quick close is no consensus. However ignoring that there does not seem to be a well thought out proposal between what articles are and what categories are and their serving purpose. John F. Lewis (talk) 20:20, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(See Wikidata:Wikimedia Commons for other discussions about Commons.)

I think, an item page should aggregate interwikis of articles with interwikis of categories of identic item. E. g. Q36433 (Porto) should be merged with Q1366 (Category:Porto). Such solution would enable better interconnection of categories with their main articles and can be also a key how to involve Commons to Wikidata (Commons categories combine links to Wikipedia articles with links to Wikipedia categories and this Wikidata solution can solve the collision systematically.) It's suitable especially for categories of individual subjects and abstracts concepts (generally, with names in singular). Group (plural) categories can be treated in a similar way but the relation is more complicated – they have often no exact article equivalent – Category:Capitals could be somehow connected with List of capitals as well as with Capital city) but I'm not sure that they should be merged to identic item.

I think, the item page can have two main blocks of interwikis:

List of pages linked to this item (one allready)
List of categories linked to this item (should be added/differentiated).

This solution can be inspirative also for incorporation of some other Wikimedia projects. --ŠJů (talk) 15:48, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Porto is a category for articles related to Porto. Meaning there's some kind of semantic relation between Porto and the other articles in the category. On Wikipedia, that was the best we could do. On Wikidata, we can do much better. Specifically, we can make semantic statements in the items for the Category:Porto articles that relate those items to Porto. Then, if one wants a list of items related to Porto, such a list will be able to be produced automatically. Therefore, from the point of view of Wikidata, the item Category:Porto is meaningless and only exists as a Wikipedia artifact. Since I suspect many, if not all WP categories are used similarly, I think there's no reason to have WD items for them. If anything, Wikipedia should evolve from using categories towards using Wikidata as a source for what the categories are currently trying to do. Silver hr (talk) 20:54, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also the article "Porto" cannot be a pure essence of Porto but it is "only" a container of information about (related to) Porto – similarly as the "Category:Porto". Both are "artefacts", the articles as well as the categories. Both are defined by identic item. From the semantic view, the article specifies the item similarly as the category – the distinction is only in the form of the information. However, the real content of the article is structured very similarly as the content of the category. I doubt that WD needs two different pages for one identic item. That's why I suggest to include both groups of interwikis into one item page.

It is a bit rash to consider categorization system as "meaningless". I'm sure, meaning of categories is not so difficult to understand, and categorization can be fully compatible and symbiotic with WD data structure – if WD will be not developed with ignorance and destruction of all time-proven. --ŠJů (talk) 22:15, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fully support to the idea by ŠJů. In fact, Mediawiki developers could have chosen to use only one page for both the article and its category, seeming as if it would be a navigation template for the article. Wikidata must record primarily real world items, and Porto and Category:Porto are about the same real world item. --Ronda dor 21:54, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps my remark about Category:Porto being meaningless as a WD item wasn't explained too well, I'll try to clarify. In Wikipedia such categories do provide meaning, a semantic grouping if you will. But in Wikidata we can specify the exact semantic relation between items via the use of properties instead of a vague "this item is somehow related to that item" that such Wikipedia categories provide. Therefore, Wikidata goes way above and beyond the functionality categories provide for Wikipedia so having categories as WD items is unnecessary (with the exception of categories used essentially as properties, which probably should be implemented in WD as properties). Basically I am agreeing with you, just elaborating my own viewpoint :) Silver hr (talk) 13:49, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The main problem is that WikiData intruded the interwiki system of Wikipedias and Commons but remains halfway. The new system of interwikis disrupted the previous system and some of its functionalities but did not adopt the liability to substitute it complettely and full-blown. Btw., the problem of connection between Commons and Wikipedias (and between articles and corresponding categories) is overripe and is not so difficult to solving. There is no reason to further procrastination. I understand that initiators of WikiData come mainly from fans of infoboxes and infoboxed articles and are not very familiar with categorization and Commons. That should be compensated now. --ŠJů (talk) 21:00, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It will take some time to develop the software and merge items, but I agree with the proposal. --NaBUru38 (talk) 20:12, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is possible without significant changes in Wikidata. This would mean that an item can have two links to the same project (but in separate namespaces). This may break a lot of things in the software. Additionally, I think the current system is coherent enough: Q36433 is about the city named Porto, while Q1366 is about the Wikipedia category of articles related to Porto. If the interlanguage links would be provided in a different way, Wikidata would not need an item about a Wikipedia category, but since a RfC established that we want the categories on Wikidata, it's clear that they should be separate from the articles. Rsocol (talk) 05:28, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Q36433 is about the city named Porto as an item – not about the Wikipedia articles about Porto. Both the articles and the categories are defined and filled by identic item. The substantial relation between Wikipedia articles, Wikipedia categories and their items (as well as the relation between Wikipedia articles and Commons categories) should had be thought out thoroughly before the phase 1 of WikiData was started. As well as the reciprocal properties and some other fundamental things. Regrettably, the WD project was started in very immature and ill-considered condition. --ŠJů (talk) 14:35, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose as Rsocol above. The article about Porto is different from Category:Porto and they should be on different wikidata pages. This was thought out before phase 1 and that is what was decided. Filceolaire (talk) 16:09, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The link between the item for a category and the item for the main article regarding that category can be established by using the property Property:P301. Rsocol (talk) 19:02, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We also have Property:P373 to specify the Commons category for an item. Rsocol (talk) 07:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.