Help talk:Items

Errors in English message Help:Editing/10

I found two errors in th English text of message Help:Editing/10. The link "[{{int:wikibase-edit}}]" should be "[{{int:wikibase-add}}]" because the section is about adding a Wikidata link and not about editing a Wikidata link. Besides the text of the article is twice one behind the other. Regards, --Michawiki (talk) 20:39, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, those are fixed now. --Stryn (talk) 20:51, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

You changed "[{{int:wikibase-edit}}]" to "[{{int:wikibase-add}}]" in message Help:Editing/9 only. This I didn't see yet. But in message Help:Editing/10 that I wrote about, you didn't change that. Regards, --Michawiki (talk) 21:14, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I see now, thanks again. --Stryn (talk) 21:18, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Help adding a Wikidata link

The help page states: To add a Wikidata link, go to the section of the page below the large heading that says "List of pages linked to this item" and click the "[add]" button on the blank row. You will then given two blank fields, one which says "site" and one which says "article". I want to add a link to de:Live at the Greek Theatre 2008 to Q2913286. So I log in to Wikidata, go to Q2913286, scroll down to the List of pages linked to this item, and click the "[add]" button on the blank row. When I do this, I get taken to the Main Page instead. What am I doing wrong? GoingBatty (talk) 14:22, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

P.S. I'm using Internet Explorer 8 on a Windows 7 machine, and it appears I'm getting Javascript errors on the page. GoingBatty (talk) 14:27, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

This is a known bug. We're working on fixing it soon. Sorry. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:24, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. Since the bug isn't referenced on the Help page, where's the best place for me to follow the bug to see when it has been resolved? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 14:41, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

It's bugzilla:44228. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 16:38, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Great - posted my error there. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 04:31, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Editing as an IP

Am I forbidden to edit as an IP ? If yes, this fact should be added prominently on this help page. If no, is JavaScript required to be able to edit (disabled for me) ? If no again, why can't I edit, for example, the Q4686866 entry ? The add entry points to the entry itself and not to a editing page. -- Juergen 91.52.170.17 21:27, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

You can't edit links without turning JavaScript on. --Stryn (talk) 21:32, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Hope I did it right.

And I praise there will be a future version usable without the inherently unsafe JavaScript. -- Juergen 91.52.170.17 01:14, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

wikibase-createentity-submit ?

The message name "wikibase-createentity-submit" around the end of section "Create a new item" is wrong. I think "wikibase-newentity-submit" is correct. See http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:NewItem?uselang=qqx for reference. --fryed-peach (talk) 04:41, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I corrected it, so please mark new version for translation. Thanks. --fryed-peach (talk) 04:43, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Entering other links

I want to insert a reference not currently on Wiki - but available elsewhere on the web. I can't figure out how to do this - unless ALL links are "wikilinks" by your definition. I put the link in, but it doesn't have the hyperlinked symbols the others do, nor is the link active.

Adding links

To add a Wikidata link, go to the section of the page below the large heading that says "<Wikibase-sitelinks>" and click the "[add]" button on the blank row. I have already done that in the past, but the ADD buttons don´t appear anymore. I've created the article es:Cefalóforo in the Spanish wiki, and I have no way of linking it with the existing en:Cephalophore in English and othe languages.--Fidulario (talk) 19:21, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what happened, but I was able to make the addition for you. Just so you know, you're only able to edit one field at once, so if you accidentally clicked the button to edit the label or the description, you wouldn't be able to edit the interwiki links until you stopped trying to edit the label or description. That's the only thing I can think of that might have happened. Sven Manguard Wha? 19:42, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Updates as part of documentation overhaul

Hi all, I recently made substantial edits to Help:Editing as part of a larger sitewide documentation overhaul (more info on this here).

To compare my edits with the previous version please see the diffs here

Major changes include the following:

• removed mention of the gadget slurpinterwiki - my understanding is this is not so necessary a gadget as it used to be (nor do I consider it necessary for first starting out as an editor)
• removed screenshots and "How to Edit Wikidata" slides - I have replaced with some newer ones (knowing full well that these too will soon need to be replaced as per the UI redesign)
• changed all mention of 'interwiki links' to 'sitelinks' for consistency
• updated content so it now refers to Wikimedia sites more generally vs. just Wikipedia articles which was the case before
• provided info on adding labels and descriptions (rather than redirecting readers to pages within the "How to Edit Wikidata" slides)
• added an example of an item with the four fields (label, description, alias, sitelink) filled out
• added a bit more info on items and item pages

Please let me know if you have any concerns about these changes or suggestions on further improving the documentation. Here are issues I would also like specific feedback on:

• are there too many/too few screenshots? Are the ones in there helpful?
• Should this page include information on all entities rather than just items (i.e. info on properties and the soon-to-be-added queries)?
• Should there be basic content on structured data and what it is/means?

Thanks. -Thepwnco (talk) 18:38, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Observations and thoughts:

• I would erase the sentence "Typically items have at least one corresponding page on a Wikimedia site such as Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikisource, Wikiquote, or Wikimedia Commons, however there are some exceptions to this rule." because it implies that normally, an item would require a corresponding page on a Wikimedia site which, in my opinion, is not the case.
• The section Creating a new item should create a note, that one should check if an item already exists. However, in my opinion, describing "ItemByTitle" is not within the scope of the page. It is only indirectly connected to the concept of editing. The information about ItemByTitle should probably on the ItemByTitle page itself. At the moment, that page is pretty useless to users less technically versatile.
• I would remove stating the position of links in the menu (for example: "By default, the link will be fourth from the top"). If they find the "bar on the left", they will find the link. I would place a link directly to the references page and also mention that the link can also be found in the main menu bar on the left below the Wikidata logo.
• I would put the information about editing existing content on top since that is likely to be the first contact in terms of editing.
• Adding to an existing item page: Aliases do not have to be filled out. Same for sitelinks. My understanding is that it is fine to have an item without sitelinks.
• "These four elements of an item page are multilingual, meaning that they are shown and entered in and for a specific language" is misleading regarding sitelinks. The sitelinks link to sites that feature specific languages but the links are not different if you switch language.
• Paragraph "A label is the most common name [...]" should probably be rephrased to focus on the action to perform to edit (similar to the sections for aliases an site links). For descriptions of label and description, it should be referred to the corresponding help pages.
• Except for sitelinks, the screenshots show an empty item. The screenshot for aliases and maybe the one for label or description should be taken on an item that already has label, description and more than one alias.
• Screenshot description "Wikidata screenshot - sitelinks highlighted" should probably be more like: "Adding a sitelink".
• "Note: you can only add a link to one site per language code [...]" is information leaking from the sitelinks help page.
• "Only admins can delete items." - Why?
• Statements are missing completely. Probably, properties should be mentioned here.

Bottom line: In general, I think this page has too much detailed information and makes things more complicated than they are. Why would someone visit the page? A user wants to edit but the user is unsure about how to do it and is seeking to gather confidence - technically versatile users do not need such a page. The outline of this page should be: "Click [edit] next to the value you want to change, change it and hit save - it's that easy". For more information on the particular subject, users can access the individual help pages. Consequently, even one or two screenshots may already be enough. Users need to get motivated here - not intimidated. In that sense, I would also refrain from adding basic content on structured data to the page. There may be a separate page in the Wikidata namespace about the concepts of Wikidata (basically an advanced Wikidata:Introduction which would be more human readable than the information on Meta). Random knowledge donator (talk) 08:50, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to rename page Help:Items

Hello, I have requested at Wikidata:Translators' noticeboard that this page be renamed as "Help:Items" as the page in question is essentially on items/item pages, not editing. I think this new name also fits better with the rest of our Help pages, for example Help:Label, Help:Aliases, Help:Properties, etc. Please let me know if you have any objections to this idea. If no objections are made, the rename will take place in a week's time. Thanks. -Thepwnco (talk) 17:24, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

 Done John F. Lewis (talk) 16:52, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Typo

s/This code can be found be in the URL/This code can be found in the URL/  – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dachary (talk • contribs) at 24. 6. 2016, 21:38 (UTC).

 Fixed Thanks. Matěj Suchánek (talk) 07:20, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Links between Wikidata item pages?

Quote from the help page:

Linked
Items can also be linked to each other. Each item also has a unique identifier (starting with a Q prefix) and its own page in the Wikidata main namespace. For example, for the items listed above, 1988 Summer Olympics (Q8470), love (Q316), Elvis Presley (Q303) and gorilla (Q36611) are the respective item pages. These pages are where all the data for each item is added, edited, and maintained, mostly in the form of statements. Pages also allow items to be linked together so that all the data on Wikidata can be interconnected.

I just added this sentence explaining how to actually add links:

A link is placed on an item page by adding the prefix "Q|" to the item number to be linked and enclosing it in curly brackets, [...]

Then I noticed that this might in fact not work on item pages. See for example the English description on top of this page: borax (Q5319). What went wrong? --KaiKemmann (talk) 18:43, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Merging an splitting items

The option to merge or split items isn't mentioned on this page. I intended to add it but the page is protected.Leonard König (talk) 21:44, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

How to do it?. Any Help: page?. --BoldLuis (talk) 17:53, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

My edits to the help page

Thank you for revising my edits, Matěj.

I have just added another passage. Please feel free to look it through and correct.

Random knowledge donator suggested above to "... put the information about editing existing content on top since that is likely to be the first contact in terms of editing."

I believe this is a good idea. I was hesitant to do it myself for fear of messing up the "translate"-tags but maybe you would want to consider implementing this.

Also you removed the "see also (P1659)" property in the passage about linking items.

To the untrained eye this property seems to come handy in order to indicate a close relation between items.

For example it would probably make sense to add a note to the item "Borax" (Q5319) pointing out that there also exists an item "borax" (Q3513011) (one is concerned with the chemical and the other with the mineral).

What would be the preferred method of doing this if not by using the "see also" property?

best regards, KaiKemmann (talk) 11:48, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

The same question has already been raised: if there's a relation between two items, then there should be property to express it (I'm not into chemistry to judge how that relation can be expressed, maybe you can try to find similar cases).

Regarding the help page structure, I have no strong opinion on this. I usually don't make greater changes unless there are many voices. If you did it, I wouldn't revert your changes and would only improve them to minimalize impact on existing translations. Matěj Suchánek (talk) 12:30, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Remove zh-hans (中文（简体）) translation?

The zh-hans version is outdated and some terms are incorrect (e.g. "Item" translates to "Edit"), and moreover it's no longer accepting translations at current progress of 28% (further Chinese translations are done in zh version). So I suppose the zh-hans version is obsolete and can be removed. -★- PlyrStar93. _{→Message me. 🖉←} 19:49, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Item" translates to "Edit Muha7007 (talk) 18:36, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Creating a new item

I have started to write some documentation about checking for Wikidata items before creating new ones.

I've come back to this Help page and found that there is already some existing guidance on this topic, although I think it could benefit from some editing. Some of the instructions are a little unclear and I think the interface has changed since the screenshots were taken. So, I think I could make some minor edits that improve the current article.

Having said this, the way that I wrote instructions for checking for Wikidata items is quite a bit different to the way it is laid out on this page. I'd be happy to add the documentation I've done - it will need some editing to fit - but I'm hesitant about coming in as a relatively new contributor to Wikidata and suddenly changing a whole load of material in the core Help section!

Could somebody give me some pointers on how I can best start making a contribution here, please?  – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Siwhitehouse (talk • contribs) at 15:49, 9 May 2018 (UTC).

naming convention for Book Titles with Subtitles

If asked elsewhere, please direct me.

If I am naming an item that is a book with a title (Q783521) and subtitle (Q1135389), how should the item be named:

• "Title" alone
• or "Title: Subtitle" concatenated

In these particle items, should the "Title" property be in the form of:

• "Title" alone
• or "Title: Subtitle" concatenated

In any case, what are the style guide recommendations for Description and Aliases fields? Should either the separated for concatenated form or both be listed?

Thank you - Trilotat (talk) 16:30, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Adding the date of a recently deceased person

I understand this is a sensitive information, but how can I add the date of death for this person, or request some kind of privileged user to do that? Sorry if publishing this in the wrong place, I am new to Wikidata. Thank You! --Esmu Igors (talk) 21:53, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Why was "Q" chosen

Hi :) I've looked in this page, the FAQ, and the glossary, but I can't find an explanation for why we chose "Q" as the prefix for items. Please could someone document it on the project page, for posterity?

(My guesses are: "unique identifier", or wikt:quid#Latin, or maybe even wikt:quiddity ;D )

Thanks! Quiddity (talk) 21:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

It's a very interesting fact: Q43649390#P742. But should newbies really care? --Matěj Suchánek (talk) 10:58, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Matěj Suchánek! Hmm, given that it is not a more intuitive mnemonic-style naming as with Property, I tentatively agree that it might not make sense to declare it prominently, but I do think it is worth officially documenting somewhere outside of the Wikidata entity itself. Hopefully you/I/someone can think of a good (searchable) place to briefly document it, if only as a footnote. Cheers, Quiddity (talk) 19:26, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Good idea. Do it.--BoldLuis (talk) 17:52, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Linking a just created item in a project to another Wikimedia project

When there is a project page (i.e. in Wikipedia in English) and you try to click in the "Add links", you only can link to a page in other language Wikipedia (i.e. Wikipedia in Spanish). Imagine, the same template, help page or similar exist in other Wikimedia project (MediaWiki, meta, Wikibooks, and so on). The fact is that you cannot easily click to the Wikidata item page to make the links, because they are other projects (perhaps, some days later can be yes, but a lot of times it is not). The idea: include a data: link in the left pane, so one can easily edit the item in data and add the interwiki links. --BoldLuis (talk) 17:51, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Are these notable?

I have a list of dozens of people who were participants of a medieval war. They do not merit separate entries in other projects, and nothing about them is recorded except their names in their original language and their allegiances. Do they merit entries here in Wikidata? I couldn't find any similar entries in Wikidata. --Z 12:11, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

New section

I've added a new section entitled "Documentation for items". Tell me if you have some feedback. PAC2 (talk) 07:27, 4 August 2021 (UTC)