Help talk:Statements

Unclear meaning

Hello, what does the sentence Bear with us as we roll out iteratively in the end of the second paragraph exactly mean? Thanks and regards, --Michawiki (talk) 18:45, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

It's an expression that basically means, "please be patient with us as while we release each part of Wikidata". I'll clarify it on the page. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 18:55, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Hello Anonymouse. Thank you for your prompt reply. The small word as is still a little bit unclear but I think it means "while" or "when" here. --Michawiki (talk) 19:10, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, "while" is more clear. Sorry about that. :) The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 19:13, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. You needn't apologize. It was you who helped me! --Michawiki (talk) 19:17, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome. Thanks for letting us know. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 19:21, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Updates and translations

Hi guys,

Im up to translate this page into German. However I found this page is partly outdated, partly still a draft paper. I´ve taken over some updated parts from the glossary, but at the bottom there are some more sections for terms allready mentioned above. So it would be nice to bring this page in proper shape and to keep it up to date before translation. I also ask kindly to refrain from breaking up entire paragraphs into many translation sections, for example by separating the headers. The translator needs to some extend the context to do his work properly. So please keep the size of each translation section to one paragraph and its header and keep numbered sections together. It would also be nice to merge the sections on top and the draft parts and then remove the draft. This will make translation easier. Thanks--Giftzwerg 88 (talk) 10:16, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Links

1. In the Glossary section, there is a link to [[#Entity|entity]] but there is no definition of entity on the page. What to do? --Michgrig (talk) 22:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
2. In the same section, there is a link to #Inclusion but there is no such section. There is another section, "Inclusion criteria". Was the link supposed to go there? --Michgrig (talk) 22:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Property data types?

This page lists six data types for property values, but "integer" is not among them. Is this list up-to-date? Klortho (talk) 06:48, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know why I thought "integer" was an already-implemented datatype. Nevertheless, I'd still like to know if this list is up-to-date, and/or where one might find the definitive list. If anyone knows, thanks! Klortho (talk) 07:21, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Special:ListDatatypes. Numbers datatype is soon to come as it is currently under test.  — Felix Reimann (talk) 07:58, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Updates as part of documentation overhaul

Hi all,

I recently made substantial edits to Help:Statements 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

I am still working on it, but thus far major changes include the following:

• provided more introductory content on what statements do/are for
• removed all references to 'claims' (and changed them to 'statements'). I think this is a lot less confusing for the average user
• provided many more examples
• got rid of "glossary" section and integrated the content from that section into general principles
• changed language so there is less focus on just Wikipedia/more inclusion of all of Wikimedia sites
• removed references to future/anticipated processes or features (e.g. multilingual texts)
• moved around content in an attempt to redesign page so it more closely matches the format of other Help pages
• added content on custom values/no values/unknown values, added more info on qualifiers and sources
• updated info on datatypes
• removed older screenshot - I have yet to replace it though

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, as well as questions I have generally about how thing work:

• is this page too long? Should it be split up into other pages (for example, a new Help:Values or Help:Properties page) Maybe all sources info could just stay on the Help:Sources page?
• are there too many/too few screenshots? What should be in there?
• should there be more info on adding/creating properties - for instance, how to actually engage with the property proposal process? Maybe this could be a separate page that also covers task forces?
• should there be more info on using data types - i.e. how do I add a geographical coordinate as a value? (I could not figure this out myself...). What about information on which properties go with what data types - for example, is it possible to assume that Wikidata:List_of_properties/all#Media is a comprehensive list of all media properties that accept Commons file data types?
• is there a good example of a "consensus" qualifier I can include on this page? What purpose does a consensus qualifier serve if there is a preferred rank on a statement?
• is there any update on where things stand for using bots to check or update missing bi-directional links?
• should "multilingual texts" be included? perhaps in a "guidelines in English" section?

Thanks. -Thepwnco (talk) 22:55, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Thepwnco! I found this edit thanks to WikiBlame. I noticed that you say above that you "got rid of 'glossary' section and integrated the content from that section into general principles", and I'm wondering if it was deliberate not to keep the references to "some value" (first added by Giftzwerg 88 in this edit). I was looking for this information and couldn't find it. Can you explain your rationale about this part of the overhaul you did? Thanks! --Waldyrious (talk) 19:06, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Policy on subclasses

Is there a policy or guideline on what to do with statements that are subclasses or superclasses of each other? For example, given items 'foo', 'bar', and 'Baz bar' and statements (foo, instance of, Baz bar) and (Baz bar, instance of, bar), is the statement (foo, instance of, bar) encouraged, discouraged, or optional? — GPHemsley (talk) 20:22, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

statement suggester / dropdown menu when adding a statement

When adding a new statement to an item, a dropdown menu appears with a list of suggested properties/statements. Is there some sort of order to this list? Is it the most used properties? Is it the properties Wikidata has predetermined that it specifically wants me to fill out? Thank --Jackson665 (talk) 08:18, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Need link and some help at Guidelines for external relationships

see Help:Statements/Guidelines for external relationships (and add link to "see also" at Help:Statements)

No value

Since 2014-06-26 the page says

For example, we could say that Queen Elizabeth I of England had no value for the child (P40) property, which is quite different than not recording anything at all.

But since 2015-06-27 there is "number of children (Property:P1971)", where one could directly add the value "0". "No value" is not as transparent as this, since from normal English, it could also mean there could be children but it is not known who they are.@Kolja21, Epìdosis, BrokenSegue, Jmabel: What do you think about removing this sentence from the help page? MrProperLawAndOrder (talk) 22:29, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

unsubscribe. BrokenSegue (talk) 01:56, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I have no opinion on whether to keep the particular sentence. The only part of the help pages I've been involved in writing is Help:Modelling and its subpages, and I've done my best to record agreed-upon practice there rather than try to dictate things myself. If we remove that, though, we probably want to substitute a different example where we don't have a "number of" property available, e.g. as a way to express "no fixed abode", "no successor", "no citizenship", etc. - Jmabel (talk) 02:36, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Unknown values

To mark unknown status when importing a dataset from an authority, Wikidata uses unknown (Q24238356)

Is that true ? That seems like a pretty bad idea and that can only be used for item type statements. Using the "novalue" special value makes a lot more sense. --Zolo (talk) 11:50, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Zolo: that explains why Wikidata is now littered with unknown (Q24238356). I don't see a valid consensus for adding this at Wikidata:Property proposal/research status so I boldly removed it. Multichill (talk) 17:15, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Artist-in-residence isn't a "position held"

The subject of Q7034474, a living author, is presently filling an academic-year term as in the artist-in-residence (Q713223) program at a major university. A specific reference is provided. However, it seems artist-in-residence isn't accepted for the statement "position held" (Property:P39). So to what statement can it be connected? -- Deborahjay (talk) 18:16, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
UPDATE: Answer: there are two closely related concepts, each with its own item:

• The statement Q713223 (artist-in-residence) is for the program.
• The statement Q95581871 (artist in residence) is for the individual filling the position.

So the latter pairs with "Position held" with no objection flagged. -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:28, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Statement vs identifier

On this Help page, the first example given for Statement is a VIAF identifier. However, on existing items I see such content under the heading Identifiers, a section heading below that of Statements. My present problem: Today in a coaching session we created a new item Q106467604 for an academic, and the heading Identifiers doesn't appear on my screen at all − so how can we add relevant content there (e.g. bio ID in national academic registries)? Compare with an old item Q21264591 which had two Identifiers added previously. -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:35, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Deborahjay The distinction between statements and identifiers is purely visual; both are properties, and you can add identifiers under the statements section or statements under the identifiers section without issue (they'll be put into the proper place when you refresh the page). As far as I can tell, a statement whose property has the type external identifier (which VIAF ID (P214) does) ends up under the identifiers section, and any other type ends up under the statements section. As for the image, I'm guessing that it simply was made before the identifiers section was added. --Pokechu22 (talk) 19:14, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Looks like the headings were split in 2015-2016; see phab:T117421. --Pokechu22 (talk) 19:19, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

• @Deborahjay, Pokechu22: I updated the relevant section and announced it at Wikidata:Project_chat#Order_of_statements. --- Jura 05:48, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Changing the property of a statement

When I click on Edit, I can only change the subject or the value of the statement, not the property of the assignment.

How could I change the property of the statement, without needing to delete the wrong statement and recreating the correct statement?

What happens when there are multiple values assigned?

I have seen a bot User:DeltaBot that performed such operation. Geertivp (talk) 08:14, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

It’s not possible through the user interface, the only option for humans is creating the new statement with the new property and deleting the old one. Bots can do it through the API by manipulating the raw JSON data, but that’s not for humans. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 17:20, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

A hyperlink for a specific statement?

I wonder if Wikibase supports adding a link to any statement on an item page. If I have a statement I wish to share with someone over the internet, how do I do that?

I guess it's not supported yet. How do I submit a feature request or check if it's already a part of the backlog? Nikolay Komarov (talk) 09:13, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Each property has its own anchor you can link to; for instance, given name (P735) will have a "P735" anchor so you can link to Q42#P735. There also are more precise anchors for each statement, but I'm not sure how persistent the IDs for them are; for instance, there's Q42#Q42$1d7d0ea9-412f-8b5b-ba8d-405ab9ecf026 and Q42#Q42$1e106952-4b58-6067-c831-8593ce3d70f5. I found that ID with Firefox's inspect element feature and then looking for the relevant child of <div class="wikibase-statementlistview-listview">; that's not a particularly easy approach though. --Pokechu22 (talk) 17:40, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Adding statement

wikibase Local Installation OK

I can create items and properties.

But when I try to add a statement to an item I can't find any previously defined properties some explanation ? G Solab 84.254.82.147 18:37, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

The property "commmons media" does not exist.

Only multimedia files viewable on Wikimedia Commons can be added for the property "Commons media." but this property does not exist. Afaz (talk) 01:57, 1 July 2023 (UTC)