Documentation

member of
organization, club or musical group to which the subject belongs. Do not use for membership in ethnic or social groups, nor for holding a political position, such as a member of parliament (use P39 for that)
Representsmember (Q9200127), group member (Q52630241)
Data typeItem
Domainperson (Q215627), organization (Q43229), fictional character (Q95074), document (Q49848), territory (Q183366), political territorial entity (Q1048835), fictional organization (Q14623646), legendary figure (Q13002315), human (Q5), Catholic vocation (Q63188808), Christian religious occupation (Q63188683), religious occupation (Q63187345), military profession (Q6857706), role (Q214339), collective (Q13473501), territory (Q4835091), group of humans (Q16334295), political identity (Q3147836), fictional criminal organization (Q56561357) or website (Q35127)
Usage notes민족, 정당을 나타내려고 한다면 P172(민족)나 P102(소속 정당)를, 팀을 나타내는 경우엔 P54(소속 팀)를, 가문을 나타내려고 한다면 P50(다음 가문의 일원임)을 대신 사용하세요.
Si vous voulez représenter une nation ou un parti politique, utilisez P172 (nation) ou P102 (affiliation à un parti), P54 (équipe) pour représenter une équipe ou P50 (membre de la famille suivante).
国家または政党を代表したい場合は、「民族 (P172)」または「所属政党 (P102)」、「所属チーム (P54)」を使用します。
ExampleIring Fetscher (Q1672692)PEN Centre Germany (Q2043519)
Iron Man (Q180704)Avengers (Q322646)
Diana Ross (Q36290)The Supremes (Q218837)
Singapore MRT (Q40176)Community of Metros Benchmarking Group (Q5155002)
Tracking: sameno label (Q42533283)
Tracking: usageCategory:Pages using Wikidata property P463 (Q21037892)
See alsopart of (P361), affiliation (P1416), member of sports team (P54), participant in (P1344), ethnic group (P172), family (P53), member of the crew of (P5096), position held (P39), religious order (P611), member of political party (P102), political coalition (P5832)
Lists
Proposal discussionProposal discussion
Current uses
Total574,450
Main statement568,65599% of uses
Qualifier5,7671% of uses
Reference28<0.1% of uses
Search for values
[create Create a translatable help page (preferably in English) for this property to be included here]
Value type “organization (Q43229), fictional organization (Q14623646), group of humans (Q16334295), group of fictional characters (Q14514600), social movement (Q49773), Christian ministry (Q1729207), group (Q16887380), synagogue (Q34627), voluntary association (Q48204), fraternal hall (Q49459835), church congregation (Q2638480), commission (Q55657615), subculture (Q264965), collective (Q13473501), advocacy group (Q431603), employers' organization (Q627272), network (Q1900326), fictional criminal organization (Q56561357): This property should use items as value that contain property “instance of (P31), subclass of (P279)”. On these, the value for instance of (P31), subclass of (P279) should be an item that uses subclass of (P279) with value organization (Q43229), fictional organization (Q14623646), group of humans (Q16334295), group of fictional characters (Q14514600), social movement (Q49773), Christian ministry (Q1729207), group (Q16887380), synagogue (Q34627), voluntary association (Q48204), fraternal hall (Q49459835), church congregation (Q2638480), commission (Q55657615), subculture (Q264965), collective (Q13473501), advocacy group (Q431603), employers' organization (Q627272), network (Q1900326), fictional criminal organization (Q56561357) (or a subclass thereof). (Help)
Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P463#Value type Q43229, Q14623646, Q16334295, Q14514600, Q49773, Q1729207, Q16887380, Q34627, Q48204, Q49459835, Q2638480, Q55657615, Q264965, Q13473501, Q431603, Q627272, Q1900326, Q56561357, SPARQL
Type “person (Q215627), organization (Q43229), fictional character (Q95074), document (Q49848), territory (Q183366), political territorial entity (Q1048835), fictional organization (Q14623646), legendary figure (Q13002315), human (Q5), Catholic vocation (Q63188808), Christian religious occupation (Q63188683), religious occupation (Q63187345), military profession (Q6857706), role (Q214339), collective (Q13473501), territory (Q4835091), group of humans (Q16334295), political identity (Q3147836), fictional criminal organization (Q56561357), website (Q35127): item must contain property “instance of (P31)” with classes “person (Q215627), organization (Q43229), fictional character (Q95074), document (Q49848), territory (Q183366), political territorial entity (Q1048835), fictional organization (Q14623646), legendary figure (Q13002315), human (Q5), Catholic vocation (Q63188808), Christian religious occupation (Q63188683), religious occupation (Q63187345), military profession (Q6857706), role (Q214339), collective (Q13473501), territory (Q4835091), group of humans (Q16334295), political identity (Q3147836), fictional criminal organization (Q56561357), website (Q35127)” or their subclasses (defined using subclass of (P279)). (Help)
Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303). Known exceptions: Rags (Q3929459)
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P463#Type Q215627, Q43229, Q95074, Q49848, Q183366, Q1048835, Q14623646, Q13002315, Q5, Q63188808, Q63188683, Q63187345, Q6857706, Q214339, Q13473501, Q4835091, Q16334295, Q3147836, Q56561357, Q35127, SPARQL
Contemporaries:
if [item A] has this property (member of (P463)) linked to [item B],
then [item A] and [item B] have to coincide or coexist at some point of history. (Help)
Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P463#Contemporary, SPARQL
Allowed entity types are Wikibase item (Q29934200): the property may only be used on a certain entity type (Help)
Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P463#Entity types
Scope is as main value (Q54828448), as qualifier (Q54828449): the property must be used by specified way only (Help)
Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P463#Scope, SPARQL
 
This property is being used by:

Please notify projects that use this property before big changes (renaming, deletion, merge with another property, etc.)

Contemporaries:
if [item A] has this property (P463) linked to [item B],
then [item A] and [item B] have to coincide or coexist at some point of history.
Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P463#Contemporary, SPARQL
  Value Society of Jesus (Q36380) will be automatically replaced to value Society of Jesus (Q36380) and moved to religious order (P611) property.
Testing: TODO list
  Value Mechitarists (Q663304) will be automatically replaced to value Mechitarists (Q663304) and moved to religious order (P611) property.
Testing: TODO list

Untitled edit

I've seen this property is used in claims like "member of: Royal Society". However, there are several different kind of membership of Royal Society, including Fellow, Honorary Fellow, Royal Fellow and Foreign Member. How do we distinguish these different memberships? Do we need a qualifier for this?--Stevenliuyi (talk) 18:52, 25 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Can we can add "instance of" ("instance of fellow", "instance of permanent member").

"must not be used for ethnic or social groups" edit

That would indeed be odd to say "member of Arabs/Jews", and actually there is a separate ethnicity property. On the other hand I am not sure it would necessarily be wrong to use this property for Indian castes or this sort of things. --Zolo (talk) 11:03, 4 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

  Comment On first read of the description, I thought it was maybe trying to say that the property could not be used for organizations that are members of something. I'm adding a bit to clarify this so we don't unintentionally scare off legitimate use. Joshbaumgartner (talk) 03:53, 10 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

voluntary? edit

I think the word voluntary should be dropped, it suggests the person is unpaid. The payment side of it does seem all that relevant.

I'm suggesting good use of this property would be as a qualifier with Member of Parliament (which is normally paid). See this example: Q192 under offices held. Danrok (talk) 13:43, 22 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'm pretty sure voluntary here doesn't mean "unpaid", but rather "non-compulsory". Silver hr (talk) 15:28, 30 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
OK, that makes sense. Danrok (talk) 13:38, 4 September 2013 (UTC)Reply
For politicians, "position held: member of parliament" (if a suitable property for "member of parliament" exists) seems to be more appropriate than "member of: parliament". Andrew Gray (talk) 11:25, 24 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

Is "voluntary" too limiting? edit

"Voluntary" is used here to emphasise that we don't want "intrinsic" properties like "member: French people" or "member: France". I agree this is senible.

The problem is that there are non-voluntary organisations of which someone can be a member, for example, military units (see recent discussion at Wikidata:Project chat/Archive/2014/05#Military units) - someone may be conscripted and serve in a military unit against their will, but "member of" still seems the most sensible way to represent the affiliation between that person and that unit.

Any objection to extending the description to reflect this sort of use? Andrew Gray (talk) 11:20, 24 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

Has the matter been settled? I agree that this property should be okay of a military unit the person has served in... -Ash Crow (talk) 21:39, 10 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
Done, agreed. Emw (talk) 22:29, 10 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Only persons? edit

If this property should only be used for persons, what property should be used for organisations?

Examples:

--Kolja21 (talk) 06:30, 28 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

I don't see a reason why this property should only be used for persons. Countries and organizations can be part of coalitions and alliances as well, so I don't see why we can't use this property for them. —Wylve (talk) 19:20, 13 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
I agree with Wylve. This is extremely useful for territorial organziations in France, for example a commune of France (Q484170) which is member of an association of French communes (Q2707796) Kvardek du (talk) 23:25, 13 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Houses/Families edit

Should this property be used to indicate members of a noble family or house? (E.g. William Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon (Q6485621) is a member of House of Courtenay (Q429499).) - PKM (talk) 00:46, 13 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

PKM, yes. Emw (talk) 12:45, 14 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
Great, thank you. - PKM (talk) 20:24, 14 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
Years later I oppose. We have family (P53) for this. Thierry Caro (talk) 19:20, 19 March 2016 (UTC)Reply

Use for organizations/countries edit

This property is also in widespread use for countries and such being members of organizations. As such, I've removed the human-based constraints. Any objections? If this is to be only for humans, we should probably set up an equivalent property for organizations and have a bot replace the various statements. --Yair rand (talk) 18:03, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

In my opinion it's perfectly fine to use this property for humans and organizations. --Pasleim (talk) 06:48, 7 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

In the list of constraint violations, many entries appear because they're members of a fictional organization (Q14623646) (which is a fictional or mythical analog of (P1074) of organization (Q43229)), rather than a subclass). Should this be extended to allow that? --Oravrattas (talk) 07:43, 2 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

human, not just person? edit

When an individual is listed as being a 'member of' something (in the case that brought my attention to this property it was a Political Party), this is currently displayed as a constraint violation... That is because this property allows instances of "Person" but not "Human". Is that correct?? I would assume that since "instance of Human" is the way we structure individual people, then that should be an allowed value... am I wrong? Wittylama (talk) 22:18, 28 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Korean alias edit

@Hibm98:

다른 이름이 과도하게 많으면 가독성을 해치기 때문에 (특히 모니터가 작은 환경에서는요) 적당한 선에서 다른 이름의 수를 유지하여 주시기를 부탁드립니다. 그리고 대부분 중복되는 어휘니까요. — regards, Revi 00:36, 31 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

네 알겠습니다. --hibm98 (talk) 01:28, 31 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Allowed Qualifiers edit

Hello,

it woud be good to allow the Qualifier object has role, see my example here: Q15134120. What do you think ?

Greetings --McSearch (talk) 18:51, 19 March 2018 (UTC)Reply


I've added another qualifier:

  • allowed qualifiers constraint: property: affiliation

To describe to which particular section of Academia Europaea a member belongs.

Example: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q49242534#Q49242534$4ac03cfd-4609-4af5-5fa5-b09b958fb9ac

--Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 10:20, 6 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Bands edit

Hello, what property must be used with persons that belongs to a music band? For example Freddie Mercury (Q15869) is member of (P463) Queen (Q15862) and Paul McCartney (Q2599) part of (P361) The Beatles (Q1299) and he is member of (P463) American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Q463303). Thanks, Juan Mayordomo (talk) 19:23, 14 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

series ordinal (P1545) edit

If a person is member of an organization or an organization is member of a group they mostly have a member number, which can be series ordinal (P1545). Se my examples MTV Ingolstadt (Q447934) or DJK Abenberg (Q1153948). --Balû (talk) 06:14, 13 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

@Balû: The issue is that your membership number can change so it may not represent an ordinal, or a consistent ordinal through time, plus membership numbers can be part of a couple of series, ie. year and number, name component and number, etc. It seems that they are more of a label than an ordinal  — billinghurst sDrewth 00:39, 8 October 2020 (UTC)Reply
I added P1545 as qualifier, but with the idea of using it with values like "1" and "2" for US and UK UNESCO membership, see Q30#P463 and Q145#P463. --- Jura 11:16, 5 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

added "stated as" as a valid constraint edit

I have added "object named as (P1932)" as a valid constraint as sometimes the reference will give a variation of the name used, hopefully always in the alternatives that exist for the organisation.  — billinghurst sDrewth 00:34, 8 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Question regarding P463 vs P361 edit

Can we use member of (P463) to be member of a Holocaust deportation convoy? Like here :Q98687617

I would rather use the property "is part of" part of (P361) like here Q457505. If I am not mistaken, to be member of includes a voluntary aspect not included in "to be a part of". @Kertraon: for information.

Nattes à chat (talk) 14:31, 25 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Inverse property? edit

Isn't this in need of an inverse property like has member?

Perhaps this inverse could be required too?

--Lectrician1 (talk) 03:48, 28 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Lectrician1 An inverse property might be relevant for small ensembles, such as a music band, however it would be inconvenient for very large arrays, such as the members of a membership organization. In this scenario, the requirement to state an inverse property would be too impractical.
The inverse label item – has member (Q65971553) – is sufficient in my opinion. If you wish to display lists of individual members from the group item page, activate the relateditems widget in your preference, and then click on "Related items" at the bottom of the page : you'll see the entire list of inverse statements. Fjjulien (talk) 03:57, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Good practices for qualifying and and referencing “member of” statements in the context of a membership organization edit

“How to document membership statuses when uploading (and re-uploading) a membership organization's dataset to Wikidata?”

member of (P463)”, like many other properties describing relationships between organizations and/or persons (Wikidata property for items about people or organisations (Q57955292)), is a time-sensitive relationship. These statements become true at a given point in time and they may no longer be applicable at a later point in time. Unfortunately, several membership organizations do not maintain explicit records of their members’ start and end times. The validity of membership statuses is implicit, based on the presence or absence of an individual in the membership organization's member directory.

This presents challenges when uploading a membership organization's members dataset to Wikidata : should a “member of” relationship between a given organization and their membership organization be stated in Wikidata if no time qualifier can be provided?

Members of the WikiProject Performing arts have encountered these challenges over the course of batch uploads, and they defined the following series of good practices for inferring and documenting membership data in Wikidata. These practices are equally useful for manual edits.

For the initial upload of a membership organization's members dataset edit

  1. When a member entity is uploaded for the first time, unless the exact start time (P580) is explicit in the dataset, the “member of” statement should be qualified with latest start date (P8555). In this scenario, the date value would correspond to the date when the membership status was inferred from the source dataset (i.e., the date when the data was extracted/consulted from the source dataset).
  2. In the reference, the retrieved (P813) date should be stated, and the value should also correspond to the date when the data was extracted (or consulted) from the source dataset.
    1. Note: While stating the same date as both a qualifier and a reference may seem redundant, this is necessary in order to maintain membership data over time (see below).
      1. Example of an item with a new “member of” statement: New Works (Q112510133)

For subsequent uploads of a membership organization's members dataset edit

  1. The previous and current datasets should be compared to identify member entities that appeared in the previous dataset(s) and no longer appear in the current dataset (and vice-versa – member entities that only appear in the current dataset).
    1. Note: If no copy of the previous dataset was kept, you may retrieve this information from Wikidata by running a query such as [this one https://w.wiki/5$o3].
  2. If a member appears in both datasets (in other words, no change in membership status can be observed between the two datasets), it is possible to infer that the membership status is ongoing. For those ongoing members:
    1. The retrieved (P813) date should be updated, and the value should correspond to the date when the data was extracted (or consulted) from the source dataset.
  3. If a member no longer appears in the current dataset, it is possible to infer that the membership status was terminated at some point between the previous upload and the current upload. For those terminated members:
    1. The following qualifier statement should be added: ‎latest end date (P12506): ;
    2. The main “member of” statement should be deprecated;
    3. The following qualifier statement should be added: reason for deprecated rank (P2241)obsolete (Q107356532);
    4. In the reference, the retrieved (P813) date should be updated to correspond to the date when the current dataset was extracted for upload.
      1. Example of an item with an expired “member of” statement: Carrefour Socioculturel Au Vieux Théâtre (Q111846607).
  4. If a member entity was not in the previous dataset but appears in the current dataset, it is possible to infer that the membership status started at some point between the previous upload and current upload. For those new members:
    1. The member of (P463) main statement should be added;
    2. The following qualifier should be added : latest start date (P8555): ;
    3. In the reference, the retrieved (P813) date should be stated, and the value should correspond to the date when the data was extracted (or consulted) from the source dataset.

Documenting membership data in this fashion will reduce the ambiguity as to the validity (or expiry) of “member of” statements. This will be useful for Wikidata users who rely on “member of” statements as an indication (among many) of the notoriety of an item. Fjjulien (talk) 03:13, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

  • This generally sounds fine; however I think as a whole in Wikidata we discourage deprecating statements that were true at some point in time - "obsolete" should not be a valid reason for deprecation. Having the end date qualifier should be clear enough. Start and end dates apply to many relationships so this shouldn't be too unusual for handling with eg. SPARQL queries. If you want to make this a firm policy then probably an RFC would be appropriate. ArthurPSmith (talk) 16:33, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
    @ArthurPSmith I agree that statements should generally not be deprecated. For example, members of a rock band may come and go, but information about former members continues to be of historical value even after a member's departure. However, in the case at hand (affiliation to a membership organization), participants in the discussion deemed that these particular "member of" statements lose most of their value once a membership relationship has ceased to exist and they therefore recommended that these statements be deprecated. The practices described above are a reflection of the consensus that emerged over these particular discussions with the WikiProject Performing arts community. Ultimatly, either approach - deprecated rank or normal rank - can be fine, as long as it is applied consistently for the maintenance of a given membership organization's dataset. Fjjulien (talk) 03:01, 19 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
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