Talk:Q2766

subclass of smartphone or instance of smartphone

I think it should be instance of smartphone, and not subclass of smartphone - changed accordingly Iwan.Aucamp (talk) 18:17, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I guess it shouldn't, since there are e.g. iPhone 7 (Q26831164), iPhone 8 (Q29480689) and all the other models, which are all subclasses of it. Currently we've got a constraint violation for these items: "iPhone (Q2766) should have a statement subclass of (P279)", so I'll revert your changes. See Help:Basic membership properties for a further explanation. (And learning some object-oriented programming language really helps to understand what classes are.) — Mike Novikoff 19:57, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

@Mike_Novikoff: The same problem exists here macOS (Q14116) but I'm not sure that the presence of a constraint is really justification for saying Microsoft Windows is not an instance of an operating system but a type of operating system. Types of operating systems would be real time operating system, distributed operating system, multi user operating system and maybe this is just me but clearly if I have a collection of these Microsoft Windows seems out of place.

Similarly if I have types of smartphones I could see modular smartphone, phablet but again in this list things like Redmi 7 and Samsung Galaxy C7 Iwan.Aucamp (talk) 23:56, 10 September 2019 (UTC) is out of place. If the challenge is just that iPhone must be a subclass of something then I think there are multiple ways to resolve it and it seems unclear that the best resolution is to make it a subclass of smartphone. Even here Help:Basic membership properties the example of hatter (Q1639239) is very much the same as iPhone (Q2766) in my view. Iwan.Aucamp (talk) 23:56, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

@Mike_Novikoff: Maybe a better option would be to make it a type of class subclasses of class Iwan.Aucamp (talk) 00:16, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

@Mike_Novikoff: Another analogy hydrogen (Q556) is an instance of (P31) of chemical element (Q11344) and not a subclass of (P279) of chemical element (Q11344) Iwan.Aucamp (talk) 01:08, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

I've changed the claims at Macintosh operating systems (Q43627), it appears that there were erroneous edits by an IP user this January. Generally, I think that anything that has further subclasses of it should be a subclass itself, not an instance (the latter is an end of a branch that has no more further subdivisions). Of course I'm not the only one to make decisions and I may well be wrong too, feel free to ask questions at Project chat where more people would attend. — Mike Novikoff 01:13, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

@Mike_Novikoff: but iPhone is both an instance of and a subclass of already, so is iphone 7. And another similar case bishop (Q29182) is instance of (P31) position (Q4164871) and has many sub-classes. Either way I will rasie it in project chat later. Iwan.Aucamp (talk) 01:21, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

More examples:

• Python (Q28865) is not a subclass of (P279) of anything
• Ruby (Q161053) is not a subclass of (P279) of anything
• Tesla Model S (Q1463050) is not a subclass of (P279) of anything

And it seems by the logic explained here they should then also be subclasses of programming languages and not instances of programming languages. Iwan.Aucamp (talk) 17:45, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

@Iwan.Aucamp: There are obvious instances of iPhone (Q2766) so it should be a class. It is harder to imagine instances of Python or Ruby, so they are instances of "programming language". Thanks for Tesla Model S (Q1463050), I've made some corrections. And if you want to make some strict ontological edits, you have to learn term "metaclass". --Infovarius (talk) 15:56, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

@Infovarius: I agree that iPhone (Q2766) should be a class, I'm just not entirely sure if it should be a subclass of (P279) of smartphone (Q22645) as it could be a subclass of (P279) of many other things (phone brand, phone series, etc...). And while I would agree there are clear instances of iPhone (Q2766) I think we may differ on which they are. IMO iPhone 5s, model A1533 (Q66816688) should be an instance of iPhone (Q2766) but it is not actually. There is also some discussion here. I guess more work is needed on guidelines here as there seems to be some differences in how relations are used. Iwan.Aucamp (talk) 17:45, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

More counterexamples: Solaris (Q14646) Microsoft Windows (Q1406) - I can find many more if I look, I think before a general principle is well established editing these is not clearly the right approach. Iwan.Aucamp (talk) 18:07, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

No, "iPhone 5s, model A1533" is not an instance of iPhone, it is an instance of type of it. So it is a subclass of it. And specific iPhone5sA1533 which is in the hands of somebody is the instance of iPhone (and of "iPhone 5s, model A1533" subsequently). --Infovarius (talk) 15:11, 12 September 2019 (UTC)