Topic on User talk:Vojtěch Dostál

Merged Q811534 with Q10065268. Remaining issue is if to use P1435 for trees - if case we find consensus on that, let me know.

Hi,

I see that you imported a lot of trees from the Czech Republic. That a great work, thanks a lot ! we might take inspiration for importing trees from France.

Thad said, I have a couple of question: why use arbre remarquable (Q811534) in nature de l’élément (P31) and not arbre (Q10884) in nature de l’élément (P31) and distinction reçue (P166) or statut patrimonial (P1435) (like we do for protected buildings). Some data are a bit strange and contradictory, Q26779918 is not a tree but a group of trees, why not just leave bosquet (Q1510380)? Also the quantity in comprend des éléments de type (P2670) are strange, is there 2, 3 or 8 trees? (looking at the source it seems it's 3 trees with only 2 of them protected but it's unclear and my Czech is not good).

I'd love to hear what you think.

Cheers,

The DRÚSOP register has two columns: "poč vyhl." (počet vyhlášený, number of originally declared) and "poč. souč." (počet současný, current count). The importer did not use any qualifiers to distinguish the two numbers.

Hi, it's been some time since the import happened and it's true that I would change some modelling nowadays.

At first glance, having P31 : strom (Q10884) or skupina stromů (Q1510380) sounds like a good idea but I am not sure where to put památný strom (Q811534). Protected tree is something like a nature reserve (a category of protected area) in the Czech Republic and we tend to use P31 for these protected area designations (see Prachovské skály (Q452242) for example). Therefore, we understand památný strom (Q811534) as a type of protection designation similar to national monument or national reserve, no matter how many trees are included. The strange data in zahrnuje (P2670) are a mistake by LinkedPipes ETL Bot and I'll try to look into it when time allows...

Thank for the quick answer.

As I said, I would put arbre remarquable (Q811534) (or a more specific sublass?) in distinction reçue (P166) or statut patrimonial (P1435). For me, a label or a protection is the same, wether it's a Nobel prize, a protected building or a protected tree.

There is no hurry, we can take time to think about it. For more point of view, I'm also pinging Nikola Tulechki who worked on trees in Bulgaria, Nemo bis for Italia, Lodewicus de Honsvels in Germany and Pere prlpz in Catalonia.

Hello.

In my view, arbre singular (Q811534) means any notable tree, that is any tree that is covered individually by reputable sources. Some of them are included in official natural heritage catalogues or have some kind of legal protection, like arbre d'interès local (Q115867635). However, arbre singular (Q811534) is a value of instància de (P31), but arbre d'interès local (Q115867635) is a value of estatus patrimonial (P1435), as we do for buildings.

It would be possible to use arbre (Q10884) as instància de (P31) instead of using arbre singular (Q811534) and it would be fairly reasonable, but I see a couple of problems with that:

• It's different from what we do with animals. For example, we have Orca Ulisses (Q7879048)instància de (P31)animal individual (Q26401003), not animal (Q729). In fact, "individual tree" is an enAlias for arbre singular (Q811534).
• Notable trees should have arbre singular (Q811534) somewhere, but if they aren't officially protected (for example, trees covered in a book of notable trees but without legal protection) we can't use arbre singular (Q811534) with estatus patrimonial (P1435) nor premi rebut (P166), because it's not an status nor an award, it just means that some reputable source decided that the tree is worth mentioning or describing. Then, if arbre singular (Q811534) is neither instància de (P31), nor estatus patrimonial (P1435) nor premi rebut (P166), what is it?

Of course, there is an inconsistency in Wikidata between how we treat trees, buildings and people, specially in instància de (P31). For buildings we take a quite concrete instància de (P31) (like church or cathedral), for people we stick to human and all individual characteristics go to other properties and for living beings we take the middle ground of animal individual (Q26401003) and arbre singular (Q811534). I suppose we could take a different and unified approach and try to reduce the number of values of instància de (P31) (or expand them) across Wikidata, but that would go far beyond trees.

Where I'm usually doubtful is about what to do with small sets of trees, but also small sets of anything else (two buildings, two people, two hills...). To make things more complex, as far as I know, such sets of a few trees are usually protected in Barcelona as arbre d'interès local (Q115867635) and not as the equivalent protection for groves ("arbreda d'interès local", still not present in Wikidata). Therefore, I tend to use for them the same properties as for a single tree, which doesn't feel like a very satisfactory solution - although I think I've encountered only a few of such cases.

I've not looked into the import and I don't have a specific opinion to add. Where there is some doubt, I prefer a statement to be repeated in multiple properties: if Q811534 is stated both in P31 and P1435, then it will be easier for people to find what they need with an individual query even if they're not aware of the more specific classes or properties. What matters is only that it's possible for those who care to narrow down the results to more specific definitions (e.g. designations which use a specific official source as reference).

(Unrelatedly, P1435 has a horrible label in French and Italian, as "patrimonio" sounds like everything needs to be treated for its property/capital/money value. I despise it.)

A few informative queries about instància de (P31):

There are some thousands of arbre singular (Q811534) https://w.wiki/7gET but only a couple of arbre (Q10884) https://w.wiki/7gEW

By looking at the map of all items with coordinates and individu del tàxon (P10241) https://w.wiki/7gEb I would say that:

• Somebody in Portugal, Estonia or some Austrian land may be interested in this discussion. I can't check now and notify.
• There are a lot of legal status used as instància de (P31). That's different of what we do with buildings, AFAIK, where we put the status in estatus patrimonial (P1435).

In line with what @Pere prlpz had said, we definitely can add památkový status (P1435) : památný strom v Česku (Q21296252) and keep the current instances as they are.

There is some inconsistency in labels (and aliases) of "Q811534". Some of them mean a specific type of protection (regardless of the number), some of them a general significance of any type, and in some languages ("es" and surroundings) just any "single tree".

My current reasoning is as follow :

• the current values of P31 is a bit of a mess with a lot of differents values (I missed the portugal trees because of that), sometimes several values on the same item, it doesn't make them easy to find
• arbre remarquable (Q811534) is very general and fuzzy, for nature de l’élément (P31) we need a item truly meaning "individual tree" (and only that, regardless of protection, heritage, status, etc. like we do on most items), it could be arbre (Q10884) or a new item
• most items about "remarkable" have nothing to indicate why they are "remarkable", regardless of the previous point, we should add distinction reçue (P166) or statut patrimonial (P1435), and the value need to be something more specific than arbre remarquable (Q811534) (like Tree of Public Interest (Q52062847) or monument naturel en Allemagne (Q21573182), we already have a lot of these specific items)

What do you think?

Cheers,

The wordings of labels of arbre singular (Q811534) are quite different but the ones I can understand convey a similar meaning "tree of interest", "tree of heritage value", "tree of cultural or natural significance", "notable tree"... I am missing labels that mean a specific type or protection or that imply legal protection?

Alias are more varied and sometimes have disparate meanings for the same language (for example, for Romanian I'd say they range from individual tree to protected tree). I take this just as a consequence of not having items for protected tree or monument tree and using a single item for the instances of all individual trees.

About the inconsistency between meanings "individual tree" and "notable tree":

• By now, I would say that they are quite equivalent in Wikidata. If a tree has an item, it follows the rules in Wikidata:Notability and this means that it has been described as a reliable source. Therefore, all individual trees present in Wikidata are notable trees, just as all animal individual (Q26401003) are notable animals (Talk:Q26401003#Label is an interesting short debate about the same question for animals).
• Notability threshold in Wikidata is pretty low. After seeing that somebody uploaded to Wikidata all streets of Brussels or Toulouse, all hotels in Barcelona or all houses in some neighbourhoods of Prague among other sets of non famous things, I wonder if somebody else will eventually create items for all individual trees int he streets of Paris or Sidney. If that happens we could need different items for "notable tree" and "individual tree", although at the moment I can't see that coming.

My previous answer was written at the same time as Vigneron's. This is an addition after reading his one.

I don't oppose creating different items for "famous/notable tree" and "individual tree", although I find difficult to tell apart one from the other. The only criteria I can think of is that "notable trees" have a proper name or legal protection as an individual tree or small group, and I'm not sure if this criteria is consistent even in my city.

For me, and if you get rid of the notion remarkable tree than mean everying and nothing, the difference seems easy an obvious : all trees are indivudual trees, only the few ones with a specific protection or award are protected/awarded trees. Hence, we use P31 = tree (and just that) for all of them and for the others we complete with P166 or P1435.

You have a point that remarkable tree means everything and nothing.

My biggest doubt in using P31 = tree for all trees is what happens if at some point Wikidata is flooded with trees from an exhaustive register of trees of somewhere, because we would need some way tho tell apart the notable ones (the ones covered individually by some reliable source) from all trees. That situation seems unlikely for trees in the short term, but something similar happened in France with instal·lació esportiva (Q1076486) and since even the smallest private sports center has P31 of sports venue it would be very hard to make a list of notable sports venues in France (libraries in Spain are in a similar situation).

Using legal protection and awards may be useful, but there are notable trees (covered by reputable sources) that don't have legal protection. For example, https://patrimonicultural.diba.cat/element/roure-sam or the trees marked (with a proper name) in Mapa Topogràfic de Catalunya (Q63431924), both of which are official reputable sources but aren't legal protections nor heritage classifications.

Maybe I'm overthinking this and I'm preparing for a too unlikely risk.

I hear your concerns (and yes, sport venues/facilities are a mess in France, with a lot of duplicates) and you're right, it may happens with trees *but* there is still WD:N to solve that, and I don't think that "instance of tree" instead "instance of remarkable tree" will really impact this.

I've just learned that we have important tree (Q10065268) and arbre singular (Q811534). I can't see any difference between them and I think we should merge them unless we want to use one for "notable tree" and the other one for "individual tree".

Both items have sitelinks to Czech Wikipedia so we can use those articles as hints. památný strom (Q811534) is for trees protected by state, while významný strom (Q10065268) is for just about any remarkable tree. This distinction was introduced to Czech Wikipedia by @Xth-Floor and he might be interested in this discussion. I am afraid that the other sitelinks in those two items do not correspond to 'our' definition and it may need some reshuffling, but let's see.

The sitelinks of arbre singular (Q811534) seem to be mixing both meanings, sometimes in the same article. You have a point that we could use an item for "tree" and another for "protected tree", although that's quite different of what we do for buildings.

Just for completeness, we have 555 instances of important tree (Q10065268).

I notify @Gikü and @GoEThe in case they may be interested in this discussion.

Thank you for pinging me. I will certainly follow this discussion and I can try to apply the consensus to the Árvore de Interesse Público (Q52062847) instances I imported, but I do not have strong feelings about what the "proper" way is. I would certainly like them to be in better alignment with other protected trees in Wikidata, to make them more findable, so any tips in this regard are welcome.

I am currently working in importing all trees in my hometown in OpenStreetMap. That makes some sense, because this allows to detect fallen, sick or missing trees to my local community. But just a few trees are notable, i.e., have a name. In my opinion, only those having a name/being notalbe in some sense, should have the right to be in WD. A similar analysis for streets shows a key difference: streets have a name, importing them in WD may allow to carry out analysis of names, length, etc - even though you might do it as well from OSM data - if OSM streets were well labeled with proper keys.

Hello @VIGNERON @Pere prlpz @Nemo bis Can we try to wrap up this discussion and identify the key action points, before this discussion is archived?

I agree but I'm not sure what conclusion can be drawn (and since I started the discussion, it's maybe better if someone else close it).

I've not re-read everything but I can't identify any action points here except that it would be nice to document how some of these properties and classes have been used so far. Is there an appropriate project page?

I can try to make a summary, but I'm afraid it will be a summary about how we disagree, because we didn't agree on much despite the very interesting talk.

• Trees arbre (Q10884) and singular trees arbre singular (Q811534) in instància de (P31):
  • It has been argued that the distinction is quite meaningless and it would be better to use arbre (Q10884) for any individual tree.
  • However, the current practice is the opposite, since arbre singular (Q811534) is overwhelmingly more common (about 14k to 14).
  • There is even a third item important tree (Q10065268) with a single sitelink but 555 instances. Meanings of important tree (Q10065268) and arbre singular (Q811534) are very mixed according to their sitelinks, as far as I can understand them. If we wanted to use those items we should define clearly the meaning of each one.
  • Merging the three items (or two of them) is not possible, since they have different articles in some wikipedias.
• About protected status of trees:
  • There seems to be some consensus on putting the protection status (e.g. arbre d'interès local (Q115867635) or arbre d'interès públic (Q52062847)) in heritage designation estatus patrimonial (P1435), as we do for buildings.
  • Some participants favour using the protection status in instància de (P31) as we do for national parks and other protected areas.
• The usual practices in Wikidata for instància de (P31) when dealing with trees, animals, buildings, protected areas and people are rather different, even when within some of those areas they are reasonably consistent (e.g. people). That problem lies beyond the scope of this discussion.

In light or our disagreements, any global action we could take or any global recommendation will either leave a lot of redundancy or go against the opinions and practices of some participants, and therefore I can't see a good conclusion that more or less pleases everyone:

• We could add arbre (Q10884) to all trees, but since we don't have consensus to remove arbre singular (Q811534) or important tree (Q10065268) the result would be very redundant. I think I wouldn't dare to do that.
• We could add the protection status to estatus patrimonial (P1435) even if we don't have consensus to remove it from instància de (P31). That part is probably more reasonable.

Thanks @Pere prlpz. Maybe we could bring this up to the Wikidata:Project chat to get more advice?

Thanks @Pere prlpz! After reading the conversation again, I think I will merge významný strom (Q10065268) to památný strom (Q811534) and make it clear in Czech label and description that památný strom (Q811534) is not *only* about trees protected by law, as they now suggest. The official item for Czech law-protected trees will then be památný strom v Česku (Q21296252). We can keep památný strom (Q811534) in the instances while památný strom v Česku (Q21296252) should go to památkový status (P1435) if we agree to use this property.

@Adam Hauner @Xth-Floor FYI

@Vojtěch Dostál, thank you for letting me know about this. I'm not sure, if památkový status (P1435) is appropriate: protection of "památný strom v Česku (Q21296252)" is primary protection of part of nature/natural enviroment, only some of such protected trees are also protected for cultural heritage or historical significance. Could you find better suited property from area of the nature protection?

Just for the record: IMHO estatus patrimonial (P1435) should not be use anymore for nothing related with protected nature. Here you can find a discussion against this practice and the proposed alternative to model protected areas.

Olea I'm still unsure for the use of statut patrimonial (P1435)... In think that first, we should really start a broader discussion here on Wikidata to get more point of views (unrelatedly, we can talk about it IRL this weekend ) and then indeed maybe propose to create a new property for "natural designation".

@VIGNERON it will be great to meet you in person :-)

And I think the idea of not using estatus patrimonial (P1435) for protected areas doesn't translate well to not to use it for trees. An individual tree is not a protected area (nor an area). It's an individual item like a building or an sculpture. Interestingly there are values of estatus patrimonial (P1435) like art públic de Barcelona (Q15945449) that apply to sculptures and to some trees.

Additionally, I'm not sure about what you propose. In your link you propose a new property "protection status of a natural area", but as far as I know it has not been adopted, and therefore it couldn't be used even if it were suitable for trees.

Nowadays, the alternatives to state the status of a tree are using instància de (P31) and using estatus patrimonial (P1435), unless I'm missing some alternative. In other places you have argued for a flatter ontology - which has some merit - and using estatus patrimonial (P1435) provides a flatter ontolgy and less granularity in instància de (P31).

@Pere prlpz With the proposed data model, a tree (say QXXXXX) would be P31 as tree (or a subclass maybe). If the tree is protected, there should a related designation (say QYYYYY). Then, just only need to state QXXXXX localizado en el área protegida (P3018) QYYYYY. Check page 14.

> using estatus patrimonial (P1435) provides a flatter ontology and less granularity in instancia de (P31).

The proposes flatters the ontology thanks to a new property and a consistent data model. Check page 17. This also would fix practical data reuse problems like discerning UNESCO’s World Heritage cultural from natural sites.

I'm not saying this is THE proposal, but it has a lot of previous thought.