User:Bovlb/How to create an item on Wikidata so that it won't get deleted

This essay is aimed at new users of Wikidata who come here with the specific intent of creating entries (which we call “items”) for specific concepts (e.g. a person, company, band, etc.). Such users often run into trouble because their aims do not necessarily mesh well with the goals of this project. Here I try to provide some guidance on how to achieve your goal the right way, without running afoul of Wikidata’s complex web of policies.

Before creating your item

Even experts need checklists

A quick checklist before you create your item:

• Does it already exist? Use the search box to find it. Try some variations on the name.
• Do I have a conflict of interest? If you have some specific personal reason for creating an item, for example it is for yourself, your employer, or your band, this is not against the rules per se, but you need to be very cautious that it doesn’t cloud your judgement. If you are being paid specifically to edit here, then WMF policy is that editors must declare this (see our terms of use); in some jurisdictions, unauthorized use of a computer system may be a crime.
• Does the concept pass Wikidata’s notability criteria? If not, you should not be creating it. It is especially important to be clear-minded about this when you have a conflict of interest. I go into more detail on the notability criteria below.
• Have I created an account? It is not necessary to create an account, but it is highly recommended, not least because it makes it easier for other editors to send you feedback and interact with you.

Establishing notability

In order for an item to survive in Wikidata, it is not enough that the concept is capable of passing the notability criteria: The item itself must clearly demonstrate that it passes those criteria, as soon as possible after creation.

A common new-user error is to create a bare item with the intention of coming back later to improve it. New items are typically reviewed very quickly and, if they don't clearly establish notability, swiftly deleted.

An item is notable if it passes any one of the three notability criteria. (If relying on the second criterion, it must pass both parts.) These criteria are not obvious, are not strongly-related to the everyday use of the term “notability”, and are very different from the notability policies of the various Wikipedia projects.

A common new-user error is to create items without thinking about their notability until it is challenged, by which time it is often too late. Another common new-user error is to think that notability can be established by counting google search results or the number of social media followers.

Refer to Wikidata:Notability for the official policy; the following is only a rough paraphrase.

Sitelinks

We don't delete items with sitelinks

The first criterion is the most clear cut. If there is already a Wikipedia article for a concept, then it gets an item, no questions asked. If all Wikipedia articles are subsequently deleted (or “draftified” or “userfied”), however, the Wikidata item is likely to be deleted shortly after. This is particularly a concern when the Wikipedia article is recently created, as new articles tend to receive a lot of scrutiny under the specific policies of the relevant Wikipedia project.

So, while this criterion is very clear-cut, it is not recommended that you achieve Wikidata notability for your concept by slapping together a quick stub article on some Wikipedia. To be successful that way, you would first need to become familiar with that project's notability criteria (e.g. en:Wikipedia:Notabilty) and ensure that your article complies with them. You will find that Wikipedia projects tend to have a higher notability bar than Wikidata.

Identifiers and sources

To pass the second criterion, it is necessary that you add both identifiers and sources to your item.

Identifiers

Ideally every item should have identifiers, and there are many to choose from

Identifiers allow another editor to determine whether some other entity with a similar name is the same or different. An identifier can be as simple as a website (official website (P856)) or a social media link (e.g. LinkedIn personal profile ID (P6634)/LinkedIn company or organization ID (P4264), X username (P2002), Facebook username (P2013)/Facebook page ID (P4003)). Specific types of entity, such as academics, musicians/bands, historical people, and companies have various specific identifiers. You might like to use the Wikidata Property Explorer to find potential identifiers for your entity.

Certain identifiers tend to establish notability all by themselves, as they can also act as sources. These include identifiers issued by external authorities with their own notability criteria. See this query for some examples.

Each type of identifier has its own specific property and format. A common new-user mistake is to paste in entire URLs for identifier values, but Wikidata identifier properties are usually intended to take only a specific part of the URL (commonly just the name or number).

Sources

Ideally every claim would have references, but it's more important for some properties than others. It's also important that every item has some references to establish notability.

Sources are important for two reasons: They allow other Wikidata users to trace the provenance of some claim; and they establish that the concept is one that can be researched.

When adding claims to a Wikidata item, you are not required to add a reference to each one, although you should not be adding claims unless it is possible to find that information in sources. Somewhat counter-intuitively, Wikidata (and the various Wikipedia projects) are not concerned with some absolute standard of truth, but rather about what can be verified from sources. (As an illustration of this, it is sometimes appropriate to have contradictory claims, for example if sources differ on a date of birth.)

There are some claims (e.g. sexuality, religion) that are expected to have references, as they are likely to be challenged, and they may violate privacy.

References can cite any resource, online or offline, textual or multi-media, but the easiest way is to provide the URL of a relevant webpage. To add such a reference to a specific claim, use reference URL (P854). For a general source that backs many claims, you can add it as a top-level claim using described at URL (P973). See Help:Sources for more information.

One way or another, you should ensure that your item includes sufficient distinct sources to establish notability. There is no hard-and-fast rule, but a good rule-of-thumb is that two articles from different national newspapers (or other independent sources with strong editorial control) that are primarily about the target concept will unshakably establish notability. Note that being quoted or mentioned in an article does not make the article about that person.

Sources published or authored by an entity (e.g. their website, blog, social media post, advertising, press releases) can be good sources for what an entity claims about themselves (e.g. sexuality, religion), but cannot establish notability. This means that advertising and press releases don't establish notability, even if they appear in a national newspaper.

Structural need

Wikidata items would be worthless without the links between them.

An item passes this criterion if it is necessary to create this item in order to represent some other (notable) item more fully. In practice, this means that you should be able to create an incoming link to this item from another. E.g. the founder or CEO of a notable company, the members of a notable band, the spouse of a celebrity.

A common new-user mistake is to create several new items for concepts of marginal notability (e.g. a family, a band with its members and albums, a company with its executives and brandnames) and then attempt to establish their notability by linking them all together. This doesn’t work because structural need is not established unless the subgraph also includes items that are otherwise notable. Doing this tends to invite batch deletion and increased scrutiny of your other contributions.

Creating a good item

An item should have a label and a description in at least one language. Ideally, this should include the appropriate native language for the concept. You don’t need to fill out labels for every possible language.

Common new-user mistakes in this area include incorrect capitalization, over-long descriptions, and crazy/improbable aliases. All three should be in mid-sentence case, so do not capitalize unless it's a proper name. Descriptions should be short disambiguators, typically a noun phrase (e.g. Egyptian cleric, Scottish village), not a full sentence. Aliases should be secondary names for the entity, such as a birth name or a stage name. See Help:Label, Help:Description, and Help:Aliases for more information.

Every item should have at least instance of (P31) (for an individual entity) or subclass of (P279) (for concepts that represent collections).

Try to add as many claims as you can, but please don’t rely on guesses or assumptions (e.g. for sexuality, religion), or inappropriately include private information about a living person.

You may also want to find one or more existing items for concepts that are similar to yours. They will give you some ideas about the sort of information you can add and how. Be aware that some existing items you find may be wrongly represented, and some may not be notable.

The Wikidata:Recoin gadget will suggest properties for you to add.

What can go wrong?

Repurposing

Don't overwrite an existing item with your new entity.

The correct way to create a new item is using Create a new item.

A common new-user mistake is to find an existing item, either one that seems to be about some unimportant concept, or one that has a similar name but different details, and rewrite it to be about the desired concept instead. This is a big mistake. Your work will be reverted, and other editors will get very annoyed with you.

A less common new-user mistake is to find a tool that allows you to duplicate an existing item and then make necessary changes to it. Don’t do this, as the history will reflect a confused identity, and you are likely to miss necessary changes. (This tool is only for very specialized work in teasing apart items that conflate multiple concepts.)

Deletion

Deletion is not permanent. It can be undone, but only if you do it the right way.

Suppose you come back in a few days to admire your handiwork and you cannot find it. Where did it go? Assuming that you are searching correctly, and that your item has not been the target of vandalism or repurposing, then it may have been deleted. What now?

A common new-user mistake is just to start again and recreate the item from scratch. This is a big mistake. Very likely, your new creation will not be considered afresh, but will instead be deleted very quickly as a “recreation of a deleted item”. Your account is also likely to be blocked for spamming. Even if your new item does survive, this concept has now been issued two different Wikidata item ids (QIDs) and there is no record that they refer to the same concept. This can confuse external projects that use Wikidata ids (e.g. Google Knowledge Panels).

The correct response is to request undeletion. Before you do this, you should verify that your item was actually deleted and try to find out why. Unfortunately, the Wikidata software does not make this easy, but there are a few things you could try.

• If you happen to remember the QIDs assigned to your new item, you can enter it in the search box, and then click on “Show logs for …”.
• Enter your username in this tool.
• Check the deletion log. Every item deletion will appear here, and the entries often indicate the user who created the item or some of the content of the item. You’ll find that hundreds of items are deleted every day, so it may take a bit of searching to find yours.
• Although items are often deleted by administrators acting on their own initiative, many deletions were requested on Wikidata:Requests for deletions, and sometimes there is some informative discussion to be found there. You should also check the Archive, as the main page is cleared frequently.
• You can ask an administrator to review your "deleted contributions". This may not work if you have not created an account, as you IP address may have changed.

Requesting undeletion

For more information, see Wikidata:Guide to requests for undeletion

Your first step should be to ask the deleting admin (or any admin) to undelete your item. If this request is declined, your next step is to post a request at the Administrators’ Noticeboard.

When requesting undeletion of an item, you should make sure you do the following:

• Identify the item. Link using, e.g. {{Q|1234}}. The easier you make it for people to help you, the more likely you are to receive help.
• Explain which notability criterion (or criteria) the item satisfies (sitelinks, identifiers and sources, structural need).
• If you plan to add new claims that establish notability (e.g. sitelinks, identifiers, sources, incoming links) then provide those links in your undeletion request. Don't simply claim that they exist. Be specific.

Make your request simple and clear. Don't speculate about the scurrilous motives of the deleting admin or try to present yourself as righting great wrongs. Wiki discussions work best when they are about a single topic.

Once you have made your request, wait for responses. Make sure that you respond to any questions.

If your request is successful, follow up and make improvements to your item as soon as possible.

Blocking

See Wikidata:Guide to appealing blocks

You may find that your account has been blocked. You should have been provided with a reason for the block, either in the block log, or via a message on your talk page, but some common reasons are:

• You are believed to be a previously-blocked user attempting to evade their block. This can happen if you choose to create an item for a concept that was previously created by a now-blocked user. By creating the same item, you are assumed to be the same user.
• You appear to be serially creating items for non-notable concepts. If it is perceived that your contributions just make work for others without adding anything positive to the project, then you will be shown the door.
• You appear to be serially recreating items for the same non-notable concept. This is the same as the previous, with the additional indication you are here for one narrow purpose that is incompatible with the project’s goals.

If this happens to you, you should place an {{Unblock}} request on your talk page, explaining why you think the block is not necessary. Writing a successful unblock request is hard, but my advice is to focus on two things:

1. Showing that you understand why you were blocked and are committed to avoiding that error in future; and
2. Communicating what positive contributions you would make to the project if unblocked.

The English Wikipedia article en:Wikipedia:Guide_to_appealing_blocks also gives good advice.

Common mistakes users make when blocked:

• Focus on the notability of deleted items. While this can be relevant, it gives the impression that the creation of this item is your sole goal here. We are looking for people who will make a broad contribution towards the project's goals, not for those who want to exploit the project for their own ends.
• Speculating about the scurrilous motives of the blocking admin
• Creating a new account. Don’t do this. No, not “just to get the first account unblocked”. No, not because you “want a fresh start”. No, not because you "have other things to work on". This will escalate your offence to "block evasion" and will make it very hard for you to get anyone to listen to you in the future. Be aware that, while a block is a technical measure applied to an account or IP address, it actually communicates that the human user is no longer authorized to contribute to this project. Depending on your jurisdiction, it may be a crime to access a computer system without authorization.

What's next?

Now that you've gotten the Wikidata bug, we invite you to hang around and help out. There are a lot of things to help with beyond creating items. See Help:Contents for more information.