Wikidata:Project chat/Archive/2012/10

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A way to mark pages for administrative tasks

We need some way to mark data items for administrative tasks, as it is now we can neither use categories or templates. This is typically speedy delete and merge these items. Jeblad (talk) 06:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I think we may need a "requests for deletion" page (if we're feeling imaginative, could call it Wikidata:Bit bucket), like the French Wikipedia uses for their speedy deletion process. It doesn't seem possible to categorise or even to add templates to data objects. This, that and the other (talk) 08:46, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
There can be a requests for deletion page, but there needs to be a template placed on the item page itself to show editors that the page is marked for deletion. An example which I have done (it is obviously something that may be frowned upon, but I can't think of any other way) is Q259. --Hydriz (talk) 10:07, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
This way is not really working : I use French and I don’t see the english description… Ltrlg (talk) 11:37, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
:I agree. If you add the French description then you can see it, but if you want to see the English desciption, you have to change your language... --Stryn (talk) 11:41, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion: This can be put on the talk page. A number of wikis have administrative categories on the talk page for the respective item. --Denny Vrandečić (WMDE) (talk) 10:17, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Then the admin needs to delete two pages instead of just one, which seems annoying... This, that and the other (talk) 10:23, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Thats quite true. Can such administrative tags be integrated to the extension itself so that it can be added like all other metadata? --Hydriz (talk) 10:25, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

In phase 2, we will have the option to add almost arbitrary metadata to an item. Maybe this will be sufficient for these needs. If not, we can then think about what still needs to be done. Does this sound reasonable? --Denny Vrandečić (WMDE) (talk) 11:33, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, then perhaps we have to make do with just a "requests for deletion" page for now without touching the item page at all. --Hydriz (talk) 11:36, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
I like that idea for now --Guerillero (talk) 15:58, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Automation

Why not simply migrate the Wikipedia "interwiki" table to wikidata? Kelson (talk) 10:10, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Because there is no such thing :) There are per project tables. Bots authors have already tested on our test repository, but we have asked them to refrain from too much activity just yet. --Denny Vrandečić (WMDE) (talk) 10:19, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Label name

Should Q308's English label name be Mercury (planet) like in en-wiki or Mercury? --Stryn (talk) 14:52, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The latter. Planet should become clear through the description field. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:54, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Slurp all interwikis

A button to slurp all interwiki when creating a new item would be nice. Emijrp (talk) 15:35, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

+1 Superzerocool (talk) 16:36, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
We have a module that is made for something else, but can be adjusted for something like this. It would be a kind of "find one sitelink and we grab the rest for you". Jeblad (talk) 00:59, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I've made a script that do that. I've opened a new tread. Tpt (talk) 06:46, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Tpt. Emijrp (talk) 13:09, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Two questions: Deleting a dataset, and "other projects"

  • When trying to create Q549 I accidentally created Q547 as well (double click, maybe?). Is there a protocol for deleting a dataset, or should such datasets just be re-used for something else? Is there a protocol for merging?
  • It doesn't seem to be possible to link to Wiktionary, Commons, Wikispecies, etc. Will this be added?

- Soulkeeper (talk) 16:19, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

There's a page to request deletions. But repurposing an item is also fine for now. Links to sister projects are not possible yet but likely in the future. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 16:25, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! - Soulkeeper (talk) 16:34, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Label + interwiki = redundant

I understand the need to have separate labels and interwikis, but in the majority of cases I believe the label in any given language equals the interwiki link. I suggest that when adding an interwiki to a dataset which has no label in that language, the interwiki is automatically copied to the label. If it's not correct, it can always be edited later. Example: I go to dataset Q521, and add the interwiki link no:Fysiologi. Q521's "no" label should then automatically be set to "Fysiologi". In the unlikely event this is wrong, editing it is no problem. And maybe a sloppy label is better than no label, anyway? Does this sound reasonable? - Soulkeeper (talk) 16:34, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

eo: Ĉi tie estas bonan ideon (se mi komprenas bone). Marek Mazurkiewicz (talk) 22:01, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
pl: To jest dobry pomysł (jęśli dobrze rozumiem) Marek Mazurkiewicz (talk) 22:01, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
The label is "our" title for the item, while the title in the sitelink is the external projects title for the article. They are decoupled so they can be different, but more often than not they will be the same. We had a lot of discussion about how to handle similar labels and titles, and if we should set them to the same string. Perhaps the community should chose? Jeblad (talk) 01:05, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
IMO it is good as it is. The more articles Wikipedia gets the less names need not to be disambiguated. John Smith is going to be labeled John Smith, but there will plenty of John Smiths. I understand the label would be John Smith whatever the article's name is. Another (semi-fictive) example. According to EN:WP naming conventions the article Silver Creek (Colorado) would be about the river in Colorado named Silver Creek. According to DE:WP naming conventions the article Silver Creek (Colorado) would be about the settlement named Silver Creek, and the river's article would be named Silver Creek (Smith River) (assuming that it mounds into the "Smith River"). The settlement's article would be named Silver Creek, Colorado in the EN:WP. However, all of them might be labeled "Silver Creek", with river/settlement in the description line (EN) resp. Fluss/Ort (DE). I believe it's more easy and better for data quality to add correct labels where they are missing then to search out cases in which the label is wrong. --Matthiasb (talk) 19:35, 31 October 2012 (UTC) (sligthly edited to avoid confusion, 09:43, 1 November 2012 (UTC))
I agree.
Much of what is just assumed to be necessary in the title is just stuff we've gotten used to, even though the original purpose was to have unique titles on Wikipedia, and isn't necessary to have in labels here. --Yair rand (talk) 22:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Good and featured articles

How do we mark good and featured articles in the future? --Stryn (talk) 17:36, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

That's not implemented yet. We're still figuring out the details of that. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 17:39, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
See https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=40810 also. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 17:40, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Some of the problems in marking links is that the marking will take several roles. Some of them will be maintenance in Wikidata, some will be maintenance in the Wikipedia project, some will be article quality markers, and so forth. But all can be folded into one space as a kind of link attribute. If anybody have a good idea about how we might do this feel free to add it here or to the bug. Our best idea so far is simply a list of enumerations, and then to map those enums to templates without any implicit interpretation. Jeblad (talk) 00:51, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Warum kann...

...ich keine Bearbeitungen durchführen? Liesel (talk) 19:19, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Du solltest editieren können. Aber es gibt auf den Seiten im Hauptnamensraum keinen Edit Button wie in der Wikipedia. Die sind in den Formularfeldern. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 19:20, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Fehler gefunden. Javascript war deaktiviert. Liesel (talk) 19:47, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Ah gut zu wissen. Ohne Javascript gibt es in der Tat noch ein paar Probleme. Wir arbeiten dran. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 20:23, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Purpose of "description" field.

The contents of items' description fields are already getting past the point of acceptable variation, with some having just one-word notes (basically the kind of thing one would put in brackets in a Wikipedia article title in order to disambiguate), and some having multiple-statement extensive descriptions. We're going to need to build some basic policies and guidelines for this, which is going to be really difficult if we don't have a clear idea of what the descriptions are for, what their intended use is... --Yair rand (talk) 19:25, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The purpose is to differentiate things like Mars, the planet, god and food. They'd all have the label Mars likely and the description helps to tell them apart. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 19:27, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads up --Guerillero | Talk 19:48, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Okay, so for "French", we'd want something like "language"? The current description is "Romance language in the Oïl family spoken in France", which is a bit much if the sole purpose is to distinguish it from other items with the same label. Similarly for most of the items on the wiki so far. --Yair rand (talk) 20:46, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Either is fine really from the dev team's perspective. Decision is with the community about how exactly it should look. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 20:49, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Okay... Is the description going to be used at all outside this wiki? In the Wikimedia wikis? In external websites? Would keeping descriptions completely unique be useful? Getting a community decision based on just the information that's available now sounds rather difficult. It would be easier if we had a more general idea of what kinds of things it will be used for. --Yair rand (talk) 02:16, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Description length

How long should the description be? How many information should be packed into them? Ony 2 or 3 words? (A country in Europe) oder longer (An astrophysical model of planetmigration in solar system)? And should they end with a dot? Just want to ask for your opinions. MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 22:28, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

It should be long enough to be descriptive. Jeblad (talk) 01:23, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
It seems to me that one word is often sufficient. Using them the same way you use disambiguation parantheses seems to work just fine. Less is more. - Soulkeeper (talk) 10:43, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

To make sure the countries have at least the basic interwiki links I, after talking to User:Romaine, created this task force (please move it to a more appropriate location if possible). Any help with creating lists and ckecking will be appreciated.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:40, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Template:Documentation

Could someone with the necessary understanding please create Template:Documentation and the required sub-templates, by importing from en.Wikipedia? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:47, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

This should be transwikied, so as not to lose the history. Special:Import should be used by a user with the rights (I think). --Yair rand (talk) 21:49, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
What would it be needed for? --MF-Warburg (talk) 21:58, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Documenting templates, as on en.Wikipedia. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:13, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

You are the community

Remember that when you do something and find it odd, discuss it with other users in the community! For us who has tried to wrap our heads around these ideas for several months it might seem trivial and obvious, but it is definitely not at all obvious. Discuss and ask, it might very well be that we must redo something to make it as obvious as it should be. The staff is not the community, and we are absolutely not YOU, so ask if something seems weird. Jeblad (talk) 01:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

status of search

Hey folks :)

I know the search is painful at the moment. It's on our todo list. You can follow the status at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36423

--Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 09:33, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Some languages to long: zh-classical and map-bms

Hello,

See Q1281 the zh-classical and map-bms go throught the border of their cell and fight with the language link.

Greetings, Basvb (talk) 10:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

See Code field to small — Ltrl G, le 10:45, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I've open a discussion about the inclusion in Wikidata of not-article pages after some discussions made in this tread. Tpt (talk) 10:35, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Add Categories or Groups on WD

there could be groups or categories for bring databases together like chemical element, a list of all chemical element links. --Jitrixis (talk) 11:01, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Support that. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 11:16, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Breaking changes in the API

With next roll-out of our code there will be breaking changes in the API. In particular this will have an impact on the script User:Tpt/slurpInterwiki.js and other similar scripts and bots. The call to wbgetitems will be replaced by wbgetentities and internal structures named items will be entities. The same change is in wbsetsitelink, the internal structure item will become entity. Also ids which is now unprefixed integers will be prefixed strings. Jeblad (talk) 11:29, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll prepare a compatible version of User:Tpt/slurpInterwiki.js. Tpt (talk) 12:10, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
As a gadget its up to the community. Jeblad (talk) 12:04, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Why is the Label separately editable?

I'm quite sure there is a simple and logical answer to this question - it's just my not understanding the Wikidata system I'm sure. But... I was wondering why the Label element on any object record is editable, and in some cases is blank even when there's lots of interlanguage-links already in place. Since the software knows what language I'm reading in, why can't it just show me the label of that record in my chosen language? If I understand correctly, we have to input the label of each record, in each language, even though all the interlanguage-links are right there already below.

For example, I just made this edit [1] where there were over a dozen links already but no "name", I just copied and pasted the name from the English link into the Label field and pressed save. Is that a correct action? If so, why does it need me to do this manually? Wittylama (talk) 14:44, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

But since "my" language was already in the list of interwikis, why was it necessary for me to create it? Surely the software could just display the relevant title to me? Wittylama (talk) 14:53, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Because it is a different thing. I will now give an example.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:54, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Take a (not yet existing) entry on en:Pechora River. Of course you can create an entry and call it Pechora River. (This is what I would do). However, 90% of users will find it easier to create an item which is called Pechora and has the description of smth like A river in Russia. This inentifies it in a pretty much unique manner. If an article is renamed because the naming conventions on en.wiki change the item is still there and means the same. And, besides, the item can just be non-existent in English Wikipedia - but still exist here and have some name.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:00, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Btw what I find amusing is that one actually does not need to delete the pages - one can just take an accidentally created duplicate, change the label and replace all the intterwiki links. On the other hand, vandals can do it as well.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:54, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused, what does the deletion process have to do with this??
Further to my last comment: If, because of some weird disambiguation title system back on Wikipedia the label was strange, then I could update it manually and describe the precise meaning of the record in the relevant field. So, why would it be blank in the first place? Wittylama (talk) 14:53, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I think our comments crossed and we wrote the same thing, if I get it correctly.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:01, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
See also the #Label + interwiki = redundant discussion about the same thing. Perhaps the explanations there are more understandable.--Snaevar (talk) 22:28, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Template imports

Further to my request above for the import of en:Template:Documentation from en.Wikipedia., another template which would be useful here, in the short term, would be en:Template:Tl. Could somebody import that, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:03, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

For tl, it will be sufficient to put the code {{[[Template:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]]}} on template:tl (this shouldn't need an import). --MF-Warburg (talk) 15:35, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
So done; thank you.. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:40, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I think too easy requests are made to import templates. Please keep in mind that this is a universal wiki and not a copy of the English Wikipedia where they have too much templates that they try to export to get rid of them. Romaine (talk) 16:47, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm well aware that this isn't a copy of the English Wikipedia; however that wiki has some useful templates which are free to copy. As for "too much templates", I'm not suggesting that we import them all, just those which will be of benefit here. How else do you propose that we mark up text where languages change, for example? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:20, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Linking to sister projects

How can we link to sister projects: Wikimedia Commons (pages and categories), WikiSource, WikiQuote, etc? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:22, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Not yet possible. --Stryn (talk) 15:25, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps an interim solution would be a template to do so, included in the prose description, which a bot could later convert? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:35, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Seems like this is working? Or is it something else you are asking about? Jeblad (talk) 18:19, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I think Andy was talking about the links in the Wikidata items. — Arkanosis 18:31, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. I can link from Q2256 to en:Birmingham; how should we link from that entry to commons:Birmingham and/or commons:Category:Birmingham? On en.Wikipedia, for example, we use en:Template:Commons & en:Template:Commons category respectively. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:04, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Easy link to this page

Can we have a link to this page, from the site's left-hand navigation, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:24, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed we can. --MF-Warburg (talk) 15:29, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:36, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Hamburg-prefix

Here is many items where English label has Hamburg-prefix, like Hamburg-Stellingen. Should it be with Hamburg-prefix or without prefix? I prefer without prefix. --Stryn (talk) 15:24, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

en.Wikipedia main page

I asked for this project to be included in the list of sister projects on the en.Wikipedia main page. Here's the discussion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:31, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

input for weekly summary

As you might know I am writing weekly summaries about things that happen around Wikidata. If there's anything you'd like to have included in the next update please let me know. This is also an offer for the future. I am sending them out on Fridays. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 18:06, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

  • It would be cool to have a list of the first 1000 entries to see what people find important (which is systemically biased of course). But if it can not be done automatically it is probably not worthwhile.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:20, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
You can create a list like that by using Special:NewPages and increasing the limit to 5000 (max) but do it before there are more than 5000 items… Jeblad (talk) 18:30, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
It's probably worth mentioning the creation of this page, and inviting people to use it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:49, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

One interwiki link

I have come across Q2711, during my clean up that exists on only on wiki. Do you guys think that these sorts of data points should be kept? --Guerillero | Talk 18:56, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course it should be kept. Anybody can start more articles with different languages. --Stryn (talk) 19:06, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
This is one of the big advantages from an interwiki database. This way it is easier to find interwiki's (you don't have look at theoreticly 400 wiki's but only this one, to find your new article's interwiki's). Also this will prevent 2 islands of the same thing. Basvb (talk) 19:47, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Tags in labels and descriptions

All text is assumed to be "clean", so we htmlescapes everything. Tell us if anything comes out with valid html tags, hey should be printed as pure text like Q3092 in English. It is possible to use super- and subscript by using Unicode characters, for example like H₂0 and 1ª vittoria. Jeblad (talk) 18:56, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Just a note that my script will not add this html tags any more. I am using the displaytitle for label. Documentation, i checked before, contains only sub, sup, '' and ''' as possible additional values. Now i look in the source and also i, b and u tags are removed. Merlissimo (talk) 19:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Are we supposed to see: "<i>The Man Between</i>" (I do) or. The Man Between (I don't)? Mvg, Basvb (talk) 19:45, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Tags will be written out and not respected in the text fields. So yes, you will se "<i>The Man Between</i>" and not The Man Between". Jeblad (talk)

ULS bug?

I can't select the language "Kabuverdianu". It shows up in ULS, but nothing changes after the page refreshes. In Translatewiki.net the change does take effect, so I'm not sure if this is a bug in ULS or a misconfiguration of Wikidata's instance. --Waldir (talk) 19:30, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Some edit requests

There doesn't seem to be an editprotected template or equivalent here, so I'm going to leave a bunch of edit requests here. Could an admin please:

Thanks. --Yair rand (talk) 19:53, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

1st, 2nd done (or doing). Could you explain what the Searchmenu-new changes will do? --MF-Warburg (talk) 20:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
It'll change the text from “create a new item” to “create the page” when trying to access a “page” in a namespace other than the main namespace, with the correct link to create the page instead of a link to Newitem. Interestingly, we have the opposite problem when the interface is in French: we can create the page, but not a new item. Best regards — Arkanosis 20:15, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Forgot to mention that I support this change. Also, could you please edit MediaWiki:Searchmenu-new/fr with “'''Créer {{#if:{{NAMESPACE:$1}}|la page « [[:$1|$1]] »|[[Special:CreateItem|un nouvel élément]]}} sur ce wiki !'''” as well ?
Thanks in advance — Arkanosis 20:24, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I've done both these edits. --MF-Warburg (talk) 20:38, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you! — Arkanosis 20:45, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Please make updates to system messages in Translatewiki.net! Jeblad (talk) 20:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Err, these are the same messages with and without the Wikibase extension, unless I'm mistaken. I don't think it's a good idea to change the messages on translatewiki. Best regards — Arkanosis 20:45, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Your right! ;) Jeblad (talk) 21:11, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Accessibility

I started Wikidata:Accessibility as a place to collate tips for making Wikidata content accessible to humans, particularly to people who have some form of disability, whether or not they use assistive software. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:31, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Most of the UI is now very dependent on Javascript being enabled, but later on a JS-less version will be available. It is not decided if that will support all types of editing. Jeblad (talk) 20:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Localizing the interface

There is still a lot of work to be done on localizing the interface, so if you have spare time (and want to see you own language) please localize into new languages! There is a few links you can follow to check out what is missing, but remember to change to your language! For Wikidata REPO (the thingy you are on right now) use repo, for Wikipedia (it comes later) use client, and for some common stuff use lib. Jeblad (talk) 21:05, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

View the content in different languages

I tried to made a few edits, first in English and then I switched to French. I could not find a way to view the page content in different languages, except by changing the language of the UI. Did I miss something? Will that come in a future version? If a description is available only is one language, it would be nice to have a fast way to find it, for instance. Orlodrim (talk) 22:22, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I guess the developers are aware of it. --MF-Warburg (talk) 22:24, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

upcoming events and office hours

Some of my team members and I will be attending several events in the coming weeks. It'd be awesome to meet many of you there. You can see the current list of upcoming events here. Let me know if you'll be there so we can meet up.

Denny and I will also be doing another round of our office hours on IRC next week. You can come and ask all your questions about Wikidata. Details for that are here. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 22:39, 31 October 2012 (UTC)