Wikidata

Wikidata:Project chat/Archive/2013/02

< Wikidata:Project chat‎ | Archive‎ | 2013
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What to do with text copied from Wikipedia

I've noticed various instances of contributors (obviously in good faith) copying text from the starts of Wikipedia articles for items' descriptions. Here, for instance, to take a random example found patrolling recent changes, without wishing to single anybody out. This presents both a style issue, as almost all such copies are incompatible with the guidelines at Help:Description, and an attribution one, since as a CC0 project we can only use material that is original or already in the public domain. Clearly there's some types of copies that don't present an issue in either regard, but for the ones that do, I think it would be useful to have a way to explain this to new users, since it's a fine but important point. So, I've created a draft template for explaining this. I've tried to make it as non-BITEy as possible, and on the /doc page I've tried to give a few examples showing the distinction between acceptable copying (i.e. Help:Description-compliant, and below the threshold of originality) and problematic copying (i.e. improperly formatted and potentially requiring attribution). I'd very much appreciate some feedback, as well as any improvements to either the template or the documentation. Do others feel that this would be acceptable as a template? Thanks. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 04:06, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

That violates the guidelines anyway, as the description is way too long. --Rschen7754 04:11, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I know. As I touch upon on the /doc page, the concept of threshold of originality goes pretty much hand-in-hand with the principle of "simplest description possible". My point is more that it's perfectly understandable that a new user, coming from Wikipedia, would think it's fine to just copy the ledes, so we should have some sort of mechanism (perhaps a policy page as well?) to explain that it's generally not. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 04:28, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't necessarily think it violates the attribution requirement as long as appropriate interwikis exist, but I agree that simply copying and pasting is not going to suffice.--Jasper Deng (talk) 04:40, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
We can't license it under CC0 whether our specific use satisfies the attribution requirement or not. --Yair rand (talk) 05:13, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
That's true, although the edit window says CC-BY-SA 3.0, hence why I was confused.--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:18, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
It's CC-BY-SA for non-mainspace pages, presumably since otherwise we wouldn't be able to import templates, or even claim ownership of our own comments. (Actually, though, it might be a good idea to add something at the end of the edit window thing, along the lines of "Please note, though, that when editing items or properties, your contributions are licensed instead under the CC0 license", just so no one can ever feel misled.) — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 05:27, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
IANAL, of course, but I don't see how simply copying a few words of text amounts to a license violation. It would be very difficult (impossible in most jurisdictions, I imagine) to prove copyright ownership over such a short passage. This, that and the other (talk) 06:29, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Also, I think your template, PinkAmpersand, is very long and verbose. That is Wikipedia style, not Wikidata style so much... Just cut straight to the point. This is even more an issue here because we have many contributors with a low level of English, who will find it hard to read so much text in English. This, that and the other (talk) 06:35, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Well, as I've tried to make clear, this template definitely wouldn't be for cases where people are copying a "few words of text", but, as in the diff I cited, a lengthy sentence that's not even close to appropriate as a label. As for verbiage... if you see things you can pare down, then feel free to FIXIT; with languages, the obvious solution would be to create translated versions, like with the welcome template. All that said, if there's a consensus that this would be appropriate as a template only if it dropped the legal part, and became simply about how to format a description, then so be it. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 09:17, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
The description can be viewed as a quotation from the Wikipedia article, and because there is a backreference there will be no copyright violation. It might be discussed if the description is appropriate, but don't make it a legal issue. :) 89.204.155.109 10:49, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Redundant to Help:Description and the examples should not be taken as a model:
  • "largest city" (in the case of France ok, but the size is not what we want in the description)
  • "16th President" (in the case of US ok, but don't start counting popes, antipopes, and add "monarch no. 231a" since the year 300)
  • "in west-central Europe": former East Germany now located in west Europe? (again, in the case ok, but a bad example for a guideline)
--Kolja21 (talk) 13:26, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
While it is technically violating copyright with the example above, the bigger issue which we should be trying to fix is that the description doesn't fall within the guidelines here. In general, short descriptions can't just be copied, so that solves the problem. As to any warning templates that you expect to use against good faith users, no thanks. Take a second, and manually explain to them what they did wrong and how to do it right. Let's not fall into the English Wikipedia's semi-automated hell of templated messages just yet... Ajraddatz (Talk) 13:30, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
+1. BTW: Also short descriptions can be copied and, if they are useful, they should be copied, like: "deutscher Fußballspieler und -trainer" for Q879506. Drag and drop helps non native speakers to avoid spelling errors and there is no copyright for a 4 word sentence. (Otherwise we couldn't write: "I love New York" without getting sued by a greedy lawyer.) --Kolja21 (talk) 13:43, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Would a simple "don't copy descriptions word-for-word from Wikipedia" be a way to address both of these problems? It covers both the CC0 issue and the fact that Wikipedia descriptions are rarely concise enough, without getting into the details of why, overly. Guettarda (talk) 15:19, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
I would think so... although this will take a lot of effort to change now that many are engaging in the practice.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:03, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
@Guettarda: See the above example. Copy descriptions word-for-word from Wikipedia can be fine, if the article is written in the right style. Why not use the nutshell:
--Kolja21 (talk) 20:40, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
You can copy the description from Wikipedia so long as you only copy a few words (say half of the first line) and not the whole lede. Filceolaire (talk) 01:51, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

And we're live on the Hebrew and Italian Wikipedia \o/ (and some new dates)

Heya folks :)

We're now live on the Hebrew and Italian Wikipedia as well. Wohoooo! More details are in this blog post (including planned dates for the next deployments!) At the same time we updated the code on the Hungarian Wikipedia. These are however only minor fixes and changes.

Thanks to everyone who helped and to the Hebrew and Italian Wikipedia for joining the Hungarian Wikipedia in a very elite club of awesome :P --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 19:59, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Hhurray! Thanks to all developers, bots and the people who made ​​it possible --ValterVB (talk) 21:29, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
+1. Good work! --Kolja21 (talk) 22:20, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
After some days we can say it's working fine, without any apparent performance issue. --Vituzzu (talk) 11:26, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks a lot for the feedback. That's great to hear of course. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 12:15, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Close of Inclusion of non-article pages RFC : update of inclusion criteria

I've closed the Inclusion of non-article pages RFC that have been opened since 3 months and have reach, I believe, a strong consensus. The result is something like "All pages that are not a User page can be linked in Wikidata". I've also updated Wikidata:Notability but I'm not sure to have updated it well. Can someone review it and update it to a better formulation if needed?

An other topic is the deletion of User: pages related items. Do you think we can start it now or we should wait a little? Tpt (talk) 16:18, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I think we can delete user page related items now, because we have strong consensus about it. User related items I found: Q1170, Q2110559, Q2678537, Q640, Q22833, Q7995, Q3926018 (not user page, but userbox template in user namespace). --Stryn (talk) 16:28, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Is there any easy way of finding them? Search, as always, sucks. Ajraddatz (Talk) 16:30, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Well, I don't know, I just used search and found those :) --Stryn (talk) 16:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
For deletion of items connected to user pages you can use this search but note that it search for labels reused from the sitelinks title. Because of this there are probably an equal amonth it doesn't find. Note also that this must be repeated for all language codes that reflect siteids. Jeblad (talk) 00:54, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I've deleted the user pages per that discussion. If anyone disagrees, they can revert. I left that last link up because it's not in the user namespace in all of the projects (template namespace in Hebrew Wikipedia). Sven Manguard Wha? 03:24, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Main page header

It occurs to me that as a knowledge base, we don't need to necessarily outsource the links in our "motto" to Wikipedia. Looking through other Wikimedia projects, Mediawiki and Wikiquote are the only ones I can find that do (to links from Wikipedia and Wiktionary, respectively); the rest all either don't have any links at all (e.g. The free species directory that anyone can edit as raw text), or have links to projectspace descriptions (e.g. The free, worldwide travel guide that anyone can edit. But most applicable to our situation, I think, is Wiktionary, which simply has the free dictionary (though I'm not sure why they dropped the "that anyone can edit"). I suggest that we, like Wiktionary, simply use a mainspace link, and change our links from w:free content and w:Knowledge base to Q14075 and Q593744 (replicated across all of the available Main Page languages, of course). I've done some work to get the local links Main Page-ready, and I think it would be kind of cool to do it this way, to take advantage of our own content instead of just linking to Wikipedia. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 13:09, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

  Support I agree that we should be sending people to Wikidata pages. This will be particularly useful once extra data other than interwikilinks can be added. If people want to find out more, they can click on the wikipedia article for their respective language anyway. 86.22.8.43 16:28, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I changed this for the German Main Page a while ago. --Sk!d (talk) 00:19, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
  Oppose Think about the end user: will a link to a list of interwikis explain the meanings of "free content" and "knowledge base" or would a link to Wikipedia be more useful? In my opinion, this change might be appropriate for the languages that don't have pages about "free content", but I don't see why we should make the link to e.g. the English Wikipedia article more indirect (linking to a list of sitelinks instead of the English version itself). πr2 (t • c) 02:38, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Meh. IDK how much of an actual benefit this will bring, since anyone first looking at Wikidata will still be very confused. Ajraddatz (Talk) 15:19, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

About phase 2

Just a small questions: where can we take part to the development of phase 2 ? By taking part I want to say defining classes of item and the associated properties. Snipre (talk) 20:25, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Another question about the references: in the global structure is there a possibility to create a new object like Q for item and P for property ? R for reference ou S for source ? Snipre (talk) 22:21, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Here is a test page for phase 2: wikidata-test-repo.wikimedia.de/wiki/Q117 (Miguel Ángel Asturias). --Kolja21 (talk) 00:53, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
The datamodel or schemas for items will be defined here on this site, as an open wikiprocess. This should not be misinterpreted as the datamodel for the internal code. There are several existing schemas that could give hints to how a working model could be, and for some subset of items we should try to support the most common ones. That aside we should first and foremost support the properties of the existing templates on Wikipedia, but perhaps normalized a little. Take a look at the site Kolja21 pointed to, and check the recent changes. You will find a lot of activity there. Jeblad (talk) 01:49, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Test pages for the main types of items (entities):
  1. Person: wikidata-test-repo Q117 (Miguel Ángel Asturias)
  2. Corporate body: wikidata-test-repo Q128 (Ford)
  3. Event: wikidata-test-repo Q129 (1900 Summer Olympics)
  4. Work: wikidata-test-repo Q130 (Candide)
  5. Term: wikidata-test-repo Q59 (Barium)
  6. Place: wikidata-test-repo Q118 (Guatemala City)
  7. Disambiguation: wikidata-test-repo Q127 (Motor City)
Happy testing --Kolja21 (talk) 03:04, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

First impression: 1. The statements should have a fixed order (not death before birth etc.). 2. The properties should always show the data type, stated in brackets like: "Place of birth" (item) or "Chemical symbol" (monolingual text). --Kolja21 (talk) 06:44, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Specifically for place: what we need is (i) coordinates; (ii) administrative division (the whole chain if available). (iii) I also suggested population where censuses exist, but I am afraid Guatemala may be an example of a country where no census results are available online. I know for example that on English Wikipedia, Russian censuses for 1989, 2002, and 2010 are all coded into templates and are available for major settlements.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:52, 1 February 2013 (UTC) Forgot: (iv) official website; (v) category on Commons.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:29, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Please keep in mind that initially only properties of type item and commons image are possible. So this means you will be able to link to other items and images on commons. Other things like coordinates will come a bit later. For things like census data you will probably want to use one property population and then have multiple values with a qualifier saying which year it is referring to. This will also come later. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 12:20, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Ok, in my numbering (ii) is item (usually several items), should be doable as AdmDivision 1st level, 2nd level etc; everything else would have to wait for later.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:49, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Can you please file bugs for those so we don't lose these suggestions? I can't promisse we'll do that but it would be bad if they got missing here. Thanks! --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 12:20, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that the demo system might have to be reset at some point. So please try not to have anything you care about there without a backup, screenshot or similar. We try to not do it in the next days but it might be necessary. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 12:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Snipre I think you are maybe looking for Wikidata:Infoboxes task force. --Sk!d (talk) 12:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

It would be nice to see a bot fecthing data from all articles using a certain Wikipedia infobox to wikidata-test-repo. Would that be possible within short? Would it also be possible to push data from wikidata-test-repo to an infobox on some test wikipedia page? SHould the template code be changed somehow? Mange01 (talk) 17:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Found :Wikidata:Property_proposal Snipre (talk) 19:43, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Has each reference to be an item ? I am thinking about scientific article or technical report. If a book can be reused several times I am not sure about scientific article and it would be nice to have the possibility to enter data about a reference which is not an item in wikidata. Snipre (talk) 19:43, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Will be good if by defining a class for an item the set of associated properties appears on the page of the item even if the properties are not filled. Snipre (talk) 19:57, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
About references: No, we can use, I believe, any type of value. Each reference is composed of a a main Snak (a property with its value) and some qualifiers (qualifiers are not yet implemented in Wikibase). So we can set as source something like "Book: BookItem" with qualifier : "page: 234". But, I don't think that this qualifier system is as powerful as needed to set a full biographic record (title, author, date...). Tpt (talk) 20:26, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
In that cas it will good to have an interface to enter data and which formates the reference in a string in order to allow a reuse by template in the Wikipedia articles. Snipre (talk) 02:04, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why a field that contain the reference as a string is needed. In wikis we would be able to create a template {{BookWikidata|ITEM ID}} that format the reference. The content of the template can be something like: 

{{#property:author|id={{{1|}}}}}, ''{{#property:title|id={{{1|}}}}}'', {{#property:publication date|id={{{1|}}}}}

and in your infobox you call this template with the content of the property "book" of the reference. For more information see meta:Wikidata/Notes/Inclusion syntax. Tpt (talk) 12:05, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm speaking about scientific articles and technical reports which have different parameters compared to books. Do we want to include these references as item or not ? If no, book's parameters won't cover the critical parameters for those references (or we have to extend the concept of book). If we don't want to extend the parameters of book the possibility is to enter a string like below which can be used in wikipedia to formate references:
{{article | id =Hou-2008 | langue =en | prénom1 =Chih-Yao  | nom1 =Hou| prénom2=Yeong-Shenn |nom2=Lin |prénom3= Yuh Tai |nom3=Wang |prénom4=Chii-Ming |nom4=Jiang |prénom5=Ming-Chang |nom5=Wu  | titre = Effect of storage conditions on methanol content of fruit and vegetable juices   | sous-titre = | périodique =Journal of Food Composition and Analysis  | lien périodique = | volume =21 | titre volume = | numéro =5 | année =2008 | pages =410-415  | ISSN = | ISBN = | résumé = | format = | url texte = | doi =10.1016/j.jfca.2008.04.004  | consulté le =31/10/2008}}
Snipre (talk) 12:29, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
I think we can (and we should) create properties for this kind of publication even if they are not included as items.
If they are included as item, we should create as much properties as needed in order to describe them fully as that will be done for the others type of items. It's not a problem. Wikibase is design in order to allow the creation of a property for each use case.
If they are not included as item, qualifiers are done in order to don't be restrict by a type, so we will be able to add all these data using (property, value) pairs.
More, I believe that Wikidata will, in the future, have contributors that doesn't know wiki-syntax (they will be used to Visual Editor) and including such content into item will, I think, discourage a lot of future good contributors.
The second issue I see in that kind of stuff is that this is a hack that will make machine reading of content harder and that is very, if I follow your example, very French Wikipedia centered. Tpt (talk) 15:08, 2 February 2013 (UTC)


Phase 2 requires an adjustment of WD:N. I've started a discussion here. --Kolja21 (talk) 03:30, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Portals

I think all portals from across wikis should be imported to work exclusively from wikidata, then make them work for cross wikis to be a real gateway for information. This will improve efficiency, keep more information linked, and reduce the amount of pages needed and repetitive edits. ̴ ̴ ̴ ̴  – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sidelight12 (talk • contribs).

We have consensus do do so. — Hazard-SJ  ✈  04:11, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Global sysops

In November there was a discussion whether to opt out of Global sysop where some users recommended to wait until the first permanent admins are elected, so IMHO there should be a new discussion about it as the admin confirmations take place at the moment. Do you think it is time to opt out now? Regards --Iste (D) 19:12, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I think we should wait until after the enwp deployment. Starting Monday it will be possible to add Commons images to items, and we don't want to have the portrait of a head of state replaced with a picture of genitalia, for example. We're also losing a lot of admins in the reconfirmations at this time. --Rschen7754 20:43, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
I think there are enough administrators even some global sysops are lokal sysops. These problems might come but we can handle them. If you look up the wd:RFD even every request get handled within 15 minutes. We need users not administrators to spot vandalism if they report it on WD:AN administrators will face them as fast as on rfd. --Sk!d (talk) 22:13, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
I would say we should opt out because we don't need their help anymore, though I think this should wait until things like the admin confirmations are over (so we focus on only a few things at once).--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:49, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation Field

I have noticed that many Wikipedia and Wiktionary articles include pronunciation of the topic, albeit in an inconsistent fashion; Some are spelled out, others use IPA. I was therefore thinking that centralising this information on WikiData could help avoid this repetition whilst also improving consistency. We could include spelled out pronunciations, IPA pronunciations and actual spoken pronunciation sound files that are already available. User preferences could then allow individual users to choose which method they prefer and possibly even which dialect, such as U.K English or U.S. English, they see/hear the pronunciation for.

A centralised Pronunciation filed could also help facilitate another of WikiData's missions: to make it useful to computers. I once created a script that mined pronunciations so I know that this feature could be extremely useful to Text-to-Speech and Speech Recognition software.Text-to-Speech programs would benefit most as they are often forced to pronounce obscure and foreign words such as based on spelling, not IPA etc. A pronunciation field would also be extremely useful to other dictionaries, accessibility programs and speech recognition programs. --Macadamia1472 (talk) 08:41, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Just do the proposition: Wikidata:Property_proposal Snipre (talk) 12:36, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
Imho pronunciation is the job of Wiktionary. We should add a link to Wiktionary and that's it. --Kolja21 (talk) 17:46, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
The same word or a even a name is pronounced differently in different languanges, so different wictionaries are needed and they are not available for all languages. You can´t find all names in wictionary. There is need for more flexibliltity.--Giftzwerg 88 (talk) 18:31, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Rename help page

Please can somebody with corresponding privileges rename Help:Contents/cs to Help:Obsah? --Šlomo (talk) 07:34, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

  Done. --Stryn (talk) 08:15, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

"Confirmed" user right

Since the number of protected pages is expected to increase once we go live everywhere and roll out phase 2, and since many of our users are already well-established on other wikis, should we perhaps give administrators the right to manually confirm users? Alternatively, we could just add autoconfirmed to the Autopatroller package, since we give Autopatroller to pretty much anyone who makes a few dozen edits here, and Autopatroller and Confirmed are roughly equivalent levels of trust. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 07:40, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd be alright with adding it to autopatrolled. Like you said, it's around the same level of trust. Ajraddatz (Talk) 15:07, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
+1, I think this would be quite uncontroversial and helpful. Regards --Iste (D) 15:33, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
For me, autopatrolled has always been an higher level of trust than confirmed, so yes, let's add anything missing from the autopatrolled package to it.
Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 16:00, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
I was originally saying just to add the autoconfirmed right, but I agree that there's no reason Autopatrollers can't be by-default trusted to do everything else (auto)confirmed users can. So, according to Special:ListGroupRights, fully integrating Confirmed into Autopatroller would entail adding to the Autopatroller package: autoconfirmed, move, reupload, skipcaptcha, collectionsaveascommunitypage, collectionsaveasuserpage, upload, and abusefilter-log-detail.
Of course, this would all be redundant for anyone past the 4-day/10-edit mark, but there's nothing wrong with partially redundant rights. (For instance, on enwiki, all arbitrators or AUSC members possess the browsearchive, deletedhistory, and deletedtext rights three times over.) — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 16:19, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
10 edits is not a requirement for being autoconfirmed on Wikidata, it's only 4 days. Regards --Iste (D) 17:15, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
The group autoconfirmed and confirmed users are two different things. So far we have no confirmed users [1]. Users are autoconfirmed according to age and activity on the project, and that group is set as an automatic action. Even spammers and trolls gets autoconfirmed over time.
My understanding is that autopatroller should be a group assigned after it is verified that the user is in fact a user with good edits. If so we can use it for some edits that otherwise could have negative impacts if available to all users. The only action that has real impact as I see it, except for random spamming, is the action Wikidata:Glossary#Rank (wbsetstatementrank) which is not available for the moment except as a API call on the test repo. The rank (actual right is rank-update) could act as a sort of very lightweight FlaggedRevs because it could filter out what reaches the Wikipedias, as only the preferred values would be used by the parser functions. That means some user group should exist that potential spammer or troll would not be part of by default, but has to be assigned to. That also means that the rights assigned to this group should not be exclusive to the admin group, otherwise we will paint us into a corner where the admin group will be the bottleneck to allow values to reach Wikipedia.
So to sum up, I think that autopatroller and autoconfirmed should not be merged, but whatever we call the group autopatroller is somewhat unimportant. Jeblad (talk) 20:05, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
To be clear, I'm not proposing that we grant Autopatroller to everyone who's autoconfirmed; rather I'm proposing that we either a) grant admins the ability to add the Confirmed flag group to accounts or b) make it so that everyone who's given the Autopatroller flag is thereby granted all of the rights that they'd get upon autoconfirmation. Anyone we trust to be an autopatroller should be sufficiently trusted to edit semi-protected pages (and do the handful of other things (auto)confirmed entails), so there's no sense in making them either wait 4 days or submit a request for permissions and file at Meta (which is what you'd have to do now if you wanted to get confirmed). — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 20:37, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
(Incidentally, if you want an easy way to link to a glossary entry, I created {{Glossary}} just for that purpose.</shameless self-promotion>) — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 21:05, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
I would support granting confirmed to autopatrolled while at the same time keeping it as a separate right.--Jasper Deng (talk) 21:18, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
Me too, but to be honest, I don't really see the use case for the confirmed group as we give the autopatrolled right to users that we trust already. That being said, if someone sees a use case in giving confirmed rights to someone not trusted enough for the autopatrolled rights before the 4 days threshold, I certainly would not oppose. In other words, I fully support proposal b), but am not strongly opposed to both b) + a). Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 22:00, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
Good point Jeblad I am the same oppinion that we need a special group for people who can change ranks. I hope Administrators will be able to grant this right to trusted user under a guideline. And maybe Administrators (or only Bureaucrats) should be able to remove this right if it gets abused. --Sk!d (talk) 00:46, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
I think I'd prefer merging with autopatrolled. It's quite likely that if we'd confirm a user, we might also have the user autopatrolled. Autopatrolled on the English Wikipedia requires more than here, yet just over 10% of the number of autopatrollers is the number of confirmed users. It's also quite likely that some of the confirmed users on en are already autoconfirmed. I'm not opposed to having the rights separate, but I'd prefer the merge. — Hazard-SJ  ✈  03:46, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
On en, confirmed users who become autoconfirmed are generally removed from the group for housekeeping reasons - see [2], e.g. So it's hard to say the total number of people who ever have been confirmed, though I know it's currently only a few a month. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 21:49, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Thinking about it, the group confirmed is to give someone the same access rights as autoconfirmed but before the automatic system kicks in. No we should not change it, this is group has a very clear and distinct usecase, and it is not the same as autopatrolled. I am against messing with the confirmed user group. Jeblad (talk) 12:53, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Differences between the special page ItemByTitle vs ItemDisambiguation

Note that there are two special pages for item lookup. The first is the Special:ItemByTitle and it searches the sitelinks for a special page, that is if you know the pages title on a project you can use this page to find the item. For example you can use Special:ItemByTitle/hewiki/נשר and you get a single item. I think this should be named ItemBySitelink because that describes more accurately what it does. The next one is the Special:ItemDisambiguation and it searches the terms table for matches with the multilanguage attributes label and alias, that is if you know the label or alias in a language you can use this page and it will list all items. For example you can use Special:ItemDisambiguation/he/נשר and you will get several items. The last one shows pretty well why you should add a description to your items. Jeblad (talk) 19:04, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Gadget to check whether its ok to remove local langlinks

So we were discussing on #wikimedia-wikidata a way for local users to check whether removing langlinks are ok by verifying that it was equivalent to the wikidata item, and Hoo man suggested writing a gadget that would do that. Would anyone be able to write a script that does that? It would be beneficial in making sure users don't incorrectly remove links just because wikidata has been deployed. Thanks, Legoktm (talk) 20:31, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

User:Yair rand/checksitelinks.js. --Yair rand (talk) 01:45, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! Legoktm (talk) 01:41, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Include Wikispecies into Wikidata

If we included Wikispecies into Wikidata one could automatically create the boxes in the wikipedia articles for animals and one could store things in different languages side by side.--92.193.47.177 09:09, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Just do the proposition: Wikidata:Property_proposal Snipre (talk) 12:37, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's as simple as that. This isn't a request for a property as far as I can tell. πr2 (t • c) 22:58, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

+1. I think Wikidata would be the perfect place, see Wikidata:Infoboxes task force/terms. --Kolja21 (talk) 17:47, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

We could upload all data from Wikispecies to Wikidata, but what would the purpose of Wikispecies be after that? πr2 (t • c) 22:21, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
deletion due to redundancy--92.193.47.177 22:38, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
What about all the links to Wikispecies, especially on non-WMF sites? πr2 (t • c) 22:41, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
I suppose the URLs could be redirected. But I don't think we ever delete wikis, though. Likely (soft) redirects will be created and the wiki locked, but even that I'm not sure of.--Jasper Deng (talk) 23:01, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
I doubt even soft redirects would be created. If Wikispecies became redundant, the most likely result would just be the wiki locked and a site notice to relevant information now going to Wikidata. However, I don't know if Wikispecies would be entirely redundant to Wikidata. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 03:31, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
As phase 2 is coming close we should take a look at pages like Hemerocallis fulva (Q1424440) and make sure that all their info can (if the folks of Wikispecies want) be included into the Wikidata item. Having a field for Latin names would be a good start. --Kolja21 (talk) 04:22, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps everyone should do some preliminary research. First, Wikispecies' FAQ would have easily answered a lot of the questions. Second, the mandate of Wikispecies is to create an "open, wiki-based species directory and central database of taxonomy", which appears to be different from Wikidata's mandate of "centralizes access to and management of structured data, such as interwiki references and statistical information". Third, as I wrote on the Wikispecies mailing list in mid January, there are serious problems with the navigation and search abilities of Wikidata. Until those issues have been resolved, there is no chance that a database with high qualities of information be incorporated into a pool of unknown information quality. OhanaUnitedTalk page 04:38, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Well of cause Wikidata in phase 1, only collecting interlanguage links, obviously can't store the information of Wikispecies. Taking your example Canis lupus: There is no field "Binomial name" yet (see Wikidata:Property proposal), so you will find "Canis lupus" only by accident. There is no taxonavigation, so obviously taxonavigation does not work yet. We are talking about two different Wikidatas. --Kolja21 (talk) 00:40, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
I think the onus is on you guys to explain why you're reinventing the wheel and doing the work that we already did. OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:34, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Wikidata's goals seems to be a superset of the goals of Wikispecies. I agree with Kolja21's comments [especially the one directly below mine]. For example, everything on the page species: Genetta angolensis can be stored in a Wikidata item (but only after phase II). πr2 (t • c) 19:27, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Google's search results [and maybe some other Google stuff], Wikipedia's infoboxes, and other [web] applications will use information from Wikidata to get information on a topic, like looking at the item about France and listing some facts [like population]. As such, it would be great to have all Wikispecies information on Wikidata here, but I'm not sure whether Wikispecies would still have a purpose after that. Is there anything Wikispecies does that can't be done here? Maybe "Species of the week", but we could do that on a biology portal. Personally, I don't think Wikidata can replace Wikispecies in the near future, but I think other people would disagree. πr2 (t • c) 19:35, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
We also store references to the original scientific literature that described or revise the genus/species. I don't see if these were done by any Wikipedia or other sister projects. OhanaUnitedTalk page 01:58, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
References are planned for all properties on Wikidata and could also be added in a specific format for biological items. πr2 (t • c) 02:00, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Wikispecies has done a good work as a database of taxonomy, but Wikidata will cover all subjects. Wikispecies work for hisself, Wikidata will provide the informations for 285 Wikipedias. It will maintain the interlanguage links and the data for the info boxes and templates. If you have invented anything that can be used for this purpose, you are more than welcomed to join. --Kolja21 (talk) 06:00, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

How to guide for Phase II?

It would really be great if someone who actually understands how Phase II stuff works would create a how-to guide for Phase II editing. Please? Sven Manguard Wha? 23:02, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

+1. I would love to read it ;) --Kolja21 (talk) 00:10, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
+1. I´d love the challenge of translating it into German.--Giftzwerg 88 (talk) 23:26, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
We have to wait until the programmers finish the data storage and the inclusion process into wikipedia articles before starting to write any guide because we don't now exactly the constraints, the limits and the possibilities of the system now. Snipre (talk) 00:23, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
I thought that it was up on the Wikidata testwiki already. I also thought it was supposed to go live sometime today (the 4th). Sven Manguard Wha? 01:16, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes it is and yes it does. The testwiki has a few more experimental features enabled that will not be deployed here but you can use it to test and write how-tos. There is also my blog entry with some explanation. I am happy to review and give advise if anyone starts writing. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:39, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Data derived from other data

How will Wikidata handle data that can be derived entirely from other data? Examples:

  • Item X is located at Geocoordinates Y. Item Z is a W, and Z's coordinates/borders surround Item X's coordinates. Thus, the W that X is located within is Z.
  • X, Y, and Z are members of parliament at time W and members of party V at time W. Thus, party V has 3 members at time W.
  • County X has population Y and area Z as of time W. Thus, X has a population density of Y/Z.
  • Z is the W of Y, and Y is the V of X, which is a U. Every U's V's W is that U's W. Thus Z is the W of X.

Will these data have to be added manually in all these cases? If automatic handling of these points won't be available at the start but will be available later, should we prevent all of these types of data from being added manually? --Yair rand (talk) 05:26, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

It will take quite a while before Wikidata itself will be able to handle this kind of derivations (called 'inferences' or 'reasoning'). With quite a while I mean: most likely not this year, maybe not even the next. Therefore it could make a lot of sense to add them 'manually' if they are considered important and needed. But 'manually' does not mean necessarily that they are added by a human contributor: a bot could externally implement such rules and then write the results into Wikidata (this is called 'materialization' in some contexts). This then becomes more a social issue (i.e. does the community want this kind of materializations? Which ones exactly? etc.) than a technical one. I hope this helps with proceeding here appropriately. If there are open questions, let me know. --Denny Vrandečić (WMDE) (talk) 10:54, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Namespace "Wikipedia"

I can't search the "Wikipedia" namespace. When I search a item by title like "Wikipedia:Portada" (the Main Page of Spanish Wikipedia) in "eswiki", it redirect and search "Portada" in eswiki (in Wikidata). And when I search it in the searcher (below Log out), it redirect and search "Portada" in English Wikipedia. So I request the users can search in the namespace. --Vivaelcelta (talk) 09:48, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Try "Wikidata" instead ;). --Zolo (talk) 09:53, 4 February 2013 (UTC)Hum never mind what I wrote
This is Wikidata, not Wikipedia. There is no "Wikipedia" namespace here. --Yair rand (talk) 09:55, 4 February 2013 (UTC) Sorry, I misunderstood. This is bug 44545. --Yair rand (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree. It's not good that when searching items about Wikipedia-namespace, it redirects to Wikipedia. --Stryn (talk) 10:03, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree that this is annoying. I've been creating items on a handful of key project/policy pages (e.g. Q3999572), and it's next to impossible to verify that none of the links are in use before creating the page (short of running an ItemByTitle for every single linked page). Indeed, I had to request the deletion of my first attempt at an item on Wikipedia:Shortcut because it turned out that one of the bots had already created Q620197, linking only to, for whatever reason, the pages in Kyrgyz and Old English. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 13:54, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
But this problem don't with names different of Wikipedia, like Wikipédia (with written accent) for French and Portuguese. But this problem will also happen when the others Wikimedia projects is worked in Wikidata. The Wikimedia projects are Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikiversity and Wikivoyage. --Vivaelcelta (talk) 20:27, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Phase 2 going live later today

Heya :)

Just a quick reminder that phase 2 is still scheduled to go live here in the late evening UTC. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:41, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

As of now, the first part of Phase 2 is deployed. Have fun! --Denny Vrandečić (WMDE) (talk) 19:33, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Inclusion syntax in infoboxes

One question from WP:fr : will the inclusion syntax offer the possibility to choose a french source if available ? We can assume that for an chinese event chinese newspapers will be used as sources but this won't be easy to handle by non chinese readers so if a french newspaper is publishing the same news will it be possible to query the french newspaper instead of the chinese ones ? 141.6.11.13 13:46, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I think it will be possible in Lua by searching if a source has the language property set to French but not with the #property parser function. Can anyone of the Wikibase team validate or not my assertion? Tpt (talk) 14:43, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
As I understand it, to do this we will need to have multiple references for the same datum and we will need to mark these with their language (add lang=?? property to the snak). We also need to note which is the original source for the datum (primary_source=yes or maybe ref_type=primary source/secondary source) and then the api needs to let the Wikipedias import the refs in their preferred language. Once that is done someone needs to find the references and add these to Wikidata. Or have I misunderstood? Filceolaire (talk) 19:17, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, unless someone makes additional code. Jeblad (talk) 22:52, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata:List of properties

I've just created Wikidata:List of properties in order to list ALL properties. This will be useful:

  1. For the contributors in order to help them to find quickly the property they are looking for.
  2. For property creators that should look in this page if an equivalent property exist in order to don't create a duplicate.

So, when you create a property, please add it to the list. If anyone want to improve the page, feel free to do it! Tpt (talk) 15:33, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Cant we just find it with Special:AllPages set at the right value ? --Zolo (talk) 16:12, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
The search should should find them but the update is very sluggish, I think it is slightly overloaded… As the properties will have no sitelinks ItemByTitle can't be used, and unfortunatly also ItemDisambiguation will have problems because it isn't generalized to also work for properties. The special page AllPages does not work for items and properties, so that one is no help. The best (and simplest) solution right now is probably Tpt's solution with a page (or pages) were all properties are listed. Jeblad (talk) 17:22, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Special:AllPages seems to work: [3]--Zolo (talk) 20:26, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Hehe, something I messed around with some time ago… Did't expect it to work for this special page! Jeblad (talk) 22:46, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Some questions about phase 2

Where is the difference between "Commons media file, AKA picture" (Property:P10) and "Image" (Property:P18)? How can we can avoid: "The best TV shows", "Best travel spots"? Happy chaos? --Kolja21 (talk) 20:41, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

There is none. I'm for merging Property:P10 in Property:P18. I've open the discussion here. Tpt (talk) 20:43, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
I think we should rewrite Wikidata:Notability. --Kolja21 (talk) 20:42, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Quick provisional policy proposal

Since there's no way that this isn't going to cause confusion, I propose that we adopt a provisional policy that all property labels be subject to the item label guidelines vis-à-vis capitalization. Since the property field currently only recognizes one case or the other, and lowercase-unless-proper-noun is the way we've been doing everything else here, this seems like the sane solution until we can establish actual property style guidelines. In no way would a consensus to adopt this temporarily be construed as binding precedent, or even, really, any precedent whatsoever. We just need to settle on something. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 20:43, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

+1 for lower case name. Tpt (talk) 20:45, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Agree. --Zolo (talk) 20:46, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Lower case unless proper noun, agree. Ajraddatz (Talk) 20:49, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Note that it is possible to capitalize first letter in the label and have an all lowercase alias, but this alias will not be accessible through the later parser function on Wikipedia. That one will use the label for lookup. Jeblad (talk) 22:49, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Stop phase 2?

I think it is to early to start phase 2. The software is not ready yet. If you want to add for example "place of death" you get possible answers like "Par Avion" etc. Even if you write "Paris" you can choose between 7x "Paris" and 1x "Paris (disambiguation)". Other problems are mentioned in the threads above. This is o.k. for a Test-Wiki or a web site only for a small number of persons, but not for a project of this size. (We should test the software, improve it, think about the guidelines and than start with phase 2.) --Kolja21 (talk) 21:46, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

There seems to be some bugs with the software, but I doubt there is any way to avoid "Paris (disambiguation)" in the list of choice, at the very least, the software would need to have some clue about what the item 'Paris (disambiguation)' is about, and I cannot see any way it can do that before the launche of phase 2. --Zolo (talk) 21:51, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
One solution, I'm sure there are others, would be: You only can add a birthplace that is marked as "Tpye g: place". --Kolja21 (talk) 21:58, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that could probably work, but for that, we need at least to deploy enough of phase 2 that we can mark items as "type: place". But a cursory look at the first statements created suggest that the current system leads to a very large number of mistakes. --Zolo (talk) 22:09, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Problem with properties

I have been looking at the properties from P10 to P40.

In those we have "State" (administrative subdivision), "Province", "Prefecture", "Country", "Region" and "Continent". These look more like values to me than properties

We also have "Is a".

Shouldn't the property "Is a" link to the Item pages for State, Province, Voivodeship, Municipality etc. rather than these being properties themselves? We can have a property "Is in" linking to the item/page for the next largest administrative division. Filceolaire (talk) 22:15, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

  • I suggested merging all of them at the property proposal page, but so far got no support. I am afraid if we start listing cantons, aimaks etc, we are easily lost, and additionally DC is a district, Tosnensky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia is a district, and Manhattan is a district (presumably, not sure), but are they all the same property?--Ymblanter (talk) 22:19, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Property "state" means "situated in state:", it may be better to change the label to make that clear. If we do it for all sorts of administrative divisions, there will going to be a lot of them, but I think that it will cause less serious problems than aggregating different subdivisions in the same property too early. --Zolo (talk) 22:49, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
I have been bold and labelled the state/province/country/continent ones along the lines of "the administrative sub-division of a country to which this item relates" etc., so that it is clear that it's about the relation, not the status of them item - but this only works if this is (a) agreed and (b) shared understanding between different languages. :-) James F. (talk) 23:43, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Problem with name with multiple items

I tried setting Ed Koch's place of death to Manhattan. However, there were so many items named Manhattan that the borough on New York City wasn't included, so I couldn't select it.

Ultimately, I renamed Manhattan "Manhatta", set the place of death, and then renamed it Manhattan. Obviously, however, that's NOT the best way to do things. What should we do? -- Ypnypn (talk) 22:57, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I think it is the same problem as #Problem adding an item for a property when too many items have the same title. --Zolo (talk) 23:01, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Usage of "country"

The term "sovereign state" is a lot less ambiguous than "country", and should be used exclusively. -- Ypnypn (talk) 04:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Ah, like the Free and Sovereign State of Mexico?
Unfortunately, English doesn't seem to have any unambiguous words for "country". Wales, Greenland, and Curaçao are countries. Oklahoma is a state. Crimea is an autonomous republic. I think "country" is about as good as anything else we could use. --Yair rand (talk) 04:19, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow. You seem to be agreeing that "country" can mean different things, whereas "sovereign state" is used only for full-fledged independent nations. -- Ypnypn (talk) 04:47, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
The Free and Sovereign State of Mexico is not a country. The United Mexican States, more commonly known as Mexico, is a country, but, like the US, is rarely considered a "state" (I think). --Yair rand (talk) 04:53, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Policy on Properties

Hi, as the beginning of phase II will be deployed February 4 I think that we should begin now to work on a policy about properties. Properties are the base of the wikidata data system and, so, are as important as templates on Wikipedia. I believe that, in order to don't have a lot of property duplicated, we should work since now on policy on property creation. So, I propose that the creation of a property must be discuss for a few days, something between 3 days and a week, in a discussion page. Discussion in this page may also, I hope, help the community to understand how we should work with properties. I've created an early beginning of proposal page that would be name Wikidata:Property proposal. What do you think about it ? Tpt (talk) 20:50, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

+1. / Feb, 4th is faster than I thought. Wonderful! We've collected some ideas on Wikidata:Infoboxes task force already. --Kolja21 (talk) 21:01, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
One thing I'm noticing is that so far, only links to other items and to files on Commons will be permitted - perhaps it's best to focus on those right now? --Rschen7754 21:02, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
I would think properties should be created in order to match infoboxes, but I would also think that would require some agreement on what infobox parameters mean from different languages of Wikipedia. If we need to discuss, a minimum of 3 days seems fine.--Jasper Deng (talk) 21:05, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
I've created Wikidata:Property_proposal. Feel free to improve the presentation of this page. The blog post of the development team explain that only Item and MediaValue datatype will be available the 4 February, so I think we should focus our work on properties using this datatype in order to have a good set of available properties next week.A point that we have to pay attention to is properties related to source : source part of statements use properties. Can someone work on it? I'm not really aware of citation systems. Tpt (talk) 20:40, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Are the proposals on it live / can we start proposing things? --Rschen7754 21:07, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, of course. Tpt (talk) 15:25, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I've now posted several items at Wikidata:Property proposal#Roads. --Rschen7754 05:03, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I usually try to avoid posting my own opinion here. So, please regard this as nothing more than the suggestion of a single contributor and as nothing else. I would suggest that, for the beginning, we do not too strongly restrict the creation of properties, so that it is possible to figure out what works and what does not. Do not forget that labels of properties can, for now, be easily renamed, and also that bots can be much more effective on Wikidata than on the other projects, as they can surgically and easily make a set of changes e.g. if a property is deemed to be merged into another, or similar things. If you prefer to set up a strict policy for creating properties, sure, go ahead, but I again suggest to think if it would not make sense to have a more playful and relaxed approach in the beginning, and later clean that up. --Denny (talk) 12:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
P.S.: by the way, I am very careful when offering my opinion on anything the community does in Wikidata. I often would like to comment more, but I am afraid to be regarded as trespassing into the autonomy of the project. If anyone has suggestions on how I can contribute to the project in a manner that is most beneficial for Wikidata and its goals, please let me know on my talk page. --Denny (talk) 12:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
One of the main rules of the Wiki projekts is en:Wikipedia:Be bold. Suggestions of every contributor are welcome. For now it is very valuable for the project to add labels an descriptions to each item in different langugages. There are also some special cases, that can´t be done by bots. e.g. conflicting languagelinks. Users with language skills in different languages can check langlinks and find out, if two articles in different languages are about the same topic or not.---Giftzwerg 88 (talk) 18:14, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

glaring ommissions

  • so wikidata bots population have skipped templates and categories, even though templates and categories interwiki are very important. admittedly, not as important as article space, but surely at least as important, and probably even more important, than the project space (aka "Wikipedia:"), that the bots *did* populate.
  • it is inconceivable that interwiki can't be populated by copy/pasting existing interwiki: i just created manually a new entry for template space, namely Template:Chess diagram. this item has a rich interwiki in enwiki:
[[ar:قالب:مخطط رقعة شطرنج]]
[[bg:Шаблон:Шахматна позиция]]
[[bs:Šablon:Šahovski dijagram]]
[[de:Vorlage:Schachbrett]]
[[es:Plantilla:Diagrama de ajedrez]]
[[eo:Ŝablono:Ŝakdiagramo]]
[[fr:Modèle:Diagramme d'échecs]]
[[id:Templat:Chess diagram 8x10]]
[[it:Template:Diagramma scacchi]]
[[hy:Կաղապար:Շախմատային գծապատկեր]]
[[la:Formula:Scaccarium]]
[[lt:Šablonas:ŠachmatųLenta]]
[[lv:Veidne:Šaha diagramma]]
[[hu:Sablon:Sakkállás]]
[[mk:Шаблон:Шаховски дијаграм]]
[[ja:Template:Chess diagram]]
[[pl:Szablon:SzachyDiagram]]
[[pt:Predefinição:Diagrama de xadrez]]
[[ru:Шаблон:Шахматная диаграмма]]
[[sl:Predloga:Chess diagram]]
[[fi:Malline:Shakkilauta]]
[[vi:Tiêu bản:Chess diagram]]
[[tl:Template:Chess diagram]]
[[uk:Шаблон:Шахова діаграма]]
[[zh:Template:Chess diagram]]

i expected to be able to paste the above somewhere to populate all the interwiki links. doing it manually one by one does not make any sense to me - it's error prone and busywork. i fully expected some tool that will let me paste the above somewhere, and will create all the links. if such tool already exists but needs manual enabling (a'la "gadget"), i think it should be enabled by default for everyone. if the tool exists and *is* available to everyone, then i guess i am just too stupid - i could not figure it out.

peace - קיפודנחש (talk) 16:44, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Later addition: i just found the gadget "slurp", which seems to do what i wanted, only better. so the above rant can be summarized to "how come slurp is not enabled by default?" this is so easy to do - any admin can easilly do it by editing Mediawiki:gadgets-definition and changing the line
slurpInterwiki[ResourceLoader|dependencies=mediawiki.util,jquery.ui.dialog,jquery.spinner]|slurpInterwiki.js
to
slurpInterwiki[ResourceLoader|dependencies=mediawiki.util,jquery.ui.dialog,jquery.spinner|default]|slurpInterwiki.js
i think this should be done.
peace - קיפודנחש (talk) 16:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
The tool should be only used by experienced users as it does not check for interwikiconflicts (only importing links from one language). Most of the work for users does not include adding many links to an item (if there is no interwiki conflict bots will have stored all interwikis sooner or later). --Sk!d (talk) 20:10, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
i may be dense, but i fail to see the difference between what Sk!d said and plain old "users should not perform any edits on wikidata". at any situation where users *do* perform edits on wikidata, methinks this tool is vital. peace - קיפודנחש (talk) 19:07, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Hmm? Slurp checks for conflicts. I've found quite a few that way, actually. "Article X is in use on item Q###" blah blah blah. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 19:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Those conflicts that Slurp finds are not the same.
  • Interwiki conflicts are conflicts on the wikipedias, where there are two or more articles on the same wikipedia that have the same interwiki link target. See also m:Interwiki conflicts.
  • Wikidata conflicts (those that Slurp finds) are conflicts where the link is allready used on wikidata in a different item.--Snaevar (talk) 13:00, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Page vs item

Does anyone mind if I change MediaWiki:Randompage to "Random item" and MediaWiki:Nstab-main to "Item"? — Hazard-SJ  ✈  04:49, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't. Vogone (talk) 12:58, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Neither do I; I see you've done this for MediaWiki:Randompage but not the name of NS0 - want me to do so? James F. (talk) 17:10, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

  Done [4] --Vogone (talk) 19:50, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I started to do it earlier, but lost connection. — Hazard-SJ  ✈  04:05, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
I also did MediaWiki:Viewpagelogs. — Hazard-SJ  ✈  04:28, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

What is nstab for "property"? --Stryn (talk) 08:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Mediawiki:Nstab-property. --Yair rand (talk) 08:43, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Okey, thanks. --Stryn (talk) 08:45, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Days…

Dear all,

A Chronological Project was recently launched on the French Wikipedia in order to create all days since the beginning of the XIXth century. Wikipedia is so surprisingly rich, that we were able to find at least 7-10 items for almost every day created so far: see for instance the 10th March 1837 or the 24th October 1995.

Wikidata could really be of help, both in order to link each item to each day (dates of birth and death might be easy things to set up) and to translate all the previous days within the Wikipedia projects. What do you think of the idea?

--Alexander Doria (talk) 12:47, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikidata.
I think this is typically be something for "Phase 3" (ie, that possiblity to automatically create lists). I do not know what exactly will be possible but at least, it should be able to list people born or dead on a particular day. --Zolo (talk) 12:59, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Alexander, if you create an article in French Wikipedia, we have bots that do the import. Unfortunately we can't mark items like Q2545962 (24.10.1995) with a tag like "date"; that will come in phase 2 and 3. --Kolja21 (talk) 18:09, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the information. Do you know if any workgroup is currently focusing on time/date/day issues (even on a very theoretical basis)? --Alexander Doria (talk) 15:45, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Not sure I undertand exactly what you mean, but there will be a time datatype, so dates should be easy to identify. Hope that helps. --Zolo (talk) 16:10, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
That is not yet implemented. It will come however. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:36, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Head of state/government

Is this property meant to be used on a person (to indicate which country (s)he was head of), or on a country (to indicate who is the current head of state/government)? - Ypnypn (talk) 23:30, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

The second. Have modified the English description so it's clearer. Note that there's also Property:P46 for head of government (i.e., head of the executive and not necessarily of the state). James F. (talk) 23:50, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Property:P39 is for the former, though I imagine we'll have to fork that a few times eventually. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 23:54, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Please discuss new properties first at Wikidata:Property proposal. "Welche Ämter jemand inne hatte"? That could be everything, from treasurer of the local sports club to president of the United States. It creates problems if we merge time (former, retired, deceased) with a job. Before adoption a new property we also should think about the right label. Right now we've got: office held / (-) / Rôle politique. English, German, and French editors therefore have three different ways to use this property. --Kolja21 (talk) 06:16, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Does this work: MediaWiki:Createproperty-summary? If yes, we could put some text like "Don't make new properties before discussing at Wikidata:Property proposal".
Mediawiki:Newproperty-summary, actually. --Yair rand (talk) 07:04, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I think it might be better to just have this point to the position that fills the head of state/government role, and then have that item connected to the individual. --Yair rand (talk) 07:07, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Editing

I can't seem to add any data in Phase 2. Are only admins allowed to edit the pages? Remember (talk) 01:30, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I´ve added a new statement and I´m no admin. Maybe the problem is, that you have to choose a property. Look here: Wikidata:List of properties --Goldzahn (talk) 01:47, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
it's working now from my iPad. Remember (talk) 04:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Can't edit from one computer

I can't seem to edit the page from my computer. Not sure if it is because I am running an old version of explorer or what. Remember (talk) 13:52, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Import m:Wikidata/Data model to Wikidata:Data model

As we have started phase 2, this page is of increasing local importance, so I'm wondering if anyone would be opposed to importing it to that above proposed project page.--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:02, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

All them colorful boxes use templates we don't have, so it'll be a mess when you do, but I can't see why not. Sven Manguard Wha? 02:03, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Why not? πr2 (t • c) 02:59, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I am going to propose an alternative. As the Data model is very technical and contains terms like the snak, whitch has nothing to do with the UI (acronym for User Interface), I would rather import m:Wikidata/Notes/Data model primer, which is an simplified version.--Snaevar (talk) 12:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Potential sources of data (by dataset)

See Quandl.com for an example -- they claim 2M data sets; can we figure out a way to encourage them to pipe some of them into WD? What's the best way to import a csv today? Sj (talk) 04:26, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Type own sources in seems not to work, are the sources solid? Conny (talk) 12:07, 5 February 2013 (UTC).

Ontology mapping

Is anyone working on ways to summarize an ontology that describes a set of data, and to define mappings between 'similar' ontologies? This is something that we seem to be doing by hand when dealing with translations between languages that have different granularities of definitions. Sj (talk) 04:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

As several discussions on state vs province show, it does not seem to be the case.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:57, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

"and" / "or"

When a property has several values, is there any sure way to know whether this is "and" or "or". I mean: Ramesses II died either in July 1213 or in August 1213, but Huey has two brothers: Dewey and Louie. --Zolo (talk) 10:54, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

They're all really "and" in the end if you look at it closely. In your Ramesses example you'd have "this sources say he died that day" _and_ "this source says he died that day". --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:04, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I guess one single source can say "depending on how we understand ancient texts, he may have died in 1212 or 1214". Perhaps more importantly, I do not think my two examples can be handled the same way in Wikipedia infoboxes: you can have "brothers: Dewey and Louie", but you cannot have "death date: 1212 and 1214". --Zolo (talk) 14:37, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
You'll be able to ask for only a specific value or all available values for example for that in the future. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Arrange statements

It would be nice, if we could (re-)arrange statements without that we need to delete them and add again. Example: Jarkko Nieminen and Anu Nieminen. First one has first birth place and another one has first spouse. Looks better when those are the same order. --Stryn (talk) 11:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

prosposal list and descriptions

Now its making much fun to fill up statements - thank you dev team. Problem is, that the prosposal list gives alle Items starting with typed phrase and the right one is, like discussed not every time in first place [5]. We have to fill up now descriptions for the most important Items, that there are descriptions and people choose the right ones. Just thinking, Conny (talk) 12:02, 5 February 2013 (UTC).

usage of items

It is possible to see, how often some Items are used in statements? Conny (talk) 12:03, 5 February 2013 (UTC).

You can use "what links here". --Stryn (talk) 12:06, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Oh sorry, the normal way :). Thank you Stryn :) . So excited, Conny (talk) 12:09, 5 February 2013 (UTC).

Good examples

It would be nice if the pages that people had worked on the most could be listed so that we could see good examples of the most comprehensive statements added to a page. Remember (talk) 13:44, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Editing

yersturday i could editintg "property" but now i couldn't not add a translation in hebrew and not change existing one (the same i add yersurday). -- yona b (talk) 15:33, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi, could you please give a link to the specific example of where this happened? Ajraddatz (Talk) 16:07, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
now it work. when i try to add or change label for Property or any item, i get a message that i cannot do it. but now it work again. if it will repeate i will write the message i get. -- yona b (talk) 16:18, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Difflinks?

There seems to be no difflinks visible for the statements. For example, I can't see what has happened here: [6]. --Seewolf (talk) 16:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

This still needs to be implemented. It is tracked at bugzilla:44095. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 16:08, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Have data spirit

Please don't create different properties according to time like office held or former member of sports team: just use the normal position name or membership and put as qualifier the date when the person started to have the position or to be part of the team and the date when the person left the position/team. Snipre (talk) 17:54, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if time values can be added yet. Do you mean create, for example, a property called "Manchester United F.C. player" or "President of the United States" and then set the value to "2001–09" or something like that? One is up for deletion here anyway. Del♉sion23 (talk) 18:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Exactly. A president is and stays president in data structure. The only way to describe the chronological order is to put as qualifier (not yet available I know) teh starting en the ending time of the membership or position holding. Snipre (talk) 18:44, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Time to make User:Denny/articlePreview.js a gadget?

So I was introducing PinkAmpersand to my English only clone of User:Denny/articlePreview.js (User:Sven Manguard/common.js) and the first thing he said was "why isn't that a gadget?". Well, that's a good question. Obviously it has to be tweaked a tiny bit for each language, but we might want to make, at the very least, a stand alone gadget for each of our core languages, or something where you can click buttons on a menu to select languages. This is too useful to languish in obscurity. Might not work after Phase II, but for now, we should use it, no? Sven Manguard Wha? 04:43, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

It is very useful, but there I think language customization should be made easier before it goes mass market. By the way anything new on the language fallback implementation ? --Zolo (talk) 08:28, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Just a note: I have extended this script to work for every language and need only some testing: User:Bene*/preview.js. I think this script has got more functionality and should moved to a gadget instead of Denny's one, which is the basic one of mine. --Bene* talk 07:54, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
I fully support making Bene's a gadget, and will do so unless there is major opposition within the next little bit. I know everyone is worried about Phase II right now, so it can be removed if there are issues later. Ajraddatz (Talk) 18:29, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
It is rather nice, but when you want to edit the sitelink, "(preview)" somehow becomes part of the text. On the layout side, I would prefer if the text appeared just below the "preview" link, on in a popup, not below sitelinks, and I would love it in the text in the user's language appeared by default next to the item's description. --Zolo (talk) 22:07, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

File datatype

Two questions about file datatype:

  1. Does it really make sense to have "source" there ?
  2. Is it planned at some point to show a preview of the file, not just its name ? --Zolo (talk) 20:48, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

We had a discussion that no statement should be added without source. Now it's the other way around: We can add statements, but it's not possible to add a source. --Kolja21 (talk) 21:50, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

There is no harm in software having provision to add a source for a file. Editors can leave it blank or can link it to the Commons info page or back to the author, as agreed by the Wikidata community. Filceolaire (talk) 23:41, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
It cannt do much harm, but I am not clear what it can be. A link to the file description does not really make sense, as the link to the file itself also links to the description. The other likely case would be something like: the file shows a painting of Shakespeare, and the source says, that the painted buy is Shakespeare. But then it would be a source not for the file itself, but for a property of the painting, and the painting can probably have its own item.--Zolo (talk) 22:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Problem with property "gender"

I encountered a problem with the property "gender". In English (and many other languages), we have item Q44148 for the gender "male" and Q43445 for "female". However, in Chinese, the corresponding items for "male" and "female" are Q8441 and Q467 (Q44148 and Q43445 usually describe male and female organisms other than human beings in Chinese). How should we handle this situation? This kind of problem may occur in other languages, as well as in other properties.--Stevenliuyi (talk) 21:54, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Same in French. I think Q8441 and Q467 are ok for all languages (though it may need some tweaking of the labels). Would it be possible to restict possible values to these two items (plus maybe a few other ones for more unusual cases) --Zolo (talk) 21:59, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
You are right: We need a list of possible answers. Right now you can add for example the gender "gay". I think Wikidata:List of properties would be a good place, but there also should be an improvement of the software. --Kolja21 (talk) 22:05, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
The possible answers are: male (Q44148), female (Q43445), and intersex (Q1097630). --Kolja21 (talk) 22:16, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
A nice one: Werner Heisenberg has the gender "Mann family" (Q551040). --Kolja21 (talk) 00:08, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Also be careful that gender is restricted to people (famous animals?) only. in many Slavic languages all nouns have a associated gender that is often different from language to language. --Jarekt (talk) 04:07, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Probably we should change the German description from "Männliches Geschlecht" (sounds like penis or male noble) to "männlich". "Männliches Geschlecht" is the correct term for the article, but does not fit grammatically to the question. A German would rather answer "Mann" (Q8441), but this term only refers to adults. We urgently need a setting that limits the choice of answers. --Kolja21 (talk) 05:58, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Sounds like we should change the options to Man Q8441, Woman Q467 and 'Custom value' and change the Property name to 'Gender (humans)' or 'Gender (people). Filceolaire (talk) 08:04, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
When I added some statements last night, I also had problems with the gender statement. Do I rather use "weiblich" (female) or "Frau" (woman), "männlich" (male) oder "Mann" (man)? If you have decided on this question you must find the correct item. This is especially difficult for "Mann", as the Heisenberg example above shows, because Mann is also a family name in German. Is it possible to replace the usual dropdown list with a limited list of choices (with radio buttons or something similar)? Then we could just choose the correct gender without all these questions and ambiguities. --MSchnitzler2000 (talk) 13:35, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

The current idea from our side is to not limit the possible values. Instead bots could be written to check for inconsistent usage. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 13:39, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Limit the possible values is a basic feature of a database. (I privately use Access, and it had this features over ten years ago.) Angela Merkel yesterday had the nationality "Germans", what is almost correct. Today she has the "Deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit" (German nationality law) and the gender "woman", instead of "female". If Wikidata should be taken serious, we can't wait for someone that perhaps wants to run a bot. --Kolja21 (talk) 00:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Can't we make a model that check if that object "is human". And send the answer "women" if it is and "female" if not ? Iluvalar (talk) 00:56, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
That's one reason, why I'm a fan of "Main type of item" (Wikidata:Property proposal#Main type of item), but unfortunately until now I'm the only one ;) --Kolja21 (talk) 06:23, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Lydia, you can't be serious. Do you really want to say that the current chaos with gender "Mann family" and the general uncertainty is better than a limitation of possibilities? I won't add any more gender property until this problem is solved. --MSchnitzler2000 (talk) 11:55, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I think a better option would be to have a datatype that has a dropdown list which extends the current dropdown of "custum value/unknown value/no value", but has the property-specific values at the top of the list, and starts with the list extended/opened. --Yair rand (talk) 12:17, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Order of properties

The properties now show up at every page in the order they were created on this particular page, right? Should we try ordering them at least for the main classes?--Ymblanter (talk) 22:26, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

This is one of the basics. A person should not die in a place called "Suicide", receive a prize and at last get born in "hospital" (see: ranks of statements). --Kolja21 (talk) 23:11, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
I've filed this as bugzilla:44678. It is on the todo-list. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 13:42, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! --Kolja21 (talk) 00:16, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Problems with Phase 2

So here are the most annoying problems I noticed with phase 2 summarised:

  1. #Problem adding an item for a property when too many items have the same title
  2. Source can't bee added yet, cause there are not other data-types allowed than item an Commons-file
  3. Special page New Property isn't listed anywhere
  4. One can only use properties with have already an translation to your language
  5. Something like Special:EntitiesWithoutLabel would be also bee needed for properties.

Feel free to add things. -- MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 23:58, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

  • Yet another thing... I'm trying to add San Juan (Puerto Rico) as place of birth to this biography, but after three attempts, I decided to give up because I just can't find the right suggestion in the module. If I try to click enter because "I'm feeling lucky" (cit.), all I've got is some Philippines village which - no offense to any Pilipino here - are definitely not what I'm looking for. Is it possible to put the number of the item (in this case, Q41211) directly as a form of entry? --Sannita - not just another it.wiki sysop 12:47, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Adding a needed item for a property value gets deleted if there isn't a link to a Wikipedia article. For example, the father of Patrick Stewart is Alfred Stewart, but he is not important enough to have is own Wikipedia page. If I create a Wikidata item for Alfred Stewart, it is flagged for deletion because it is "empty". How can we add statements whose property should be an item, but an administrator rejects the item because it doesn't have a Wikipedia page? 173.196.186.2 19:11, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the only way is to modify Wikidata:Notability so that items w/o a Wikipedia link are allowed as long as they're used as a statement. --Morten Haan (talk) 19:15, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Support for article IDs should be added. Sanitas had the same problem as me. ID support would help. Ebe123 (talk) 23:43, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Very serious problems related to source-formatting have not been solved, and do not seem on the way to be solved. See for instance the questions asked at Wikidata_talk:Notability#Adapt_rules_for_phase_2. There is no obvious (or even non-obvious way) to source a property of an item by "John Doe A very good book 3rd edition, San Juan, 2001, p. 32-35" no to speak of sourcing by "John Doe in A very good book 3rd edition, San Juan, 2001, p. 32-35 writes : "there is a birth certificate asserting that X was born in 1884, but the civil records of Syldavia are notoriously inaccurate"". Most things cannot been sourced with the present software constraints. Touriste (talk) 13:08, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Description changing error

I tried to change the description of [7] to "city in Lithuania", but I see this message "An error occurred while trying to perform save and because of this, your changes could not be completed.". Did I do something wrong ? πr2 (t • c) 01:37, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Same thing happened to me, must be a bug. Techman224Talk 01:39, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I got around it..."revision not found" was the error. Thanks to Sven Manguard for that selective deletion.--Jasper Deng (talk) 01:41, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Works. πr2 (t • c) 01:44, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Why did you delete it again? πr2 (t • c) 01:47, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Well... I nuked it anyways because Jasper Deng told me it still wasn't working. I didn't realize that he then got it to work again. The new page (with all the old info) is at Q4115712. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:48, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Now I can't add an English label to Q4115686. πr2 (t • c) 01:44, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Or a description, for that matter. The error is once again "An error occurred while trying to perform save and because of this, your changes could not be completed.". πr2 (t • c) 01:46, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Worked for me, [8]. Techman224Talk 01:51, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Strange. Now it works for me too, but it definitely wasn't working before. πr2 (t • c) 01:51, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
We do some fancy stuff to get around edit conflicts and that might fail in some exotic ways. If you bump into something like this then try to make a note about what you did and how it is reported to you. If someone delete an item (then edit will fail) or a specific revision (then edit can fail) then such things can happen. And of course if we have a general server failure. Jeblad (talk) 02:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Error report: Q1290923, trying to add label, 2013-02-05 9h10 UTC. Error message: "An error occurred while trying to perform save and because of this, your changes could not be completed"--Zolo (talk) 09:11, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I got the same error while trying to add label or description to Q2207586. -- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 10:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

There seems to be some conflict somewhere but I'm not sure what is happening exactly. Please keep posting here when it happens so we can investigate further. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:01, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Now I can't change label name here: Property:P71. Maybe this goes over soon. --Stryn (talk) 18:31, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Working now. --Stryn (talk) 18:34, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Gah, I know… The problem is a to generic error message, and because of that you will not see an explanation that you in fact had an edit conflict. When this happens reload the page and the error should go away. In some cases you will get an edit conflict with yourself that cannot be resolved because somebody else has made an intervening edit, or you have edited the same field twice, and in even some other cases the reason could be your own use of the back-button. In the correct error message there is a hint about reloading the page because you have an edit conflict. Hopefully you will get the more accurate error messages in the next rollout. Jeblad (talk) 18:47, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I updated the page and even clicked ctrl+shift+r (reload + override cache), but it didn't helped this time. --Stryn (talk) 18:51, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Error: Trying to add Italian label to Q4115680: "Città-stato italiane". Messaggio di errore (in italiano): "Si è verificato un errore durante il tentativo di salvataggio, perciò le tue modifiche potrebbero non essere state completamente memorizzate."

Why it does not work again? πr2 (t • c) 19:18, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Why is doesn't work? πr2 (t • c) 23:52, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
No idea. I've had to refresh to get pages to work sometimes. Try that. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
It could be that there is more than one error here, but the most probable cause for failing save is intervening edits either by someone else or by yourself on the same field in the page.There is some fancy diffing and patching going on during save to sort out most of the conflicts, but there are still some conflicts we can't solve. Usually you should get an error message telling you to reload the page in those cases, but right now you only get a very generic catch-all message saying something went wrong during save. If you get an error during save, try to reload the page and redo your edit. Jeblad (talk) 08:56, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Flag property: change from media to item

I'm not sure where to place this proposal, but I suggest the "flag" property to be changed from "Media" type to "Item". Many flags have Wikipedia articles with thorough descriptions, and those items can in turn have an "image" property. --Waldir (talk) 03:35, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree. I think this would make sense for "anthem", too. --Yair rand (talk) 03:36, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
What about coats of arms, or equivalent heraldry (e.g., w:Emblem of Italy)? πr2 (t • c) 03:39, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I suggest all of these to be changed to items. --Waldir (talk) 03:44, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
My guess is that we will have to delete the property and re-create it... and can we delete a property that is being used without damaging the database? --Rschen7754 03:47, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't even try it. Thankfully the what links here feature works for properties. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:14, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Links to actual images of flags should go in the item about the flag, but to solve the infobox issue you will also need some example flags in an item about a state. The example flag in the state item would then be a materialization of the actual flag images in the flag item. The difference is that you have a flag and an image of a flag. 89.204.135.242 07:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Actually, we might want to rethink the entire Media data type. It's pretty rare that we'll have a direct reference to a file on Wikimedia Commons, and even when we do, it might be preferable to link to a Wikidata item for that file, once that's possible. --Yair rand (talk) 08:01, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I disagree - see Property:P15 for example. There is no reason to create an item for every map on Commons, or every portrait. --Rschen7754 10:53, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

There seems to be a belief that you don't need many media-type properties. Well, you do, and there will be many, because the fact that something is a media file tells you nothing about what it contains, which is what this database needs to do. (Unless people think that the "qualifiers" are going to handle all these distinctions. For example, the distinction between an elevation map image and species range map image and political map image and so on...) I recently changed the English label of the "flag" property to "flag image" because it is a media type. A flag item property should also exist (what to call it?) for the actual description/link to articles about flags. I also changed the description of property "anthem" to "anthem sound file" because that is how the property is being used. I then boldly added a new "anthem" item property that links to the title of the anthem--almost all anthems have Wikipedia articles if not all. I think most media-type properties should contain the word "file, image, sound" etc in the descriptions. In the case of property "Portrait" (which makes complete sense to have, despite some comments I've seen otherwise), it is obviously a pointer to an image. People are claiming "we don't need media property 'such and such' because we have property 'Commons media file'" or whatever it's called. That is silly. It's like saying we don't need "birth date" when we can just have "date" as a property for all dates.) Espeso (talk) 19:24, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Sources

Sources are obsiously all-important, but we have not had much talk about it yet. I would have two questions:

  1. "ReferenceRecords" are supposed to be full statements. Could we have some guidance about how to use it ? What kind of property should be used ?
  2. Should it include things like
  • the official language of France is French because the Constitution says it is so
  • there are infinitely many prime numbers and that's Euclid's theorem
I am not sure either of those can be considered a "source" in the usual sense.--Zolo (talk) 18:27, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
There are other things that may be difficult to get sources for such as "shares borders with" (look at a map?) or gender (we can only assume) Del♉sion23 (talk) 18:35, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Is the source for official language ok in [9] ? --Zolo (talk) 21:19, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

For me it is not. The French Constitution is a primary source, and it does not use the precise expression "official language" (but asserts : "La langue de la République est le français", that is "La langue de la République est le français"). This is obviously not a real problem (nobody seriously asserts that French is not the official language of France), but a similar choice may give a problem on similar topics. As on Wikipedia, an ideal item sustaining an information should be a secondary source - of course, if you have none, a primary source is better than no source at all. Touriste (talk) 12:40, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Hey the system is absurd. Do you mean that if I intend to source a thing by "page 23 of the 3rd edition of Treaty of hairsplitting by Jane Doe - Nancago University Press, 1978" I have to create an item "page 23 of the 3rd edition of Treaty of hairsplitting by Jane Doe - Nancago University Press, 1978" ? And how shall I find this item again next time I shall have to use it ? This is like throwing needles into haystacks. Touriste (talk) 12:46, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

No. You would create an item for "Treaty of hairsplitting", add the author and publisher as statements of the treaty's item, and use "qualifiers" to indicate which page you're referencing. Qualifiers are not working yet, which is why no one is adding sources to much of anything yet. --Yair rand (talk) 13:24, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
To add "legally established", just type it in the source field, it works fine for me.
My original question, was rather on to use properties in the source field. I think the primary / secondary question should be solved separately. I see plenty of cases where reliance on secondary sources causes more harm than good, but the beauty of Wikidata is that we can add various sources that can cater to the needs of different kinds of users. --Zolo (talk) 13:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Can't delete statements if property has deleted

I noticed that if property has deleted, and it's still in use in some of the items (as a statement), we can't see statement there. So I had to restore deleted property and after it delete statements. --Stryn (talk) 18:59, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I figured something like this would be the case... at least the database didn't entirely get corrupted. --Rschen7754 19:10, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Oh that's bad. Can you please file a bug for that on bugs.wikimedia.org? Thanks! --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 19:50, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
bug 44689 and 44639. --Stryn (talk) 21:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

How to delete statements?

Have done here a recursion, want to delete. Conny (talk) 19:35, 5 February 2013 (UTC).

Found it, sorry... Conny (talk) 19:38, 5 February 2013 (UTC).

Question for the developer side

Is there any way we could make it so users (or at least admins) can change a property's data type? That way we wouldn't have to delete things like WD:RFD#Property:P73, and it would be easier to fix things like Property:P67 once we get more data types. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 22:14, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

It would be quite hard unless the property is unused, because how would you convert, for example, a string to a numerical value?--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:16, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Exactly; this is a functionality that should not be implemented. --Rschen7754 22:45, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Changing the data type for a property that is in use have a lot of implications. It would be possible to make some sort of manual update tool, but it is equally simple to make a new property and manually update all items that is listed in Special:WhatLinksHere (example). After that you could delete the old property and rename the new one. Jeblad (talk) 09:02, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to add 2 additional fields in the property page

I would like to suggest the addition of 2 fields in the property page. 1. Usage of property 2. Good example of usage

This would make the description of property self contained plus translatable in other language. I could add these two in the List of Properties page but it would make the page messy later on. --User:Napoleon.tan 23:05 5 February 2013 UTC

An additional property field could be "main type" as stated in the info box task force guidelines. Although this would require a change in data model.
What about some text that will appear as a tool tip if you hover over the property in the drop down menu? Filceolaire (talk) 01:19, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
This is now (partially) done based on a suggestion on the talk page of the List of Properties - see Wikidata:List of properties#Generic_.2F_Allgemein_.2F_G.C3.A9n.C3.A9ral. James F. (talk) 21:29, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

editing 2 - error in de.wikidata.org

sometime when i go from 1 page to another i go to page in de.wikidata.org\XXX or he.wikidata.org\XXX. when i try to change any thing where, i get a error. only after i change it to www.wikidata.org\XXX i can make the change. for exemple Wikidata:List_of_properties had a link to Special:AllPages in de.wikidata.org (i change it now). when you change the domain, you cannot change or add anythink. could the maggese we get tell us to switch to www.wikidata.org and not just get a massage that when saving it was an error and the saving not succses (or something like this). -- yona b (talk) 06:33, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. I think that this is the reason for problems in here: Wikidata:Project_chat#Description_changing_error. --Stryn (talk) 06:41, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
you probably right. now i see that if we use [[d:Q801]] in he-wikipedia you go to he.wikidata.org/wiki/Q801 (if you start from en you go to en.wikidata.org/wiki/Q801, ext.) but if you use [[wikidata:Q801]] you go to the correct www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q801. i think it need to be fixxed. -- yona b (talk) 07:13, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Links between properties

Will it be possible to link properties to each other, like in freebase? For example, it would be great if the father-property and the child-property were linked. When you would add a father-property, the child-property of the father would automatically be adjusted that way.--Blackpen (talk) 07:26, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

It's not possible, at least not at the moment. But this tool may be help a little bit: Wikidata:Project_chat#Consistency_checking_tool. --Stryn (talk) 07:31, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

More import sources ?

Hi everyone :)

Following this discussion, commonswiki, enwiki, dewiki, frwiki and eswiki have been added as import sources (wikis from which sysop can import pages with history) in addition to metawiki. Now, we've had a first request for import from itwiki. I can add more wikis to that list, but a local consensus would be welcome first, so… would you support the addition of huwiki, hewiki and itwiki to that list, for now?

By the way, if you see another wiki we should add to the list, please comment.

Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 09:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Statements

Alright, two words describing my situation: I'm confused... (I'm trying to add one to Q186358)... Hurricanefan24 (talk) 15:47, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

What you are going to add and why you don't succeed? --Stryn (talk) 16:00, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Storm name, but probably that is because the property name is not defined - yet when I try to add an existing property (e.g. 'alma mater,' 'P27,' 'Item'), it doesn't work. Hurricanefan24 (talk) 16:06, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

is a: Wikipedia disambiguation page / is a: Wikipedia category

There doesn't seem to be an item for "Wikipedia category" or "Wikipedia disambiguation page". Wouldn't it be useful though, in order to enter the property "is a" in all our items about disambiguation pages and categories? - Soulkeeper (talk) 16:56, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a very good idea. James F. (talk) 18:07, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I think that the right place for this in Wikidata:Property proposal. -- yona b (talk) 18:13, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
[edit conflict] Could we perhaps make new items for the Wikipedia pages about disambiguation/categories, appropriately interwiki'ed, and then use that item as the basis for the "is a" statement? For example: an item for the page w:Wikipedia:Disambiguation and its equivalents could then be titled "Wikipedia disambiguation page" and used in a "is a" statement. The title departs from the item content a little, but since this entire subject relates to information about Wikipedias rather than "the world", I don't think it's a big deal. I think I will make this new item to start, as the interwiki aspects of the item are within scope now. If others think they want to use it in "is a" statements, they can do so or discuss further. Espeso (talk) 18:16, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I have created Q4167410, as I mentioned above. As I said, this item could be the basis of the "is a" relationship, with or without re-titling the item for "readability". Shall we do the same with categories? The advantage of this approach is that it relates the "is a" relationship to the Wikipedia concept, all in one spot. Espeso (talk) 18:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
And for categories, Q4167836. Espeso (talk) 18:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

limitations of Item properties

What is the expected solution when a property is defined as an "Item" type, but only some object Items exist for a given subject where the subject's property has more than one value? For example, say a book has three authors or editors. (An "Editor" property P98 has recently been created as Item.) One editor happens to have an "Item" (that is, they have an article about them on some Wikipedia), while the other two editors do not. The other two editors cannot be represented in this scheme, unless Items are created for them, which is against the early notability policy that requires "the existence of at least one interwiki linking back to any language Wikipedia project". Is a future data type going to deal with this somehow? (If so, why are we creating properties with an Item type where this problem will be evident?) I assume that string types can "manually link" to an Item even though they do not require an Item value. This problem will be seen very often in literature and film (just off the top of my head). Clearly Wikidata should be able to simply name people (authors, etc.) that do not have Wikipedia articles anywhere. Espeso (talk) 04:37, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

same problem with mayors of smaller municipalities, spouses .... -- 109.48.78.116 09:38, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
This problem was already mentioned above for sources without item: the good solution is to fill the value with a string. The question is to formate that string in order to be reused by client on wikipedia. My proposition is to create a pseudo item containing the main properties necessary to identify the pseudo-item. An example for an author without item on wikidata: fill the value with a string <item>Datatyp=person|Name=Smith|Surname=John</item>. If we can create a formular in order to reduce the writing of the code that would be perfect. Snipre (talk) 09:42, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
As I said in Wikidata talk:Notability#Wikidata items with no links, the guideline is wrong and should be changed. I think we should create items if wee need them to make a set of authors complete. Then you can add the number of authors (or editors) necessary for some book or whatever. You don't hack in the name instead of the item, you add the name of the author in the label on the new item. And please add a description for the new item! 93.220.67.78 09:52, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
But would it be necessary to create an item just for one author with only the name ? Because if you have no article about that person this mainly means that data about that person are not available or more difficult to obtain than for a famous person. If I take the example of scientific litterature as sources do we want to create an item for each scientific article (sometimes used in one only source) ? This will lead to a dramatic increase of the item number. What's about the management of that amount of information (servers, duration of queries in wikipedia client,... ) ? We need to have technical advise in order to take that decision. Snipre (talk) 11:00, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that it was the intention that there would be an item for every source entity. --Yair rand (talk) 11:14, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree that from database point of view this is the best solution (everything defined in one item) but we have to take account of the use of that information in client and especially about the speed of data extraction and server ressource needs. Do not forget the online application of that database. I put a comment for the development team about that problem: Wikidata:Contact_the_development_team#Need_of_technical_advices_to_take_decision. Snipre (talk) 11:32, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
FYI: Denny answered there now. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:06, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Project community creation

As more discussion about specific properties are needed (rules of use, description, organization,...) it woulb be nice to create some particular projects were problems will be discussed in order to have a dedicated place for that discussion. These projects will responsible later to judge the values rank when several values will be available according to sources or other criteria, something like Wikidata:Project Chemistry or Wikidata:Project Person. Any comment ? Snipre (talk) 10:04, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Probably task forces should be morphed into that? --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:23, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Ok, that the best solution. Snipre (talk) 10:27, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
They are listed at Wikidata:Task forces. Would they just be renamed Wikidata:Projects? Del♉sion23 (talk) 11:26, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
What's the problem with just calling them task forces? --Yair rand (talk) 11:29, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Task forces were originally defined to treat item and now we need to discuss about items, properties and later about sources ranking. It is just a question of definition and perhaps a question of having the same glossary as in wikipedias. But task force is OK for me. Snipre (talk) 11:36, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
We can use talk pages of Task Forces, and eventually create subpages if needed.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:23, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Q131976 and Q2320005

There is a problem with this 2 items - "Ptolemaic Kingdom" and "Ptolemaic dynasty". The article Ptolemaic dynasty in en:wiki is the same article as Ptolemaic Kingdom. There is another article "List of Ptolemaic rulers" that replace Ptolemaic dynasty. I tried to fix the problem, but there are too many problems and too many languages. I ask you to check it carefully and fix it. Thanks. Hanay (talk) 14:11, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

WolframAlpha

Hi. Maybe some of you know it yet, but I have just found www.wolframalpha.com, which is working since 2009, and I find it to be like the future of Wikidata. Unfortunately, the Pro version of WolframAlpha is not free. Best regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 15:45, 7 February 2013 (UTC) Another problem is that it's biased towards the USA. For example, if you enter "number of houses in Germany" it returns the number of houses in the United States. --Dalton2 (talk) 16:50, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata is for organizing data. WolframAlpha (and to an extent Google) is for converting human syntax into machine syntax for querying data. I can't see Wikidata ever aiming for that. -- Ypnypn (talk) 16:52, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Phase Two policies

Phase Two is apparently launching tonight, so I think we should start figuring out what kind of policies we'll need. Some issues:

  • If I understand correctly, items making inferences from data in other items is not going available for quite a long time. That means that, for example, adding that Person X is Person Y's parent does not automatically make the item for Person Y have the data that Person X is their child. This data will have to be added manually. Likewise for things like "Germany > Capital: Berlin" and "Berlin > Capital of: Germany". Do we want to prevent redundant additions until it can be handled automatically by the system? Or should we perhaps have a bot keep things synchronized?
  • Input of sources is going to be extremely limited at the start. From what I can see, the only things we can add as sources are "Property : Item". No page numbers or anything. One property (like "Book"), one Wikidata item (or Commons File). How should we handle this?
  • Which properties should we have? The page Wikidata:Property proposal was started a few days ago, and a number of properties were proposed. Apparently anyone will be able to add new property types, though. Should we disallow adding new properties that haven't been discussed yet? If so, how much discussion should be necessary?

--Yair rand (talk) 12:17, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

See also my opinion at the related discussion above. --Denny (talk) 12:20, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Re your first point, if someone could put together a bot that would add cross-references for relationships like the ones you cite, that would be nice. Perhaps we could create a project page where the bot could report conflicts (e.g. three people being listed as someone's parents) or times it had been reverted? — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 12:24, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Maybe it would be best to avoid adding cross-references/redundant data until the development team comments on that. πr2 (t • c) 13:16, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Be careful in use of bots to complete relationships: if somebody does a mistake and the correction is performed after the bot's work can a bot delete the wrong relationship established previously ? 141.6.11.18 13:39, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Some inferences would also be cumbersome to store. For instance, while it may be useful to record that a lake is in Canada on the page for that lake, I doubt we would want to reflect this on our page for Canada (together with thousands of other lakes). So some guidelines for the addition of inferences could be useful, especially for automatic additions. And yes, bot checks of data consistency could be useful, e.g. that countries don't have too many cities claiming to be their capital. --Avenue (talk) 14:50, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
While only Berlin IS capital of Germany there are various cities that WERE capital of various Germanies at various times - East Berlin, Bonn, Vienna .... Filceolaire (talk) 19:32, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Links to items are unidirectional, for backlinks we could make something like whatlinkshere with some additional filtering. Jeblad (talk) 23:04, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Will be better if property creation is centralized and is an administrator's task (through a page like Wikidata:Requests for property creation): that will be a mess with people having low English skills or trying to create properties in their own language or having different backgrounds and different ways to define the same properties. To be efficient we have to order quite more the edition process than in wikipedia article editing because the consequences will be larger. 141.6.11.16 14:06, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
First, this is an early release to get feedback on the system so a lot of data types will be missing. Second it is possible to limit somewhat on who can do what. We can for example limit creation of properties to admins, and we can limit changing ranks to (auto)patrollers. Still I'm not quite sure if this will be possible in this rollout, it could be included in the next. Jeblad (talk) 14:35, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Is there a Wikipedia that restricts, per user rights, the creation of Categories or Templates? --Denny (talk) 18:42, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes. — Hazard-SJ  ✈  05:36, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I think we should prohibit adding any duplicated data. If we don't do that, I think we should at least prohibit adding of data which would be perfectly accessible to anyone willing to click/check more than one thing. For example, we shouldn't have "grandparent" properties when the item has a "parent" property and the parent also has a parent property. Likewise for grandchild, aunt, uncle, cousin, niece, nephew, sibling, country/continent when it can be easily deduced from other given data, and so on. --Yair rand (talk) 07:47, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I fully agree. Father, Mother and Spouse should be enough. Other relations can be duduced, probaly withe the future Queries. HenkvD (talk) 19:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Case sensitivity

Apparently, property values proposed in the drop-down menus are case sensitive, which is annoying. For instance, you cannot add "chemist" to Marie Curie, because (Q169470 is labelled as "Chemist" . --Zolo (talk) 15:12, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

In any case, I don't think "chemist" belongs under "is a", but under "occupation". "Is a" is for defining things (e.g. person vs city vs building). -- Ypnypn (talk) 15:35, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree, "Is a" should be something that defines a subject in its entirety. Not just an aspect of it. The way "is a" is used now, we could put everything in it. Marie Curie "is a" female. Marie Curie "is a" mother. Marie Curie "is a" spouse. Janjko (talk) 18:09, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Actually, I do not think we should have any "is a" property at all, but that's rather unrelated to the topic ;). --Zolo (talk) 18:14, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree about not having "is a" as a property. It is quite vague, and the entities' descriptions would probably be better here. — Hazard-SJ  ✈  20:50, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Improve property search

Hi all, I'm not sure this is the right place to ask, but I would like to ask for an improvement of property searches, Now the search seems to be performed only on the first word of the property, for example "place of birth" or "place of death" show up only if you type "place" but they should be shown also when you type "birth" (maybe because you were looking for "birthplace"). How can the search be improved? -- CristianCantoro (talk) 17:02, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

While I'm not sure how to improve the search, you can look at Special:AllPages to find what ones exist. Ajraddatz (Talk) 17:23, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
@Ajraddatz: thanks anyway, but I had already noticed the page. I was thinking that improving the search will also improve user friendliness. -- CristianCantoro (talk) 17:30, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
If you make birthplace an alias, it should also show up in the drop-down menu. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ypnypn (talk • contribs).
I suspected so, but then for example I would like to type "birth" and being shown "place of birth" but also "date of birth", so I should add "birth" also as an alias of "date of birth"? You can say that I could add "birthday", but consider that other languages may not have all the variants that English has. For example in Italian you have "luogo di nascita" (place of birth) "data di nascita" (date of birth) and there is no possibility to write them or to find a synonym with "nascita" as first word. So, I conclude that if I would like to have "luogo di nascita" and "data di nascita" both shown when I type "nascita" (which I would highly expect) I should add "nascita" as an alias of both "luogo di nascita" and "data di nascita" which doesn't look as The Right Thing To Do(TM) to me. -- CristianCantoro (talk) 23:06, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Clarifying, I'm perfectly fine with having "sound" aliases as "birthplace" for "place of birth", "birthday" for "date of birth" or "compleanno" for "data di nascita" in Italian. What I'm not so sure it's a good thing is using alias to provide search shortcuts...) -- CristianCantoro (talk) 23:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
The labels, descriptions, and aliases are completely language-specific. There's no need to have a one-to-one correspondence for alias between languages. In other words, the aliases in English and in Italian don't have to correspond. -- Ypnypn (talk) 00:25, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, sure. What I'm saying is that it sounds wrong, to me at least, to use aliases only as search shortcuts in any language. As you won't use "deathplace" or "deathday" for "place of death" and "date of death" in English you should not make them aliases, nor using simply "death" as an alias just to have a search shortcut. -- CristianCantoro (talk) 00:50, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I have added an enhancement bug for this. -- CristianCantoro (talk) 01:00, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Stats on statements

Is there any way to track the progress of the number of statements being created? Remember (talk) 19:54, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

if you speek about item with statement, i don't think so. if you want all properties in statement this page will help. -- yona b (talk) 20:35, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Language item

Any ideas on the difference between Q315 and Q4113741 and how best to distinguish them in the description field? Del♉sion23 (talk) 21:51, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Q315 is about the idea of language as a means of communication, the human capacity itself.
Le langage est la capacité d'exprimer une pensée et de communiquer au moyen d'un système de signes (vocaux, gestuel, graphiques, tactiles, olfactifs, etc.) doté d'une sémantique, et le plus souvent d'une syntaxe (mais ce n'est pas systématique). (source: frwiki)
Used in a sentence: Plants are not capable of language.
Q4113741 is about individual languages / communication systems, like French, Spanish, or Chinese. These are composed of sounds (etc.) for speaking languages.
Une langue est un système de signes linguistiques, vocaux, graphiques ou gestuels, qui permet la communication entre les individus. (frwiki)
Example: "What is your favorite language?" "German."
Maybe I interpreted this wrong, but it seems to be some kind of case of "Langue and parole" or like http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=943364 ...
πr2 (t • c) 21:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I've just updated the item labels, perhaps now you get the difference. --NaBUru38 (talk) 21:11, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Property "worked for" or "employed by"

I think this is an essential property. But it should come with a position on which someone worked there. "He worked at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a janitor". Is that solved with a qualifier? And if we solve it that way, what about the position President of USA? That is just a position you can get while working for the government of USA, no? Janjko (talk) 22:44, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

A qualifier would make most sense, yes. Normally the phrase is "worked at" in English, to avoid working out the difference between employees, contractors, partners, volunteers, etc.. James F. (talk) 21:28, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
The President isn't really employed by the government; he's elected by the voters. An analogy would be if a private company chose its CEO by one-shareholder-one-vote, and anyone could run. -- Ypnypn (talk) 20:51, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

difference betweet descriptions

What is the difference between the description of an item and a property? Conny (talk) 16:24, 6 February 2013 (UTC).

  • Am item must have one short description so that we can single it out is a dropout menu. It might also have a lot of properties. For instance, United States already now has a dozen of properties. Whereas the most important ones - that it is a country mostly located in North America - go to the item description, all the stuff that it uses US dollars as a currency and borders with Mexico just can not fit to the description of an item.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
An item is a thing which has a wikidata page referring to it. Sometimes called an Entity. The page for an item contains a number of properties each of which has a value and may have a reference or other attached info making up a statement. Filceolaire (talk) 00:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
The description is a text that describes the item. The properties are part of the database, so evetually you will be abled to search items based on the values of the properties. --NaBUru38 (talk) 21:15, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Serbian language interface

There are multiple errors when a site is used with Serbian interface. After Phase II has started, search doesn't work any more. { {SITENAME} } is also shown instead of Wikidata. --Милан Јелисавчић (talk) 17:46, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I tried yesterday and I saw the problems with Serbian interface. But now I tried again, and I didn't saw problems anymore. --Stryn (talk) 05:13, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, it works now fine. --Милан Јелисавчић (talk) 08:48, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Gadget idea – how to create statements from infoboxes in Wikipedia

Assume you go to a template page on Wikipedia, and then to en:Special:WhatLinksHere (for example Infobox person). Now lets say a script adds a small entry box where you write the name of a parameter, and after you do so (for example you write "nationality") and hits [Go] it starts to loop over the pages and extract whats in that parameter. In the article about en:Alvin Toffler it will find [[United States]]. Assume the script tries to follow this link to the normalized page (that is unwind all redirects and stuff - strip markup and use the api calls to unwind the links like we do [10]) and use that page as data for a lookup on Wikidata (that is even more api calls, use the module wbgetentities). Done right the script will find Q297425, that is Alvin Toffler. At that item you can then add a statement for a specific property if it does not exist, that is Property:P?, and you can even do it from the special page you never left. It should be possible to scan the result from wbgetentities and scan it for existence of a specific property. An example entry is Q42, we don't have claims in Q297425, and you also need to figure out the property id for "nationality". If the property don't exist you create a dialog (this is nearly a finished wikibase wizzard – ask Danwe how to do it), create the statement and prefill the value, but then leave it to the user to click [save]. When the value is properly saved you go to the next article in the list. And of course, all pages that fail somehow you can skip. There are still plenty to do…

This should not be that hard to code for a real top notch Wikidata community wizzard? It is mostly just to stich together already working components. First one to make this will be allowed to brag about it, and you could even get a ReviewChocolate™ from Abraham! =) Jeblad (talk) 20:20, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Not speaking about the technical ability, the geberal idea seems fine to me, but every property should be carefully scrutinized first, since it may just mean completely different things in different Wikipedias or even in different infobox formats on the same Wikipedia.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:35, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Within one Wikipedia the parameter values in a specific infobox are amazingly similar, and within one category even more so. How to define the properties are another issue, and it might very well be that some properties are defined in such a way on Wikidata that they can not replace parameter values in specific infoboxes. If so, then it will be "Huston, we have a problem"! :) Jeblad (talk) 20:49, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
It's not really a problem. It's always been clear that Wikidata could never take care of all the information on Wikipedia, but it could try to do as much as possible – which isn't everything. -- Ypnypn (talk) 20:55, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Referencing : a suggestion

I don't know that it is discussed before or not but I suggest making a Reference Tool like below or may get some idea or at least add properties on ref.side according to it to make adding references easy. I suggest that clicking ref. section should open drop-down menu like book, news, web etc. Please see this tool and do make adding ref. easy. It will help users and increase ref additions.
Tool of English Wikipedia : ProveIt

--Nizil Shah (talk) 21:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Translations to Spanish

Hello, folks! I'm trying to translate some properties to Spanish, but I can't. Most worryingly, P18 says "fotografía", when it should be "imagen", since the property applies to illustrations. Do I need special permissions to add descriptions to properties, or am I doing something wrong? Thanks! --NaBUru38 (talk) 22:00, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Oops, it's the labelLister addon, which doesn't work for properties. I'll do the work manually. Bye! --NaBUru38 (talk) 22:04, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Labels for properties vs labels for items

Labels for properties and items are very closely related but there are some subtle differences. Look up of items will be mostly through the sitelinks, while look up of the properties will be through the labels. That means the labels for properties must be unique, while items can have non-unique labels. That does not mean that every translation must be exactly like the English phrase or some other language on a word-by-word level, just that the label should describe the same concept. They will be easier to use if they are accurate, but they will not fail in any way if you translate one word into a phrase of several words. And I would also like to add; please add descriptions to the properties! Jeblad (talk) 22:22, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Consistency checking tool

I wrote a tiny, pure-JavaScript tool to check consistencies os statements, that is, if B is "child" of A, then A should be "father" or "mother" of B. To try, add 

mw.loader.load('//toolserver.org/~magnus/wiki_js/wd_consistency_check.js');

to your Special:Mypage/common.js page. You will get a "Consistency" link in the toolbox. At this moment, you can test Q7504; there is a "father" entry, but no corresponding "child". I can copy the source here if you like it, so we can work on a list of "consistent relations" together. --Magnus Manske (talk) 13:47, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Nice! I like it! Jeblad (talk) 15:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
An obvious relation is that if A shares border with B, B also shares order with A.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:25, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Added. --Magnus Manske (talk) 15:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Great, thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:59, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
If town A is in municipality B and county C and province/state D and country E then the pages for B, C and D should show the same relationship with E. Filceolaire (talk) 23:49, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
and if E shares border with F so F shares border with E. -- yona b (talk) 07:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
If species A has genus B, genus B should also have species A. If genus B has family C, which in turn has order D, phylum E and kingdom F, species A should also have family C, order D, phylum E and kingdom F. Etc etc. Lots and lots of data duplication, but it seems that's the way it's designed. (Or? Please correct me if I'm wrong.) - Soulkeeper (talk) 11:15, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
I think you are right, that is how the biological properties are designed now. It is also how wikipedia articles handle it. It could be less duplication if for instance Cat would link to "higher taxon" Wildcat, which would link to "Higher taxon" Felis and so on all the way to "higher taxon" animal. Each Item could have only these two properties: Property:P105 taxon rank and the new property "higher taxon". Just like is discussed for grand-father versus Father and its Father. HenkvD (talk) 19:28, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
That's the way I'm doing it now: Only stating "taxon rank" and linking to the nearest "higher taxon". If someone wants more data duplication, they can do it with a bot. :) I'm hoping that the new and better "What links here" function (the one that I haven't heard about, but that needs to be made at some point), will be sensitive to the taxon rank property of an item, even if (and regardless of whether) the item is linked via the genus, family or order property. - Soulkeeper (talk) 10:05, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Improving the bot flag request process

Hello everyone, recently I threw together Wikidata:Requests for permissions/Preload/Bot and I think it would be great if we could improve it and get a standard request template going. I was also thinking to have the RfP bot request section look something like this. Any opinions? -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 08:22, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Good but perhaps put link about policy for bots in wikidata. I don't know if bot policy exists, if no, perhaps it would be good to reuse some policy from one wikipedia in order to have similar guidances. Snipre (talk) 09:44, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
A bot-policy proposal exsists at Wikidata:Bots.--Snaevar (talk) 12:13, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
The reason our bot policy is not linked is because we currently use the standard bot policy. (I don't know if that is the correct name) -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 16:29, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Wrong. The standard bot policy is only implemented after an proposal has been made (see meta:Bot policy/Implementation). This proposal has never been requested on wikidata, therefore it is not in use on wikidata. We do however let stewards grant bot-flag rights on wikidata as we do not have any community appointed bureaucrats.--Snaevar (talk) 18:20, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
My mistake, I was under the impression that the standard bot policy if there is no local approved discussion. Either way, any opinions on the pages I made? -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 02:53, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
I would add an field for bot framework to the preloading page. Other than that they are good as they are.--Snaevar (talk) 12:34, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Capital property

Probably the wrong place, but ... Does the capital property Property:P36 apply only to current capitals or does it include former ones as well? – Philosopher Let us reason together. 17:29, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Once qualifiers are enabled, there's no reason that it couldn't be used for former ones. For now I'd personally avoid adding former capitals, for simplicity's sake, but I also wouldn't remove any that are already listed. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 17:41, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) All properties should apply to both current and former states, as we will (hopefully) soon be able to add qualifiers to the properties. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:43, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) With most properties there is an understanding that 'qualifiers' (basically another field within the statement) will be used to differentiate data for one property at different points in time. Although I have a hard time seeing how this design would not complicate downstream use, the answer to your question seems to be "yes, include former ones", though I think until you can "qualify" it, doing so would only be confusing. It's hard to start discussions or do much of anything when only 1/3 of a database feature set has been rolled out... Espeso (talk) 17:44, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
I would say add them for now, and add qualifiers to them later. Jeblad (talk) 19:41, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for all the input. Based on the split opinion here, I'll hold off on adding former capitals myself. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 17:27, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Deployment of Wikidata on the English language Wikipedia

Just a heads-up that the deployment of phase 1 (language links) on en:wp is still planned for Monday evening UTC. I expect a few more people to become aware of Wikidata and show up here then. If there are any questions please let me know. I'll post here as usual when it is done. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 12:58, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

next office hours

Hey :)

The next Wikidata office hour on IRC in English will be on February 16th (so in 1 week) at 20:00 UTC. It'll happen in #wikimedia-office on freenode. Denny and I will give a short report on the current state of Wikidata and what's next and then answer whatever question you might have. I hope to see you there. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 16:03, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Reference

I suggest making references off for certain properties as it is not needed there. Example: A sex property needs only male/female options. Demanding reference for that make it look funny.--Nizil Shah (talk) 21:16, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

There are people who's sex can't readily be described as male or female.
Anyway: I do agree that it would be nice to mark properties that don't usually demand a source, but it should still be possible to give one, in cases where the property was, for some reason, disputed. -- Duesentrieb (talk) 22:20, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

intro video to Wikidata

I am working on a video (infographic-style) that explains the idea behind Wikidata in 2 or 3 minutes to someone new to it. I want this to look as professional as possible so it can be used for example on the main page here if you want, at conferences as well as in the press. Is there anyone here who is good at this and willing to help me make this happen? I have the story-board mostly ready now. It's time to make the actual video now. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 13:03, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

  • I can try, but not with promising anything and it might take some time. But maybe it'll be better if I start if no one else is willing to. 20:16, 9 February 2013 (UTC) That's me, edited from http instead https... Lazowik (talk) 20:21, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

place of death

Tried to enter the place of death for Jean-Philippe Rameau about six times: Paris. Not possible to find the right Paris ;( I'll give up. --85.181.67.160 05:05, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Done. The trick is to add an alias to the right Paris (can be accessed through France), and type the alias for the property value. Admittedly, it's not very efficient, but oh well. However, if someone could try to remove test.png from Canada... -- Ypnypn (talk) 05:25, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
There is an on-going discussion about how to find the correct item when there are a lot of similar entries. One solution is to use the item ID in those cases (not in production yet) but there could be other solutions too, like using boolean search (France AND Paris) or indirection (France/capial). Jeblad (talk) 12:26, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
It is confusing that you have to write a small q (e.g. q1234) in the item number, while pages are always named with capital first letter (Q1234). I am also missing a preview feature, before storing an edit. 79.136.47.183 17:18, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Scheduled time for read-only mode

Hey :)

We'll have to migrate Wikidata and do some database schema changes. For this the site will have to be read-only for a bit. The window that's scheduled for this is February 20 19:00 UTC to February 21 02:00 UTC. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:19, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Translation of properties

When I have my language set to someone which have no translation for property, I am not able to recognize how to translate it unless i set my language to english and then back to my language.

e.g:

  1. http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P71?setlang=cs I see nothing
  2. http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P71?setlang=en I can see original name (family)
  3. http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P71?setlang=cs Now I can translate it (čeleď)

It would be fine when untranslated properties are displayed in english (in field [enter label (english name of property)]

JAn Dudík (talk) 13:29, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree, I was just going to write exactly the same.--Arnaugir (talk) 13:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
near to "cist" you have "labels list". it open a kind of pop-up with the label in all language. so you didn't need to go to english. -- yona b (talk) 14:05, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict... in the middle of a fucking server failure, too) Do you have labelLister enabled in your Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets? — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 14:08, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
nOt in monobook, only in vector. JAn Dudík (talk) 14:11, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
you can start from http://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllPages&from=&to=&namespace=120 there you get the list of all properties. all un-translate you see in english and you can see the descreption when you are with corsour in the property. (i check, it work in monobok too). -- yona b (talk) 14:25, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Yeah... that's one of several reasons I've had to reluctantly switch to Vector here for the time being. Still, labelLister makes things sooo much faster that it's worth being conformist and using this dumb skin. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 14:28, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Is something being done about this? Not considering temporary/gadget solutions. Please provide fallback language(s) by default, all existing translations; or something. Njardarlogar (talk) 16:56, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

It is on the roadmap but this is difficult and will take some more time. Sorry. Watch bugzilla:36430 for updates. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:44, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Demo wikidata

The Demo wikidata is blocked for editing. Is there a reason for that? Nobody can create a userid and hence not work on Items or Properties. Other pages cannot be edited too, not even talkpages. HenkvD (talk) 10:47, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

We'll look into it. For now you can log in with demo as the username and test as the password as described on the main page of the repository. That works for me. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:18, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I now remember I read it. I was able to create a userid before, which got deleted after a refresh. I assumed I could create a userid again. HenkvD (talk) 16:51, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, obviously the setting got overwritten during last week's update of our demo instance. It's fixed now. 93.220.121.215 08:34, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

AGF and NPA pages

While I am very sure everyone would agree in general with these, there are some details that need to be worked out, for example, blocking for personal attacks.--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:57, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, in particular, what should be done about personal attacks should correspond with consensus based on our community, not on the English Wikipedia's community. Whether we should remove them, whether it is a blockable offense, etc. should be decided by us and not simply copied. I don't have many qualms about copying the assuming good faith page, since there isn't much of an alternative to that and it's the basis of most wiki-communities. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 20:29, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
The "no personal attacks" one should be defined by us, not just copied. Assume good faith is pretty standard. Ajraddatz (Talk) 18:28, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I haven't yet read either page but I imagine that in general the majority of 'policies' from each page could translate directly across to wikidata. It would probably be a good idea to setup a form of request for comment / approval for both of the above pages dividing each into its smaller 'policies' which could then be commented on by the general wikidata community before being 'set in stone'. ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 20:34, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
These are good essays, but they're really, really wordy. The one that doesn't have a nutshell, the NPA page, needs one. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:26, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

question of levels

Please find here. Conny (talk) 17:39, 11 February 2013 (UTC).

Notice to create Properties after discussion

After some quick discussion, I have edited MediaWiki:Newproperty-summary to add a notice to the top of Special:NewProperty. See the current version below.

MediaWiki:Newproperty-summary

Hopefully this will encourage people to discuss Properties a little better before creating them. Would be good to get this translated for all our other languages too, of course.

What do you all think?

James F. (talk) 21:34, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Great idea. Ajraddatz (Talk) 21:40, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Brilliant, hope that helps people understand the correct procedure. Del♉sion23 (talk) 21:45, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Good... for example I expected some properties to be there (e.g. population) and only after seeing those pages I could understand what was going on. -- CristianCantoro (talk) 22:51, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Good idea, but if we want the 2-3 days thing to work, more people really need to get involved with WD:Property proposal. It currently has 8 less watchers than my enwp userpage. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 03:58, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
+1. Conny (talk) 16:47, 9 February 2013 (UTC).
Could someone maybe put up a link to Property proposal in the sitenotice? Like, Please use the [[Wikidata:Project chat#Problems with Phase 2|project chat]] to discuss issues. Please see (and watchlist!) [[Wikidata:Property proposal]] to get involved in property creation. Underline to show addition; not intended for actual markup. ... It's getting pretty backlogged. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 02:09, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

List of supported languages

I did not find a list of supported languages. E.g. I am on "de-formal" which makes it impossible to use Phase 2. Are there plans to make wikidata usable for all languages including variants? Cheers --[[kgh]] (talk) 14:31, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

The list of supported languages are basically what you find in the ULS-box. The link is beside the link to your user page (that is top of page in the Modern and Vector skins). If you want to make Wikidata usable in a specific language you (or someone) must translate the messages to that language (in Translatwiki.net - example), and then start translating some of the labels and descriptions. As a minimum you should try to translate the labels for properties (can be listed by Special:Allpages). There is two interpretations of variants, one is for all parts that can be handled just any other form of a language and one is for the automatic transliteration to work. The first one is handled as any other translation, the second one is not supported for multilingual strings like labels, descriptions and sitelinks. Jeblad (talk) 16:04, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Ah, ok, fair enough. Since it is not possible to pick "de-formal" there it is not possible to use "de-formal" on this wiki. The problem is probably that it has "de" as fallback and not that it is not "fully" translated (which in fact it is). Hmm, a feature request would be that edits made with "de-formal" should be made for "de". Cheers and thanks for your infos. --[[kgh]] (talk) 21:07, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Minangkabau Wikipedia

Hello there!

How to add a code language in the List of pages linked to this item to linked articles from Minangkabau Wikipedia? Wagino 20100516 (talk) 01:55, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Hello, unless I'm mistaken, that language is already supported. — Hazard-SJ  ✈  02:01, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Typing 'min' in the language code add-box does not bring up a drop down with Minangkabau. Filceolaire (talk) 14:20, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Looks like that Wikidata doesn't support it yet, because it's just opened: Create Wikipedia Minangkabau. --Stryn (talk) 14:28, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
For example, how to added Michelangelo article link into Q5592? Wagino 20100516 (talk) 02:23, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
We're working on it. We already added it to some setting but it needs to be poked in more places it seems. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:29, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
It should now work. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 20:18, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I've been tested it and success. Thanks so much for quick response. Wagino 20100516 (talk) 06:16, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Status of claim diffs and autocomments

Hey :)

Since I know you need them and are waiting for them I wanted to give you a quick update on automatic edit comments for claims and for working diffs for them. They're mostly working now and are scheduled to be rolled out with the next deployment here. This is currently scheduled for next Monday. As usual unforseen things might happen but that's the current plan. Thanks for being patient with us about this. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:36, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Another addition that you probably care about: It looks like we can deploy adding items to claims by their ID as well next Monday. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 19:52, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Search sucks

If I search for "New York City", the actual city is on the 2nd page of results. Is there any way that this could be improved? Kaldari (talk) 21:50, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes that's being worked on at the moment. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 22:07, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
The Item Disambiguation search is a good alternative, but case sensitive. --Sixsi6ma (talk) 22:57, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Adminship reconfirmations and translation administrators

Starting a thread to gauge whether we those who fail re-confirmation adminship should also get translation adminship re-confirmed if they requested it on Meta-Wiki. I would support a standard, five-day re-confirmation election for all of those who fail their initial re-confirmation and did not get a local consensus on getting translation administrator. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 06:55, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

  • Someone should probably go through the Meta logs regarding this. To my recollection, some of the translation admins are temporary according to Meta, but some are permanent. I don't think making the ones who already lost adminship go through a reconfirmation if their flag will be removed already; that would be adding insult to injury. If they want to keep the flag, they can file a new RfP. --Rschen7754 07:16, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
  • That's a fair point. If they are temporary, then there is no cause for issue. We might want to confirm that they are all temporary, though. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 07:26, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Let's look on the facts:

  1. TA rights for some users have been given (and voted) separately from admin rights.
  2. The current admins confirmation procedure does not mention anything about the voting would be also about TA rights.
  3. TA rights are completely independent on admin rights.

From this the assumption seems to be that current removals of TA rights don't have any basis, thus I would advocate to give them back to those who have been removed.
— Danny B. 10:07, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

redirects

In german Wikipedia we have a Redirection from footballplayer to football. But we need own article for Property:P106... What to do? Conny (talk) 19:30, 11 February 2013 (UTC).

Excellent question. I have browsed through the French and English help pages about interlanguage links over redirects. Nothing in the help page, some interesting questions on the English Talk pages en:Help_talk:Interlanguage_links#IW's in redirects?. As far as I could see, nothing forbids to insert an interwiki link on a redirect page. So you _could_ put an interlanguage towards the English article en:Football player on the german redirect de:Fußballspieler. You can also simply enter a label and a description in German on Q937857, but I don't feel it as pleasant as my first idea. I shall try to find a few interesting examples where conditions are met where an interlanguage link on a redirect might be useful. Touriste (talk) 19:51, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
You can't add redirects to Wikidata. So your second solution is better, just add label and description, and that's it. --Stryn (talk) 20:08, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
This is interesting (and quite absurd for my taste, since redirects and articles are not frozen and pages can evolve between both states). Question : imagine that some item Q123456789 refers to an article in French in its "List of pages linked to this item". This article becomes a redirect, for instance following a merge decision. How does the "List of pages linked to this item" evolve in Q123456789 ? Touriste (talk) 20:29, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Auto-answer after some research to find an example : the page in French fr:Patinoire Clemenceau has been an article from its creation a bit more than two years ago until February 8th, where it has been transformed into a redirection. The article was originally interlinked with en:La Patinoire Municpale so when wikidata was initialized a few weeks ago, both articles were linked towards the same item Q3368770. Now, the page in French is no longer an article but has become a redirect, it is nonetheless still linked towards Q3368770. So it seems possible to add a redirect to Wikidata - you just need to transform it for a few minutes into a full article, link it there, and then make it back to its redirect state - I have just tried it on Q937857 to link de:Fußballspieler there and it works ! Touriste (talk) 21:09, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
We should not do that. What then if every links are redirects? Okey, don't even tell it ;) --Stryn (talk) 21:12, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Ah, that means so long at least one Wikipedia has an article it works - understandig. It would be a little hard to find the right on, when english not have - but we will see. Thank you all, Conny (talk) 20:26, 11 February 2013 (UTC).

Bug 40755 is a possibility to mark redirects with interwikilinks. --Fomafix (talk) 10:56, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Page without label (though fixed)

Found a page Q2124420 without a label, and from a bot edit. Can I suggest that pages without labels could be quite problematic, both from the system point of view, and also for how the bots are managing it. I am presuming that there is a logic that stops it in the form, and that some logic needs to be implemented for bots, or a checking process to fix it, or the system selects a label if the field is left empty.  — billinghurst sDrewth 04:29, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

FYI: This is common. The vast majority of items without an en-wp article will not have an English label until someone adds it manually. This would be true for any other language where there is no WP article in that language--until it is added manually. (I see that Help:Label#No page on English Wikipedia suggests that all items should have English labels.) Espeso (talk) 06:06, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
This is the case for 60% of all WikiData Items in the english language, in other languages it is even more. If you want to help to fix it you can join the Labels and descriptions task force --Sixsi6ma (talk) 11:34, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Have to reschedule deployment on the English Wikipedia

We unfortunately ran into issues when deploying on the English Wikipedia. We'll have to reschedule the deployment. Currently it looks like we'll do this on Wednesday. Sorry folks. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 22:05, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

We'll do another attempt later today. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:46, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
There were unfortunately too many other issues unrelated to Wikidata so we also had to call off this one. Sorry. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 19:37, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

question about updates

Hi all, I have a general question about how data is being updated -- sorry I haven't been following all the discussion :)

Is a bot harvesting new interlanguage links that are being created? For instance in the last few days two links (for pms: & uz:) were added for Marie Curie: it: en:

But these are not yet reflected in the wikidata entry. Will a bot update these eventually, or are we relying on updates by hand? Thanks! -- Phoebe (talk) 23:45, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think currently any bot is doing that (but might be wrong). I expect this to change very quickly though once en:wp and then the rest are using Wikidata. I'd guess it's a matter of days after that. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 12:11, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Wikidata:Requests for permissions/Legobot 3 might be what you're looking for. — Hazard-SJ  ✈  01:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Providing direction on place name labels

Having just <deskthunk>'d through a fix of the places called Woodstock, can I please suggest that having some rigour on place names would be advantageous, and putting that into instructions to contributors. I would suggest that a minimum of a two component place name would be desirable, eg. "Woodstock, Maine"v "Woodstock, Oxfordshire", etc., though know that for the US, that when talking about smaller towns, that a three component function may have an advantage "eg, Brooklyn, Kings, New York", "Helena, Lewis and Clark, Montana". Official records of the US are already designated similarly, so if we are looking to pair record sets, and to other data, thinking through such alignments early is going to be advantageous. I would even say that there are governments that have data sets available to download, eg, VICNAMES has https://services.land.vic.gov.au/vicnames/placeName.html?method=exportList Anyway, just some thought-bubbles.  — billinghurst sDrewth 04:44, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree, though there seems to be an unwritten(?) rule that disambiguating material is supposed to go in the descriptions rather than the labels. For example your recent label change from "Woodstock" to "Woodstock, Oxfordshire" reverses this rule, which was originally put into a bot's logic when items were created. It seems that the disambiguating material in English Wikipedia article names was consistently stripped from titles (if it came after a comma or a parenthesis for example). I am referring to an English WP article title like "Foo (song)" or "Helena, Montana" that now has a title label here of "Foo" and "Helena", with the disambiguation going in the description. Great in theory, maybe, but in practice it makes the current interface very annoying, and there are probably tens of thousands of entries times numerous languages that need this treatment. IMO we have (or will have) better things to do then trivially replace information that was already there in most cases. Espeso (talk) 05:40, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
It's not an unwritten rule. You can read following pages: Help:Label and Help:Description. So if we have items which have the same name, then description gives more info. --Stryn (talk) 05:51, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
I figured it was written somewhere. Help:Label doesn't explain what exactly is wrong with "Cambridge, Massachusetts" as a label. Everyone is complaining about the difficult Item lookups within statements. I've seen quite a few wrong Item choices with the same label in statements that I can't be bothered fixing because it's going to keep happening until the infrastructure improves. Espeso (talk) 06:11, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
The problem is that these items aren't being given the appropriate aliases and descriptions. The point of descriptions is to disambiguate between items to avoid this kind confusion. Disambiguating content should not be added to labels. --Yair rand (talk) 08:12, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
There is a major problem with finding the right location page in the drop down menu as witness the numerous comments here. Adding disambiguation as proposed above would help a lot. Is there any reason not to do this? Note that at present this disambiguation is added to the Description but this is no help as the Description is not visible in the drop down menu. Can we have some feedback from the developers as to how they are thinking about fixing this problem? Filceolaire (talk) 20:21, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
What drop down menu are you referring to? The one for adding statement values shows descriptions. I'm not aware of any that don't. --Yair rand (talk) 20:25, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

We don't add a disambiguation to the label because it would go directly against the key goal of WikiData, to collect structured data. For future use especially outside of WikiPedia it is imperative to maintain machine readability and therefore we need a sheer "Name". --Sixsi6ma (talk) 22:03, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Data model issues

It might be a bit late to have this discussion, but I've been noticing quite a few potential problems with the planned data model. Most of these come from the fact that statements, items, properties, sources, sitelinks, and qualifiers are all viewed as basically fundamentally different things, when many of them have largely overlapping requirements which will largely be unfulfilled by the planned data model. To give some examples:

  • An item's property will frequently be something that could have its own item, or be its own item. For example, we might have an item for "Earth" and it could have a property "Population" which would hold some values, indicating what the population was at various times, and such. But we also have an item for the population of earth itself. The contents of this item would be exactly that of the Population part of the Earth item. One item's entity is another items statement collection.
  • Statements have qualifiers, which supply additional data about the statement. The qualifiers are effectively statements about statements, but missing some important functionality. For example, unless I'm mistaken, there will be no way to add sources to qualifiers. If someone adds a qualifier to the statement indicating Barack Obama's status as president (not to be confused with the item about the that status), saying that it ended on 12/02/2013, we would want to have a source for it, but there would be no way to add it. (Note that the statement's matching yet unconnected item would not have any problem containing this info along with a source.) How will we deal with that?
  • Furthermore, if I understand correctly, there will be no way to add qualifiers to qualifiers, ie statements about statements about statements, (multiple of which could, for all we know, have items that are identical to them). This is probably going to cause problems, leading to overly specific qualifier values, and a resulting mess, much like people are having now with statements that can't have qualifiers.
  • Sitelinks, in certain cases, need to have statements about them, for example that something is a featured article. The probable resolution to this is "badges" which seems like a bit of a strange hack to me, tbh. These badges will probably not be able to have qualifiers ("FA as of 08/02/2009"), nor associated sitelinks.
  • It is impossible to add statements or sitelinks to property pages, or indicate that there is an associated item. There is no way to use an item as a property, and properties, rather than being a specific type of item, are an independent type of entity, in their own namespace. They can also not be used as a property value, which will probably have ramifications of its own.
  • Source statements can not have sources of their own. So, if someone wants to say that according to X, Y made a statement about Z, that would be impossible. Again, the likely workarounds will be very far from ideal.

I know a lot of work has been done based on the current and planned data model, but there are a bunch of serious problems with it, and I'm not sure these will be resolvable without reworking some things. We ought to find out if the model is a workable plan before expanding on it past the point where we can't feasibly go back. --Yair rand (talk) 12:05, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Much food for thought here. How hard would it be to recast qualifiers as statements about statements, and allow statements about them, and statements about those statements, etc? Likewise sources about sources? I could see these being very useful.
I'm not so sure that using an item as a property would be very sensible. Take "population" for example. We'll want to have a property to be able to state that the human population of item I was X (at time T, according to S), for instance. We have an item Population, but the English Wikipedia article linked there covers a hodgepodge of different concepts: population genetics, the world population, population growth and decline, and population control. It only briefly touches on issues around measuring human populations, which would be more relevant to the Wikidata property.
Yes, we have numerous items on populations of particular areas: e.g. Munich, Canada, and the world. But their linked articles often go well beyond a simple collection of statements about what that population was, into the reasons for change, future implications, demographic breakdowns, etc. It would be good to be able to link these items somehow to the items for their respective areas, or perhaps even to specific statements. --Avenue (talk) 00:02, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Main Pages

Many main pages use a defined subset of interwikilings I just noticed on the Hungarian Wikipedia that this would be not possible any more. Could there be a solution.--Livermorium (talk) 18:27, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

We just experienced the same problem at the English Wikipedia's main page (apparently during a brief test of the Wikidata deployment).
Is there a means of locally suppressing the list provided by Wikidata? If not, please remove the English Wikipedia's main page until this oversight is addressed. Thank you. —David Levy 20:22, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
See "Mixing Wikidata and local interlanguage links". —Naddy (talk) 21:38, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! It would be helpful to document this at Help:FAQ or another Wikidata information page. —David Levy 22:14, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Search gadget

Hello, I saw a message about the search gadget not working in Monobook, and after some checks, found that this is the case for all skins but Vector. I've updated MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition to only appear in Special:Preferences for users who use Vector. Also, it would be nice if someone would extend the gadget to work with other skins, especially Monobook. Thanks. — Hazard-SJ  ✈  01:08, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Inconsistency in page titles

Sorry if that has already been mentionned, but the page titles of properties seem to follow a different logic than those of properties: Property:P22 vs just Q22. Is there any reason why we do not simply have P22 ? And am I the only one to find it confusing ? --Zolo (talk) 09:54, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Pages which are in the main namespace (=items) have Q-prefix. And P (properties) are in the property-namespace, that's why it can't be without "Property:". --Stryn (talk) 09:57, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
hmm true. But then I would prefer without the P, it has a mistleading similarity with the Qs. --Zolo (talk) 10:13, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Then again, I don't see any outstanding reason why it couldn't be P:22. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 16:27, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
It actually simply could by setting up an alias.
— Danny B. 10:32, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
An alias would make it P:P22, actually. --Yair rand (talk) 10:43, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Bug 44946 may provide a nice solution to the problem, if that allows the creation of a template {{P}} displaying the label in addition to the cryptic property ID. --Zolo (talk) 12:52, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
But I would also support the creation of an alias "P"n there will still be an inconsistency with items, but that would be quicker to type regarless. --Zolo (talk) 12:57, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Change Wikipedia?

How to do with articles (Q3341576) which are in one Wikipedia articles and in others disambigations? Do we need two Items for that or should we change the Wikipedias? Conny (talk) 16:26, 10 February 2013 (UTC).

What do you mean? I think fr:Nikola Tesla (homonymie)<->fr:Nikola Tesla<->fr:Nikola Tesla (Niška Banja) is a valid constellation. IW 16:35, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
De Disambigations here. Conny (talk) 16:37, 10 February 2013 (UTC).
Q3876914 should be integrated into Q3341576 in my opinion. IW 16:42, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree. --Stryn (talk) 16:45, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
  Done. IW 16:52, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you very much, sometimes the easy things ;) . But: Is it ok, that we have to Items of the Person Nikola Tesla - a Personartikelcollection and a Disambigation? Maybe french interface user wants to get some Infos about the person - add the statements to disambigation is rudundancy, but not, user will not find details... :( Conny (talk) 18:59, 10 February 2013 (UTC).
It is okay to have a disambiguation data page with only one disambiguation link, if that is your question. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 16:37, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
But if one Wikipedia has Disambigation and one a personartikle? Than we have two times f. E. Nicola Tesla in Wikidata... Conny (talk) 16:38, 10 February 2013 (UTC).
You can only link WikiPedia pages of the same type with one item, e.g. article with articles, disambiguation page with disambiguation pages etc. Items with non-article pages like disambiguation pages, lists, categories etc. can be identified based on the description, identical labels are therefore not a problem. --Sixsi6ma (talk) 00:56, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
This is what we have done elsewhere: One wikidata page for the articles and another wikidata page for the disambiguation pages, even if there is only one disambiguation page. Filceolaire (talk) 23:03, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Some wikipedia's has another idea what a disambiguation page is then another so in theory there could be an item that has disambiguation pages and normal pages in it. With the interwiki pywikipedia bots that was an item group, that was very hard to keep alive, but here that is on the options that is possible. Carsrac (talk) 17:13, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Bot requests?

Do we have a page for simple bot requests? I see for instance that the English description of 110 items listed here in the "Municipality" column would be "administrative division of Latvia", and that most of these descriptions (if not all of them are missing). Adding it by hands would be couple of hours of my time. Is there a simple centralized way I can ask a bot owner to do it? (I assume it costs much less time to the bot owner, otherwise it does not make sense).--Ymblanter (talk) 10:16, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

You can make a request here: Wikidata:Bot requests. --Stryn (talk) 10:19, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:22, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Q9036: Nikola Tesla

I can't add a description on brazillian portuguese.--MisterSanderson (talk) 01:36, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I ran a test under Brazilian Portuguese and was able to add a test description normally. What description would you like to add? (I don't know portuguese enough to add a correct translation) Regards, — Moe Epsilon 05:10, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I tried again and now I could add.--MisterSanderson (talk) 15:54, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Now it's happening with Q901207 and Q250. Is useful to inform here about these problems?--MisterSanderson (talk) 14:53, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Do you have "www.", if not then try again with this. See also: Changes of an item can not be saved when on "wikidata.org" (without "www."). --Stryn (talk) 17:16, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for the link.--MisterSanderson (talk) 21:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Place for questions about deployment on all Wikipedias

I'm preparing the global announcement about the deployment on all Wikipedias. I'd like to offer them one central place to come to with questions so we don't have this spread out over all the village pumps if possible. I'd like this place to be on Wikidata and the Project Chat is probably not the best place for it. Ideas/suggestions? --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:56, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

If this place should be here it definitely should not be the Project Chat, but rather Wikidata:Help desk or smth like this. However, especially in big projects, users will not come here; you should offer IRC assistance, and also somehow monitor the dedicated pages of at least ten major Wikipedias.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:17, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes I will do that. But I'm simply not able to do that for 280+ of them obviously :) --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 16:21, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
No, I am only talking about the ten major ones. Others usually know that there are other projects as well, not only theirs.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:27, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
I would say that the announcement should link to help pages that answer common Wikipedia questions about Wikidata as well.--Snaevar (talk) 19:54, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Jep that is a good idea too. Does anyone want to start such a page? Or do we have something already that fits? Besides that we still need a place for people to ask questions though I think. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 20:13, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Hmm actually we already have meta:Wikidata/Deployment Questions. Anyone want to help update and expand this? --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 20:14, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Need to do very quickly, since you just deployed Phase I on English Wikipedia. Will try to do what I can, but definitely more help is needed.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:34, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you so much! --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 20:46, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Lydia, you write in the blog post that one can now enable Wikidata edits in the Wikipedia watchlist. How is this done?--Ymblanter (talk) 21:59, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
They should show up automatically for articles you're watching on that Wikipedia and that are connected with an item on Wikidata afaik. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 22:03, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Ok, I see, thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:04, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Did the greek version but it still lacks some questions because they haven't yet been imported in the translation tool - Badseed (talk) 22:06, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! And oh right. I need to mark them as translatable. I'll do that now. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 22:08, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Problem adding an item for a property when too many items have the same title

There is a problem when you want to add an item to a property which has too many items with the same title: only the first seven are available. For example, in French, you can't add the item "France" to the property "country" on Rue Saint-Louis-en-l'Île... --Ayack (talk) 21:21, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I had problems with Moscow (the capital of Russia) and solved them by typing Moscow, R... then I got the right item in the dropdown menu.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:57, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
It doesn't work for me. When you want to add town = Paris, you can't have the right item in the dropdown menu whether you are in French or in English... --Ayack (talk) 22:10, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Sure. But what happens if you type "Paris, France" and see what you get in the menu?--Ymblanter (talk) 22:13, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Just checked myself, does not work for me either.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:16, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
(conflict) In French, I have only Q3365091 and Q3365093 which are not the right items... --Ayack (talk) 22:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Solved in English by adding to Paris the alias Paris, France.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:49, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
There has been discussed some alternate approaches, I guess we have to think faster! :D Jeblad (talk) 23:29, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
I suggest displaying all items that are a perfect match to the text inputted, even if it means expanding the box. --Yair rand (talk) 01:28, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
A way I found that works is to use an item's alias. For example, I use "The Golden State" instead of 'California.' For important items I guess we could just create temporary aliases such a California1, set the item as needed then delete the extra alias. --Macadamia1472 (talk) 04:37, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
May be adding the quiery number as an alias? Or forcing properties to accept the quiery number.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:01, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Ewww. Not good. I've filed this as bugzilla:44677. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 13:36, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I tried to add the fact that Hedmark is a county in Norway (a small European country that some of you may heard of). The interface suggests a disambig page, plus some places named Norway in Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Michigan and New York, all in USA. Trying hard not to be offended by this. ;) But I'm a bit stumped by the fact that I can't just enter "Q20" in the box and be done with it. - Soulkeeper (talk) 16:41, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I added it, was easy, because it was first choice in Finnish language :) Id's (Qxx) would be the best solution. --Stryn (talk) 16:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I haven't started yet with statements, but an option could be to add the description to the dropdown list. --NaBUru38 (talk) 20:52, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
I think that the Q-value should be an option to add the value. In this way if you know the resource ID you can easily add it to the property Fale (talk) 13:23, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
+1. The use of the Q-value would be a great help, especially for more difficult properties than "place of birth". --Kolja21 (talk) 13:03, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
That should be in with the next deployment. See bugzilla:44823. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 15:14, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Use scope of "is a" (P31)

I'm quite frustrated by the way that Wikidata is going (mostly English-centered). The best example is the use of property P31 (is a). Further comments are here. Wizardist (talk) 21:02, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I would like to propose that we stop using "is a" for now. First, it may be superceded by the so called "instanceOf" element ("snak"?) later. Second, its use is not defined yet, even if we were to use it. I believe it is intended to classify an entity very broadly, in line with authority control classification schemes: person, place, event, work, and so on. (In a database with no limit on the type of objects represented, you need a broad way to separate entries about people from entries about <whatever> without having to guess from other properties.) Espeso (talk) 21:15, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Proposal: What if we use this property for the "entities" of GND (person, name, corporate body, event, work, term, place)? --Sannita - not just another it.wiki sysop 19:06, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
GND is a good basis, but I'm not entirely happy with the list. For one thing, "name" doesn't seem to fit in - when do we have an item about a name? Also, a few things seem to be missing: "time" - for items representing years, etc; "idea" for abstract things like, say, "transitivity"; and perhaps also a very broad "topic", for things like "politics" or "physics"; "process" may also be necessary (for things like "birth" or even "life").
It's tricky to come up with a list that covers most of the concepts we want to describe, but doesn't get too long or complicated...
I suggest to just keep using "is-a" broadly and cautiously. It's vague, but still useful. -- Duesentrieb (talk) 22:18, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Can "Is a" call a template? i.e. "Is a: is the first property. When selected you get a drop down menu of links to templates for Person, Organisation, Place, Work etc. then once you select one of those you get a further drop down menu (Artist, sportsman, soccer player, politician). Selecting one of those imports a template of standard properties associated with that type of entity; with the option to add other properties at the bottom if needed. Maybe "Is a" isn't the best name for this? Filceolaire (talk) 14:11, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
We already have items about names, f.e. Q951924. Nikola (talk) 16:28, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Import statements

New tool. Generates statements from en.wp templates (e.g. Taxobox). Follows redirects, finds corresponding wikidata item. Fully automated. Example. More templates/keys can be added to the code easily. Enjoy. --Magnus Manske (talk) 00:21, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I have tested it on Q266883 and it seems to work nicely. However, it raises a couple of issues:
  1. Does it really make sense to add the whole taxonomic tree ? That essentially the same problem as #Bonus question.
  2. Do we want to have tools that allow to mass-add statements without proper sources ? Reprocessing them later may not be that easy. I would suggest that we wait for the possiblity to provide precise sources, and then try to import data from authoritative databases. --Zolo (talk) 09:53, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
I do not think we should add the whole taxonomic tree. The taxon rank and the next rank should be enough. That would also make maintenance easier since a piece of information would not be copied on thousands of pages. Taxon data might be mass exported from wikispecies. For example species:Canis lupus chanco has easily identifiable references. --Jarekt (talk) 14:54, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

We're live on the English Wikipedia

Wohoooo. Third time's a charm. We're live on the English Wikipedia with phase 1. A blog post is here as usual. Please let me know about any issues. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 21:01, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Congrats! On with the other wikipedias now and, most importantly, phase 2! - Badseed (talk) 22:10, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

That's great, finally the client is live on a language that I understand. :-D Njardarlogar (talk) 22:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Well done! Onwards and upwards. Del♉sion23 (talk) 22:18, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

That's good news :) Regards, — Moe Epsilon 22:24, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Awww thank you folks :) Next Wikipedias are coming soon now hopefully (around 27th). --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 22:25, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
But even they can already check if their articles have items here at Wikidata - User:Yair rand/WikidataInfo.js for your common.js. --09:28, 14 February 2013 (UTC), Utar (talk)

Translation of interface messages

Hello. There is a place where I can suggest/ask for translation of interface messages?--MisterSanderson (talk) 01:57, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure if I understand correctly, but it sounds like what translatewiki.org is already doing. However there is some very complicated path between translatewiki translations and wikipedia or Commons interface. Doing some of it in the future at wikidata might make the setup easier. --Jarekt (talk) 04:23, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
All messages used by MediaWiki are translated on translatewiki.net. --β16 - (talk) 08:51, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Interwiki links for other Wikimedia projects

Should Wikidata also include interwiki links for Wikisource, Wiktionary and other Wikimedia projects than just Wikipedia? --Neo-Jay (talk) 07:08, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Eventually it will. The developers are working on it. See #Using Wikidata in Wiktionary above and check the archives. Legoktm (talk) 07:09, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Many thanks for your information! --Neo-Jay (talk) 07:17, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Creation of Chemistry task force

Creation of Wikidata:Chemistry task force to regroup all elements about chemistry. Snipre (talk) 12:06, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

switch between two lang

Hi, I want to translate Property:P86 for fa.wiki in Q183 how can I switch between farsi and english? Now when I check Q183, it shows Property:P86 needs to translate but how can I understand what is this! and when I want to check it in english lang I should chang my lang preference ! Reza1615 (talk) 13:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

On the top line, next to your username there is your selected language. Click on this, or on either of the mysterious icons next to it to get a dialog for changing your user language. If you select Farsi while on P86 then you will see a a dialog box which invites you to type in a Farsi name for this property. Filceolaire (talk) 15:05, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Q1218

I created this item in the first day of Wikidata, it is about Jerusalem. I created a description in English which was "city in Israel". Yesterday, someone changed it to 'capital of Israel'. Whether Jerusalem is a capital of Israel is a heated political issue, with I believe no UNO member (except Israel) recognizing it as such. I changed the description to "a city Israel claims to be its capital" and predictably got accused in POV, see bottom of my talk page. So far, my attempts that the descriptions should not be political were unsuccessful, and now another user asked the very same question on the talk page of the quiery. I would know what to do in Wikipedia, but I am completely lost here. May be somebody could help me, at best by participating on the talk page discussion. I am pretty sure similar issues have been previously raised on Wikidata, but I peresonally never came across any of them. Thanks in advance.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:59, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Honestly, I've never heard of the debate before. Looking at the English Wikipedia article, they give this as reference for Jerusalem being the capital. It doesn't make much of a difference to me, and if it is debated then we could just call it a city, but this doesn't seem like a change worth fighting over. Ajraddatz (Talk) 16:06, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
You might be surprised how many editors will want to fight over this, especially once the data goes live in Wikipedia. My feeling is that disputed info should not be in the description, so it should go back to "city in Israel" or something similar. Once statements can have qualifiers, we should be able to deal with such cases better. --Avenue (talk) 20:38, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't think that it's necessary to say in the description if a city is or not the capital city of the country. I don't think that it would be wise to say that Rio de Janeiro is the former capital of Brazil, or Bonn was the former capital of Germany. They are cities, period. --NaBUru38 (talk) 21:04, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Agree with NaBUru38. The description only needs to be specific enough to differentiate the topic from similar topics. There is no need to have controversial details in the description. Any controversial claims should be saved for the Statements section (which can include numerous contradictory statements from different sources). Kaldari (talk) 18:44, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Looks like we have now massive POV pushing in the item.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:10, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
In both directions, apparently... --Yair rand (talk) 13:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Hmmm, what is your suggestion of a neutral description, then?--Ymblanter (talk) 13:24, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Well, "city in the Middle East" is both entirely neutral and avoids claims of sovereignty. James F. (talk) 19:38, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
I am not sure people who replace "city in Israel" with "capital in Israel" would be happy with the "city in the Middle East" - check the recent additions to the item's talk page.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:58, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Question about politician

Can we link Obama with United States Senate with the property office hold or we need to create an item senator ? Snipre (talk) 18:00, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

There should be an item for "senators from Illinois" and then Obama should link with that; "senators from Illinois" should have a property linking it to "United States Senate" - possibly something like "is part of legislature"? James F. (talk) 19:51, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Ok, but it is possible to have a larger overview: do we have an item for each function in addition of an item for senate, parlement,... ? Snipre (talk) 19:54, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Do we have such an item? In this particular case, there is Q1469461 but that is about the Wikipedia list "List of United States Senators from Illinois", not about the concept of there being "United States Senators from Illinois", which is intellectually impure. I'd be content to create a new item about US Senators for each state, and then make a ListOf property from the List items to the overall subject. James F. (talk) 22:13, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata and Internet explorer

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 44228

When I access Wikidata through Inernet explorer (different versions) I alway have problems, depending on the exact version. The main point is that it is impossible to edit or add anything except the talk pages. Is this just me or is IE unsupported? DGtal (talk) 13:16, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I had the exact same problem. No idea how to fix. The site works with Chrome. Remember (talk) 14:10, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Can you both please describe what problems you are seeing exactly? Other useful information: logged in, exact page it is happening on, what you were doing exactly, wether the same thing worked before, if you have any gadgets or similar things enabled. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 15:17, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Logged in, IE8, Q1330003, Q8577, or Q159354 as examples, can't edit. Wikidata pages which I saw earlier today from my machine at home (probably with a different version of IE) did have links to edit the pages (such as Q8577) which I was looking at then. - David Biddulph (talk) 16:41, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Confirmed IE9 at home, and edit available. - David Biddulph (talk) 20:11, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
I am not sure about IE9 but we have a bug about IE8 that has been fixed but fix not deployed yet: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/44228 Katie Filbert (WMDE) (talk) 10:43, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
I can edit non-Q##### pages in IE8, but not others; I'm having to use Firefox (ugg) to do that. When I load a page in IE8, the edit links appear, but they go away almost immediately, which is too quick for me to click them. I can still enter data into the line just below the big title (is that the description? I'm talking the line with the text "open world action role-playing video game" at File:Wikidata layout.png), but there's no save button, so I can't do anything with it. Nyttend (talk) 16:17, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

wikimedia commons, etc.

hi;

i spend a lot of my time sorting @ commons & cross-linking (both ways) categories with wp:en topics (& adding the links for other-language wikis to the commonscat page). i've nevere understood why we don't have more automation to handle these tasks, as (once the commonscat & wp topic are both in place) it's fairly "dumb" work matching them up (i.e.: should be possible to bot it & only need checking/review by humans). getting these cross-links in place (BOTH ways!) significantly improves the quality<usefullness of our services for the end-user.

the same would apply to wikisource, since it's also a fairly straighforward "raw" information collection. it also obviously applies to the other wikiprojects, but many of them require more complex "sematic-handling" to integrate. (wikispecies might be another case of an "easy" job).

now that i've finished my rant i'd like to know what wikidata is-doing/is-planning for integrating these databases. if you can point me to some relevant articles, i'd appreciate it; thus far, the only (easily-findable) info i've gotten was a passing-mention elsewhere on this page, suggesting that commons &c. would be added "later" o__0

as someone who has been working on this "problem" (at least as far as integrating wmc cats into wp:en articles, & getting inter-wiki links up on commons' category pages), & on the problems of organizing the commons category "schema", i'd be interested in helping with this (& helping it to happen faster/sooner).

Lx 121 (talk) 10:18, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi, sister projects are kept in mind. I hope to have some more concrete news soon for you. Poke me in 2 weeks if not please. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:18, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Since we have never managed to merge those dreadful Commons "galleries" with the mostly much more comprehensive "categories", Wikidata should maybe have two entries: one for a gallery, one for a category. --~~

Using Wikidata in Wiktionary

What about using Wikidata in Wiktionary? Do we need to create a separate repository? DonRumata (talk) 13:36, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Sister projects will be integrated at a later time. Ajraddatz (Talk) 13:53, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm afraid that the requirements of our project will not be considered. Especially it concerned with semantic links between words. See w:Universal Networking Language for details. For example, "is a" can mean "is a kind of" and "is an instance of". DonRumata (talk) 14:41, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
The needs at Wikitionary are so different from the needs at Wikipedia that it is not considered in the first roll out of Wikidata. So far it is assumed both Commons and Wiktionary needs specialized versions of the extension. I think the "is a" relationship is a pretty good example. Jeblad (talk) 16:17, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
We have been thinking a great deal about the needs of Wiktionary, and because of that have come to the conclusion that they need to be addressed in a way quite different from the data items that Wikidata now maintains for Wikipedia & co. Since we couldn't do both at once, we decided to go with Wikipedia first. But I do hope we will soon have the capacity to work on supporting a structured data version of Wiktionary (perhaps similar to what OmegaWiki does, but more flexible). However, I expect we will first work to integrate other projects with needs more similar to Wikipedia, like Wikivoyage or Wikisource. -- Duesentrieb (talk) 23:46, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
When it comes to interwiki's in wiktionary, most of them are between pages with identical titles and that means that interwiki linking is pretty straightforward. But this is not true e.g. for links between category pages. There we are struggling to do it by hand, whether or not bot assisted. There I think wikidata could really help us. Another problem is slight typographic differences, e.g. different apostrophe's being used by different sites. Jcwf (talk) 15:05, 14 February 2013 (UTC) (nl.wiktionary)
In this case "is a" would be "word" and "is a kind of" or "is an instance of" could both be separate properties. Nikola (talk) 00:03, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Categorization of archived pages

Dear collegues with bot account! Please improve calls of {{Archive}} template for pages in the Category:Archived requests for deletion. Need replace

{{archive}}, {{Archive}} or {{Archive||Archived requests for deletion}}

to

{{Archive|category=Archived requests for deletion}}

Thanks! --Kaganer (talk) 22:40, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Could you explain a bit more please ? Apparently you have modified template:Archive, but I see that all subpages of "Wikidata:Requests for deletions/Archive" already are in Category:Archived requests for deletion.
Thank you. --Eric-92 (talk) 23:15, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
In the {{Archive}} was added default categorization into Category:Archive (if specifical category is not defined). I also temporarily added processing of the unnamed parameter "2" - for backward compatibility with existing calls. No this bad way, this should be cleaned after improve these pages. --Kaganer (talk) 00:29, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Addendum: Wikidata:Bot requests exists for such requests. --Eric-92 (talk) 23:18, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, done. --Kaganer (talk) 00:33, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Notability guideline

Please see my comment at the end of Wikidata talk:Notability#Adapt_rules for phase 2 section. It is time this anomaly is sorted out. This, that and the other (talk) 06:36, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Two notes about domains

Hi all, just two news about domains:

Thank you. -- CristianCantoro (talk) 17:56, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Hello,
  • It seems to work;
  • //it.wikidata.org would change main page, based on the user's interface language, I believe.
— Hazard-SJ  ✈  02:05, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I think he means for anonymous users, which defaults to en.--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:11, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, as Jasper Deng is saying :-). -- CristianCantoro (talk) 07:31, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Can you file a ticket on bugs.wikimedia.org for this please? Thanks! --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 15:10, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

  Done, see bug 45080. -- CristianCantoro (talk) 16:38, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Items vs. properties

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 45079

Hello, IIRC, the use of "Q" and "P" (letters) in titles, rather than words, are to help to avoid language conflicts. However, properties are also in a "Property" namespace, which goes against this. Therefore, if indeed, I remember correctly, the namespace might be just a means of keeping them separated from items. If so, would it be better to move items to a Q namespace and have them as Q:# rather than Q# and move properties to P:# rather than Property:P#? — Hazard-SJ  ✈  01:39, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

The "P" and "Q" ids are used in other parts of the code where it is not so easy to replace them with the namespace prefix. Early on in the project the type was handled separately and there was only a numeric id, but it was dropped due to the problems that typeless identifiers created. I don't think identifiers without prefix will be reintroduced. Another possibility is to move them into the same namespace, but that would mean that some of the built in tools we now can use to filter on properties and items will not work. Because of this I don't think the properties will be moved into the same namespace as items either. Jeblad (talk) 09:24, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Actually, I've been meaning to ask if it would be possible to set up "P:" as an alias for "Property:". It's kinda annoying to have to write Property:P91. So why not just P:P91? — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 14:09, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea! File it on bugzilla? -- Duesentrieb (talk) 23:35, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
bugzilla:45079. Helder 16:19, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

API for phase 1?

At OmegaWiki, we try to provide links to Wikipedia, in the user language when possible. At the moment, we copy the links for each language, so that basically we are doing yet another duplication of the interwiki links... It would be great if we could use Wikidata instead, which would be much more efficient.

So do you have something like this, where we have an ID (e.g. Q237525 [11]) and a user language code (e.g. "fr") and we use both information to get the link to Wikipedia from an API? Thanks. --Kipcool (talk) 12:00, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Such as this? http://wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbgetentities&ids=q237525&languages=fr ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 12:03, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes! Thank you :) --Kipcool (talk) 12:17, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
No problem! ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 12:58, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
I guess it would be more efficient to use the client extension, but I it is not ready for external use yet. Jeblad (talk) 12:16, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
I have started an RFC for Wikidata API. If interested, come and comment. --Yurik (talk) 13:18, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
In any case, OmegaWiki is now using Wikidata to get its Wikipedia links. See for example http://www.omegawiki.org/DefinedMeaning:forehead_(1241509)
and it adapts to the user language (e.g. German, French). It works very well, I am glad :) --Kip (talk) 14:16, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Glad to hear you are using it. Please review RFC - you might have some good suggestions. Also, please make sure your user agent is properly set to something specific to your site. --Yurik (talk) 14:19, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't have much useful comments to make (so that I make it here, it's simpler). I agree with the "minimalistic result" idea, as I have also found some redundancies in the current results. Concerning the "seamless integration", I am not familiar enough with the Mediawiki API to have an opinion on the matter. Today is the first time I use the API... --Kip (talk) 16:37, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Gadget for coloring interwiki links?

Would it be easy to write a gadget which would highlight the interwiki links in the case they are both on Wikidata and in a Wikipedia article? That would be handy for those who remove iw links simultaneously with editing articles - a deviating color would show that iw links could be removed but are still in the article.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:26, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't know how to write such a gadget (I mean I checked but didn't find an easy way to do it), but probably you shouldn't worry about deleting interwiki links, because this can easily be done by a bot (pywikipediabot), similar to the bot that used to add interwiki links. --Kipcool (talk) 09:09, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

I can't figure out properties

I wanted to add Publisher and Designer to Magic: The Gathering but I can't figure out how this thing works and I can't find any information on it either. 86.44.163.139 02:57, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

The Help:Editing page have to get updated. Conny (talk) 09:16, 16 February 2013 (UTC).

Search servers are down

Servers that handle search for wikidata and numerous (but not all) other wikis appear to be down. This means the search box at the top gives no results at all, right now. In some cases, I think this can also affect the site link suggester.

There are some staff looking at it now, though it may take a little while since the *right* people who can really fix this are in SF. (it's the middle of the night on a weekend)

Please be patient about this.... Katie Filbert (WMDE) (talk) 12:40, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Are iw links are expected to be shown properly on en.wp?--Ymblanter (talk) 12:47, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that should not be affected. Only editing sitelinks on Wikidata, you may get no suggestions when adding links. And no search results at the moment with the search box. Special:ItemByTitle still works fine. Katie Filbert (WMDE) (talk) 12:54, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Site links can be saved if you have the correct article title. (e.g. cut & paste, or whatever the bots do) Katie Filbert (WMDE) (talk) 12:54, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Good to know, thanks Katie.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:57, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Office hour in 6 hours

Hey :)

The next office hour with Denny and me is on IRC in #wikimedia-office in about 6 hours. Hope to see many of you there. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:07, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Searching properties by title

Is it possible to search properties by title, similar to searching items by title? If not, is such a feature planned? I see there is a list of properties and am aware that the search space for properties will be much smaller than for items, but I think the ability to search properties by title would be helpful. Emw (talk) 14:38, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

It was just pointed out to me that this feature is available via Special:Search and clicking 'Property', as in this search. I think it would help to have that be more discoverable as a Properties by title link on the left navigation menu, which would lead to a simple search interface like that for Items by title. Emw (talk) 15:38, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Templates in headers cause problems

Hi folks around the globe,

you may have noticed that when you edit a page with templates in section headers, e.g. Wikidata:Administrators/Confirm 2013/5, it won't return to the edited section after saving. Moreover, when you see a section edited in recent changes, and try to navigate to that section directly with the little arrow, you can't do it. Templates in section headers are not parsed correctly, they are evil and should be avoided if possible (that means always). If a template is necessary, it should be placed directly under section title for good health of all of us. To create pages with this pattern is not a good practice. Bináris (talk) 16:47, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Enable AbuseFilter notifications to IRC

Hi, this is something that was briefly discussed in #wikimedia-wikidata, so I'm proposing it here for actual consensus. I would like to enable AbuseFilter hits to show up in the IRC recentchanges feed at irc.wikimedia.org. This would allow countervandalism/spam bots track and inform administrators in realtime of AbuseFilter hits, making it faster for administrators to spot spambots and block them. I've explained the technical details below in each individual section. Thanks, Legoktm (talk) 03:17, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is sufficient consensus, with neither opposes nor voiced concerns, so I'm going to file a bug for this request. — Hazard-SJ  ✈  20:38, 16 February 2013 (UTC) I filed bugzilla:45083 for this request. — Hazard-SJ  ✈  20:44, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

$wgAbuseFilterNotifications="udp"

This would have all public abusefilter hits go to the recentchanges feed. Currently it is set to False.

$wgAbuseFilterNotificationsPrivate=True

This would also have private filter hits go to the recentchanges feed. This would only expose the filter number that was hit, all other information can already be seen at Special:AbuseLog. Currently it is set to False. This setting depends on the above one, so that must have consensus as well for this one to be enabled.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Merging and deletion

Hi, I have a question concerning merging of identical items. Normally the item with older Q-number is deleted, however there are instances when the older item has only one linked page while the newer one has several. Is it still logical to move all linked pages from the newer to the older one, or in such case the single page is to be moved to the item with the majority of the links? An example: Q906132 and Q2398310. Thanks. Csigabi (talk) 10:53, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

In this case make sense to delete item where is only one link and merge it to the another item. Personally I delete always item where is less links. --Stryn (talk) 11:00, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Though it happened with one of my RfD's that the admin deleting the blanked item left a message that next time I should request the newer one be deleted, and he/she personally merged the links to the one where there had only been one item. Csigabi (talk) 11:12, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

According to Legoktm, if the newer one is deleted, the older one would need a "null edit" to prevent creation of pages with the same sitelinks again. Before, I'd usually delete the newer and leae the older, but now, I put other thinks in question, such as aliases and labels. I just ensure that I always leave a link to the other item in the deletion reason. — Hazard-SJ  ✈  23:27, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

The external client site did not provide page information.

User has problems adding article in farsi. Conny (talk) 09:13, 16 February 2013 (UTC).

Wikidata requests data from an external site to verify (and possibly change) the link so it is displayed correct according to the external site. In some cases the external site fails to provide page information, and usually this is due to temporary problems like load spikes. Jeblad (talk) 11:46, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, should we document this, or will it be only rare? What about speed in general - will page load take longer in future? Conny (talk) 19:51, 16 February 2013 (UTC).

A new PHP library to interact with the Wikidata API

I'm working on a PHP library for bots owners that is done to interact easily with the Wikidata API. Source code is stored on GitHub. If you are interested by it, feel free to suggest improvements, hack it and maybe build a bot using it even if its API is in plain development. Tpt (talk) 14:40, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

I plan to significantly alter some aspects of the API (see RFC). In my opinion, it might be better to have a small stable library that is capable of accessing any wiki API, with basic capabilities like login session management and query continuation, but without creating another layer of objects re-describing concepts. Also, please see APIv2 doc for my future plans with regards to API in general. Find me on #wikidata or many other IRC channels for discussion (yurik), or send me a message. --Yurik (talk) 15:07, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Tpt I will have a look and maybe give it a go as I am planning on creating a wikidata bot as part of my Addbot on ENwiki and I use php :) ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 15:12, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
I use Python :P — Hazard-SJ  ✈  20:28, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Tpt, Hazard-SJ - make sure you set proper user agent strings: e.g. "MyBotForDoingBlah/1.0 TheBestFramework/1.0" --Yurik (talk) 21:39, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

{{Discussion top}} vs {{Archive top}}

Hello, does anyone else support the idea of merging both templates linked above and having one redirect to the other? If so, which one stands, and which redirects? — Hazard-SJ  ✈  20:47, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

I support merging the two, yes. Discussion top should be the one that stays, as it is 1) the older of the two, and 2) has over 100 transculsions to archive top's eight. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:03, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Support. --Stryn (talk) 21:18, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata for Wiktionary 404-interwikis?

Hi, just to crosspost, is this something for Wikidata to assist? -- Stratoprutser (talk) 21:21, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Deletion of indirect relationships

I propose to avoid the creation of a whole set of indirect relationships for a person like uncle aunt, grandparents, cousin,... These relationships can be recovered from the existing data: if the relations mother/son and mother/sister, it is easy to define the relation aunt/nephew in a extracting data code. The only problem is if the connection parent is missing. In that case I propose to create a "indirect relationship" with a qualifier describing the type of relation. This to reduce the number of properties bringing no new information. Be efficient and avoid redundant information. Snipre (talk) 02:24, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

The type of efficiency and normalization that you are speaking of are more important in traditional relational models and other models than on Wikidata. This is what I have concluded after thinking about this issue since I joined here, based on what I know of Wikidata's future. The problem I see with your approach is as follows: how do you efficiently "ask for" someone's indirect relation, especially if you don't already know it exists? To determine if Item X has an uncle, with your approach, I need to ask for the mother and father Items from Item X. That's at least three requests. If you know the result exists and you are doing one request, that's not so bad, but imagine you're iterating over a large set of items to find indirect relationships. Now you need to make three requests times the number of base items. I'm not sure that's an ideal approach for any user of Wikidata's data (including Wikipedia infoboxes) or the servers, although I don't presume to comment on that. The more indirect the relationship (whether it's about taxonomy, people, or geographic location hierarchies), the more ordered requests and/or recursive branching is needed when requesting all the relevant data, or to even determine whether relevant data exists. Imagine all that effort in making requests, many of them leading nowhere -- versus just having all the information available on one Item. The latter is easy for human users, for example in checking data quality; easy for programmatic users to get what they want without synchronous, recursive requests; and disk space is cheaper than any other factor I've mentioned here ;). Therefore, it seems to me that what you call "efficient" is actually inefficient in Wikidata's case. You are optimizing the cheapest resource at the expense of the others (people, network requests, and third-party programming effort). Espeso (talk) 09:22, 17 February 2013 (UTC) Edited 09:53, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
If you ask me how do I perform such a query, I reply: can you give me right now an application which needs a complete set of relationships ? Even now in infoboxes we have only direct relations. And indirect relationships can be easily derived from the necessary information (direct relationship) and a bot can add this information in the database if necessary. But at the beginning we have to focus on the minimal and necessary information. Again why do we have to lose time in manual operations without added value instead of concentrating human effort in providing the data which can't be accessed easily by bot ? Just look at the situation: we are starting a complete new project which will require a huge manual and human work to start. So don't waste energy on unnessary work. Snipre (talk) 11:07, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
There seem to be three options here.
  • Option 1 - minimum duplication of data. Each person has statements "Has father", "Has mother" and "Was married to". From this all other relations are derived. Very little chance here of having contradictions between pages. Minimal work for editors. More work for the database.
  • Option 2 - Maximum duplication of data. Statements describing relations between an item and other items in Wikidata can be added to any item. Max flexibility. Possibility of contradictions between the statements on different pages.
  • Option 3 - Editors add the minimal data as option 1. Bots add statements about other relations but these statements are protected from editing - you have to go to the other pages and edit the basic data. Then the bot will detect that change and update. Minimal data entry by editors. Minimal chance of contradictions. All relation data available in the database. Extra software required.
Filceolaire (talk) 12:12, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

meta:Requests for comment/Bot policy

Please see meta:Requests for comment/Bot policy for a discussion/RFC on amending the global bot policy once Wikidata phase 1 is active on all wikipedias. --UV (talk) 09:28, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

How to enable original titles?

Additional languages in preferences don't affect on items editing interface. I had to click "WhatLinksHere" to see what exactly I'm translating... What I'm doing wrong? --AS (talk) 09:46, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

The interface reflects your current language preference - only one language at a time. You can change the language using the choose language link next to your user name on the top line of the page. Filceolaire (talk) 12:17, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
First, go to Special:Preferences, click "Gadgets", then turn on "labelLister". Then you will have a "Labels list" link where the Edit button on a page usually is, which opens a popup with the labels and descriptions in all languages. Makes it much easier to translate. :-) Jon Harald Søby (talk) 14:30, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks --AS (talk) 16:23, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Trouble adding Persian language link to item

When I try to add fa:فرودگاه بین‌المللی کیپتاون to Q854130 I get the error "The specified article could not be found on the corresponding site," and the details are "The external client site did not provide page information." The page clearly does exist on that site. I was wondering if it might be a problem with right-to-left text, but I'm pretty sure I've successfully added RTL links to other items. - Htonl (talk) 14:51, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I have imported from en.wiki with slurpInterwiki and now is OK. --ValterVB (talk) 14:57, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks very much! - Htonl (talk) 14:59, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

problem with (Also known as: )

In farsi view in Q41535 I want to remove شمس‌الدین محمد نوربخشی (because it name of a person not city en:Shiraz) but it doesn't save!  ! how can I do? Reza1615 (talk) 15:24, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Local bureaucrats

Hi. I apologize for intruding in advance. I haven't contributed much here at all (yet). Hopefully I'll find time/inclination one day, but for now, I'm completely on the meta side of the site.

In the context of a request for a bot flag for a bot that I operate (cf. m:Steward requests/Bot status#EdwardsBot@wikidatawiki), it was pointed out to me that despite having local bureaucrats (cf. Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat), none of these bureaucrats actually perform any bureaucrat functionalities (renaming users, flagging bots, etc.). This is a bit confusing, as the interface makes it clear that these users are the only users capable of handling these tasks (cf. Special:ListGroupRights).

I took a look at Wikidata:Contact the development team, Wikidata:Bureaucrats, and Wikidata talk:Bureaucrats. I considered proposing simply modifying the user interface to make it clear that all of the local bureaucrats were incapable/unwilling to do bureaucrat actions, but I'm not sure if the better answer isn't to resolve the underlying issue.

Is there discussion about why there are local bureaucrats who aren't doing any bureaucrat actions? It seems very weird as an outsider. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:00, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

All the local 'crats are Wikimedia developers who have the right for technical reasons, but don't use it because they don't have community approval. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:02, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
What technical reasons?
The general rule on Wikimedia wikis is that local users have user rights in order to use them. At a minimum, it'd be nice to point people who are looking for help to the appropriate people/fora (from Special:ListUsers, Special:ListGroupRights, etc. to m:Steward requests or wherever). Users will try to directly contact bureaucrats for help occasionally. It happens on any wiki.
And if it's purely as a marker or indicator (because the "(WMDE)" in the username isn't clear enough), perhaps a local staff group could be used instead with no rights?
Again, I haven't been very active here at all, so I can't say for sure, but the situation seems strange. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:07, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

It's time to elect some local crats. Bináris (talk) 08:22, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

We tried rather recently, but a significant subset of the community has decided that the project isn't ready yet. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:39, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Search not working

My search for Kinsale [12] is showing no results, but there is an item for Kinsale (Q840681). 86.44.163.139 15:37, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Update: I clicked on Multimedia then clicked back on Content pages, now it's showing results. 86.44.163.139 15:39, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

at first you should login and use MediaWiki:Gadget-Search.js .which you can activate it in your preferences > gadgets. Reza1615 (talk) 15:40, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
The gadget rewamps the string and user language and redirects the query to the page Special:ItemByTitle which is not a text search but a lookup by sitelink. If you want to find the item for Kinsale and the page exist on Wikipedia in your set language, then you will find it. If the page does not exist on Wikipedia (or is not imported to Wikidata) then use of the special page will fail.
Short story; don't say that the gadget provides a general search capability – it does not. It does a lookup of a well-defined subset of pages. Jeblad (talk) 16:42, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
No, you're misunderstanding. It was working, then it stopped working, now its working again. There's a bug somewhere in the code. 86.44.163.139 16:48, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
I can confirm this, about 10% of searches will not show any result. It does not depend on the search term though. --Sixsi6ma (talk) 23:38, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Can't add link to fa

Trying to add a link to fa (ویکی‌تراول) for Q2017 (Wikitravel). It says it can't find the page, but the page does exist on that wiki. 86.44.163.139 18:13, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't know why, but Wiki13 has already added since then. Bináris (talk) 18:27, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I keep getting strange intermittent problems like that (see above). 86.44.163.139 18:55, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
I reported it here Reza1615 (talk) 19:27, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Same problem with ml

I can't add വെള്ളവയറൻ കടൽ‌പ്പരുന്ത്‌ for ml on Q45974. It says: "The specified article could not be found on the corresponding site" 86.44.163.139 22:10, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I have imported from en.wiki with slurpInterwiki and now is OK. --ValterVB (talk) 22:23, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Cool, just pointing out that there's a bug. 86.44.163.139 22:47, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Q4840234

I added new item and made Import interwiki. new wikipedias added to the labeles list: en-ca and en-gb. may be sombody have some explanation? 22:01, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Those are for Canadian English and British English respectively. Chris857 (talk) 23:29, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Deleting "is a" property

I propose we delete "is a" property because it does not help with the classification of the entities in wikidata, due to its meaning being too ambiguous. The Property:P107 (entity type) has a much more precise meaning and follows a well established classification scheme by only allowing specific values: person, organization, event, work, term, and place. All items with this property should be changed (by a bot?) before deleting. --Yurik (talk) 04:43, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

+1 The problem with that property is its non-spceficity: if more than 10 statements use that property it will be impossible to use it later in infoboxes without a more detailed classification. We need more accurate properties. Snipre (talk) 10:30, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Agree but we need replace create new properties to replace it. Currently, the main use is is a: "country". To me, it would make sense t have a general purpose "legal status" property or something like that. It would be suitable for administrative divisions, companies or anything, but it may be too generic ("legal status: "US citizen" !?) Ideas ? --Zolo (talk) 11:03, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Each statement family has to find a more accurate property. Snipre (talk) 11:38, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
I think the property itself should already be a descriptive element. If the entity has property X, semantically we can already derive useful information before even looking at the value:
"is a = country|..." → "political entity = country|municipality|state|city|borrow|district"
"is a = island|..." → "geographical entity = ocean|continent|region|island|mountain|hill|river|hole in a wall"
--Yurik (talk) 12:52, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
For country just consider it like another administrative division or political one. But we have to consider the difference between is an administrative division and is a in an administrative division. Snipre (talk) 16:22, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
is-a is not a property, it is a relationship. Most infoboxes are lists of simple has-a relationships, e.g. the subject 'Germany' has a property 'capital', the value of which is 'Berlin'. I think Wikidata should have some other construct than properties to describe is-a relationships. Additionally, it would be nice if Wikidata had constructs other than properties to differentiate between is-a and instance-of relationships, i.e. to make type-token (or class-object) distinctions. Emw (talk) 01:55, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't agree that most infoboxes are simply lists of "has-a" relationships. For instance, the infobox in the enwiki article en:Germany say that it is a "Federal parliamentary constitutional republic", that it was reunified in 1990, and that it's the world's 63rd largest country by area. None of these seem to be overtly "has-a" relationships. And while I'd agree it should generally be useful to make our data structures more expressive, I'm not sure that an strict distinction between properties in separate "has-a" and "is-a" namespaces is the most flexible and productive way to do so.
Having said that, I'm not arguing for the "is a" property to stay. I'm sure there are better ways to store the data using it at present, e.g. with descriptive properties as Yurik suggests above, and using Property:P107. --Avenue (talk) 07:44, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
The infobox for Germany states that the subject Germany has a "government type" with the value "Federal parliamentary constitutional republic", not that it is a government of that type (see the "government_type" property in the infobox markup). The other property examples you note are all encoded with has-a semantics: Germany has an establishment event property with the value "Reunification" that is associated with an establishment event date property with the value "3 October 1990"; it has an area rank property with the value "63rd", and so on. So all the properties in that infobox are "has-a" relationships.
Other than has-a relations, the only relation in the Germany article's infobox is an instance-of relation. The object of that instance-of relation is "country", because Germany uses the "country" infobox. Infoboxes consist of one instance-of statement and one or more has-a statements about the infobox's subject. Instance-of statements are has-a statements where the object is a type.
A "type" entry in the Property namespace (e.g. Property:P107) could be used to derive an instance-of relation from a has-a relation. But it seems that some special handling would be needed so that the properties that compose a type would be inherited by a subject of that type. For example, if Germany has the properties population, type, and prime minister, then how else would a knowledge representation system deduce that Germany has a population and prime minister because it has a type with the value 'country', as opposed to Germany having a type and prime minister because it has a population with the value '82,000,000'? I think that kind of reasoning will become a more prominent use case as Wikidata grows, and so better handling than a special entry in the Property namespace is needed to support instance-of relations. Emw (talk) 19:55, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Property 107 based on GND entities hardly has a "much more precise meaning" per the OP: thousands of species will be grouped under "term" using that system as proposed! You will notice that for individual species, we already have "taxon rank=species". In other words, "is-a species". In this comment I am thinking in terms of someone eventually querying this system: would you rather have to know that all of the following classification-type properties exist: "taxon rank, political entity, geographical entity, chemical entity, astronomical object, <hundreds more>", or would you rather query the property "is a" against a known limited set of possible values that the community has agreed on (and bots enforce, because apparently there will never be data validation in software here)? If you want to know about chemical compounds, you begin your query by selecting on "is a = chemical compound". If you are using inference to develop a placename string like "Paris, Ile de France, France" because each item only contains the next highest administrative division (an open question), you need to know when to stop going up the tree; you could do it by stopping at "is a=sovereign state". I'm not saying that the list of valid "is-a" items can be made in a scientific way with no debate, but nothing this fundamental can be. Either there will be many is-a values to discuss, or many properties to discuss, to implement the equivalent of "is a". (My own examples of specific classes in such a scheme, trying to pick from different fields, would be "star, asteroid.../building, river, U.S. state, comune of France.../painting, sculpture, novel, music recording.../chemical element, compound.../car model, watercraft...) I think it's the best we can do because unlike more formal systems there are no black and white contracts available based on one-time design decisions (class definitions and inheritance, relational database schema). Some equivalent of an is-a system is needed so that one can approximate what database table the item would fit in, if you absolutely had to divide everything in the world into a database schema, without having to guess from the properties attached to it. To accomplish this with one property like "is a", or hundreds of properties that amount to "is-an-astronomical-object-of-the-following-type", "is-a-political-entity-of-the-following-type", "is-a-natural-geographical-feature-of-the-following-type", "is-an-artwork-of-the-following-type", that is the question. Espeso (talk) 08:38, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

In practical terms I think the "Is A" property or whatever replaces it should correspond to a template - a group of properties appropriate to that type of item. When you select the "Type of item" it automagically pulls in the other properties. I know this isn't going to happen now but is there a chance it might happen soon? Filceolaire (talk) 11:43, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Deletion discussion should be made at WD:RFD as this is a global decission which applies to every language. --Sk!d (talk) 21:40, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Unable to add language link

Hi there. I found myself unable to add the fr: link for Q2915096 because it's already in Q543310. Is there something going wrong here, or is that how it's supposed to be (because N.B. two different en: articles linking to the same fr: article is how it is currently set up "out there" in the Wikipedias)? Could someone have a look, please? It Is Me Here t / c 21:35, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

  • I looked at your case and there doesn't appear to be a problem. You can't link one article to two Wikidata items. Unless there is an article on "survival function" on fr:, there is nothing to change on Wikidata. The second link that you mention on the english wikipedia is an anchored link, like "[fr:Analyse de survie#Fonction de survie]", which is not supported here. Espeso (talk) 06:23, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
To answer your question: Wikidata only supports one to one links. One wikidata page linked to one wikipedia page in each language, enforced by the wikidata software. The wikidata software doesn't let you link to wikipedia redirect pages or to sections within a wikipedia page. There is some talk that at some time in the future this might change but no one seems to think this will be anytime soon. Filceolaire (talk) 11:53, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
I think this is really very wrong and makes Wikidata not very useful for projects like de.wikipedia where we deliberatedly add categories and authority data to certain redirects (e. g. names of one person that does not deserve an article but that is part of a relevant duo). Wikidata should at least allow links to redirects that contain the magic word __STATICREDIRECT__ and posssible local variants. --FA2010 (talk) 13:11, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Bot for phase 2!

User:Legoktm has a bot that will add the same statements to items in a Wikipedia category! For more info, see User talk:Legobot/properties.js. --Rschen7754 08:02, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

In the heading it says, that admins will copy the requests to a main .js. Where can I see this file, to know if something was already added? --Faux (talk) 16:21, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
It's the main page as compared to the talk page. --Rschen7754 17:01, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
The bot reads from User:Legobot/properties.js, and maintains a set of logs on the toolserver, which are listed at User:Legobot/properties.js/Archive. Legoktm (talk) 17:51, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata on arzwiki

  • A proposal has been put on arzwiki discussion portal since 19 January 2013 and there has been no objection to it and two sysops oted in favour. Would that be enough to implement wikidata on arzwiki, please? Arzwiki is not one of the bug wikipedias and wikidata implementation would be much appreciated. Many thanks. --Ghaly (talk) 10:18, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

There is no need to propose this locally; Wikidata is already running for test purposes on hu, it, he and enwiki and will be deployed to all Wikipedias within a few weeks. Bináris (talk) 10:35, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

The current plan is to add all the remaining Wikipedias on March 6. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:30, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Clicking "edit links" on English Wikipedia doesn't work in a certain situation.

When I click "edit links" on the left sidebar for en:Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser or en:Wikipedia:WPCleaner it doesn't work. It does work for "regular" articles. Bgwhite (talk) 19:36, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

This is bugzilla:44536, which just needs to be deployed. Legoktm (talk) 19:37, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
I'll poke again about having this backported. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:42, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Search not working

If I search for »Bogotá« or »Botoga« nor results are shown, even Q2841 exists and has a label in the language I am searching (EN, DE, ES). Is this a problem when searching for non-ASCII characters? --Faux (talk) 08:48, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Seems to be a general problem with the search, currently... --Faux (talk) 08:58, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
See #Search not working above. 86.44.163.139 09:00, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Inconsistency in labels and descriptions

I'm quite sure this was already discussed somewhere, but I could not find any other place for this: How are labels written in e.g. English, where words normally don't start with an uppercase letter? Some items are written in uppercase, some in lowercase, is there a rule for this? The same for descriptions, should they start with an uppercase letter (and end with a period, since they are sentences) or should they be just descriptive terms (without an ending period)? -- Faux (talk) 08:58, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Lowercase for both, labels and descriptions. See Help:label and Help:Description. --Stryn (talk) 09:00, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
This is what I was looking for, thank's. Just to make it clear: This means, that the label of Q520549 should be lowercase in English? --Faux (talk) 09:15, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes. --Stryn (talk) 09:19, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata and Wiktionaries

I made some first user concept, please see and discuss Wikidata:Wiktionary.

JAn Dudík (talk) 09:25, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Linking languages

Which item is intended to be linked for the language "English" e.g. for the property Property:P103? Is it Q1860 or is it Q182? Q182 seems to be the right one according to its description, but it is never used, only Q1860 is used so far. --Faux (talk) 09:50, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Q1860, because Q182 is a disambiguation page. --Stryn (talk) 10:06, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
You are right, I did not check the Wikipedia links. So in my opinion the English description is wrong and should be Wikipedia disambiguation page. I'll change it. --Faux (talk) 10:29, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Can't create German Description for Q353697

I always get an error when saving but without an explanation whats wrong. Same is true for a lot of similar items Q347817, Q338549--Saehrimnir (talk) 11:12, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I think this is same as this: Wikidata:Contact_the_development_team#Changes_of_an_item_can_not_be_saved_when_on_.22wikidata.org.22_.28without_.22www..22.29. It should work after you have "www." prefix.--Stryn (talk) 11:15, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes that worked. Srange is that I can save other items without that trick. Thanks--Saehrimnir (talk) 12:27, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Q353697 ("Adel Massad") should be deleted, since it's not a real item, but a missspelling of Q353694 (Adel Massaad). --Kolja21 (talk) 12:59, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Implicit statements and properties

It seems to me that in some cases we have redundant information. Let's take for instance Johann Sebastian Bach and his father Johann Ambrosius Bach. Right now we have to define in both pages the child-father relationship, when only defining the child statement and implicitly creating the father statement should be enough. Is it there any way to do this? Maybe it is already possible but I'm missing the how. And that is an easy case which is quite straight-forward, there are other cases where it is not that obvious (i.e. book-translation). --Micru (talk) 13:41, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

We only have unidirectional links for now. Jeblad (talk) 15:57, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Is that feature on the development plan?--Micru (talk) 16:13, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Merge

Please merge Q3621478 and Q3621478. AndreasJS (talk) 14:40, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Q3621478 and? --Stryn (talk) 14:45, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Did you mean Q4785894 and Q3621478? --Faux (talk) 15:42, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Please merge Q1184926 and Q3133196. --Kronf (talk) 19:41, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

  Done You know, you can do it yourself, if you want. Just file at WD:RFD for the one you empty. (Like I just did.) — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 19:47, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the info! --Kronf (talk) 19:49, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

adding a url as a source

I added the statement that Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals is a child of Bayer (should be Bayer HealthCare LLC, but unfortunately that doesn't exist yet so couldn't add that), and the software suggested I add a source for that statement. I looked it up on Bayer's website, and found [13] which is a good source. However, it doesn't seem to allow me to save this url as source. Why? Effeietsanders (talk) 23:56, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

The answer is on top of every page: "Phase II is now live. Some pieces are not yet working, however, including the sources interface." You cannot add any URL. --MSchnitzler2000 (talk) 00:31, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Hi there. "Child" and "parent (father,mother)" are only intended for people. You have the correct idea, but there is no property yet for "corporate subsidiary/parent". To answer your question about the source, there is no answer. That function became live just recently, and there is no discussion on how to use it, much less a policy. The system also does not support entering a web address yet as the value of a property. Espeso (talk) 00:37, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Bots Approval

People have been saying that there needs to be a slight rethink of the way bots on wikidata are approved. Please see my proposal User:Addshore/Wikidata:Bots. All links on the pages should work within my user space so it should give you a good feel of what it would really be like. All comments welcome but to keep a centralised discussion going please use User talk:Addshore/Wikidata:Bots to discuss. ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 22:13, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Any comments from this page? ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 12:24, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Linking to or creating an item from Wikipedia

When will it be possible to link to an item directly from wikipedia possibly with an automatic suggestion via translation into the major languages. Otherwise the people will miss link and or create duplicates by the thousands once all wikipedias go live. So it would be good to delay the direct creation possibility by a bit but it should be there in the End.--Saehrimnir (talk) 22:05, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

We're trying to get this in the deployment on March 6 but it might not be ready by then. We'll do our best. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 16:12, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Label not deleted when Link removed Bug or Feature?

I removed a number of wrong links from one item Q407698 and want to import the links from de:Oshima into another item Q1792804 with the Import tool but can't because the Label and Description in the old item are still there and the same as what the import tool would create. While I can see that it is useful to have descriptions even if no link exists in that language I am not so sure about the labels. If not they could be autodeleted when removing a Link.--Saehrimnir (talk) 13:47, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

You need to delete labels, descriptions and aliases manually. --Stryn (talk) 15:31, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
There is no way to remove all the data of one language at once? If that is the case, it should be made possible. Njardarlogar (talk) 17:41, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
See bug 38664. Does this cover it? Filceolaire (talk) 17:47, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

slurpInterwiki tool

I made User:Reza1615/slurpInterwiki2.js according to mediawiki:gadget-slurpInterwiki.js which runs on all of wikis that are linked in a item page (instead of one wiki) it is very useful for solving interwiki conflicts and adding wiki links which are not related to that conflict.it is simple change and I couldn't improve interface and other thing.

it helped me to have this these edits! if it is possible please edit the main tool to works with loop like mine. you can test it on these conflicts Reza1615 (talk) 17:19, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

County, region, state, or province

Would the ten counties of Lithuania be considered "counties", "regions", "states", or "provinces" in English? They are called "counties", but I don't know if this is similar to the UK/US/Canda use of the word (which seems to be for smaller regions). πr2 (t • c) 01:56, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

We need to sort this out by subdivision levels, because this is getting out of hand (for reference, a US state is a 1st level subdivison, and I think a US county is a second level subdivision). Sven Manguard Wha? 02:01, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
That would be a much better solution than ambiguous naming that seems to be very USA-centric. So would you count these "counties" as states then? There are also ethnographic regions of Lithuania, and they have been proposed as replacements for the "county" system. Actually, since July 2010, the counties of Lithuania have been "abolished, and since that date, counties remains as the territorial and statistical units". However, the ethnographic "regions" aren't really politically defined, and the borders probably aren't official. What is the "state" and what is the "county" here? I don't even understand what counts as a "province" as opposed to a "county", "state", or "region"... πr2 (t • c) 02:10, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Canadian Provinces and American States are both first level subdivisions. Lithuanian Counties appear to also bee first level subdivisions, as they are the largest governmental unit of division of the country. Sadly w:Administrative division isn't much help in explaining it. Sven Manguard Wha? 02:14, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Hmm. See w:Subdivisions_of_Lithuania#Current_division_.281994.E2.80.932010.29. I guess Lithuanian "counties" would be the so-called English "states" here, the "district municipalities" or "city municipalities" would be the counties (which?), and the "municipalities" would be cities or towns (which?). But what is a "province" or "region" ??? πr2 (t • c) 02:17, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
But if a LT "district municipality" is a US/Canadian "county", then what would a "city municipality" be? Also, plain old Lithuanian "municipalities" are probably towns, but we don't have a level for "city municipalities"... πr2 (t • c) 02:26, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
A LT "eldership" is probably like a village or district of a city, but we don't have that either, do we? πr2 (t • c) 02:41, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Whereas in the UK, counties are first, second, or sometimes third-level sub-divisions of the country. Fun times. James F. (talk) 02:24, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't see why we need to translate Lithuanian terminology into some particular variety of English here. English names for such subdivisions are very variable (e.g. state, province, territory, county all can refer to first level subdivisions). Why not simply state that each of them is an apskritis (Lithuanian county), and put details of what this means (first level subdivision of Lithuania, etc) on our counties of Lithuania page instead? --Avenue (talk) 03:07, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Are you proposing that we have a separate property for every country's subdivisions [or just for Lithuania?]? Also, what do we do with the other levels (like "rajono savivaldybė" = district municipality)? See Wikidata:List_of_properties#Term. The terms used are ambiguous as you said. πr2 (t • c) 03:32, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
You could do it that way, with separate properties for different kinds of administrative divisions in each country. Personally I think it would be simpler to just have a single "administrative division" property for all such areas, which combined with the relevant item would state what kind of administrative division the area is. (For example, Alytus County is an administrative division of the type "Lithuanian county".) Our counties of Lithuania page could then have statements indicating that these are first level admin divisions, along with other relevant details (e.g. can levy taxes, can only make by-laws, contains municipalities, etc). This is somewhat similar to Filceolaire's second idea below, although that also covers statements that a place or area is contained in a certain administrative area. --Avenue (talk) 09:11, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Personally I would go with County. Lithuania is a lot smaller than the USA and is similar in size to one of the US states; until recently Lithuania was a soviet republic so at that time the counties were second level divisions. Or we can have a property "Is in" with a value corresponding to the smallest admin division which encloses the item. You can then go to the page for that Admin division to find out what sort of unit it is (property "Is a"; value links to an item page about LT counties) and what the next largest admin division is (property "Is in"). Filceolaire (talk) 08:29, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't much like the idea of judging the importance of subdivisions based on a country's size. But maybe I'm biased, since I live in a pretty small country myself. --Avenue (talk) 09:34, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I think that there are enough countries in the world that organize differently that we could have different properties for counties at the first, second and third administrative level - thus also cleaning it up for within Britain. Ajraddatz (Talk) 16:10, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Just to make it clear: Do you suggest that US state, State of Mexico, and State of Brazil should be three different properties?--Ymblanter (talk) 16:20, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
While this seems strange, perhaps it would be a good solution. While these subdivisions are called the same, and are on the same level, they are not really the same because in different countries they have different powers. This would also be better for weird cases like Serbia, and solve language problems like with Hebrew mentioned below.
Either that, or everything is linked only to its immediately superior subdivision. I don't see any other good solution. Nikola Smolenski (talk) 16:23, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

In Uruguay we use the term "la región" to describe South America, or more precisely the Southern Cone. So it means "a region of the continent". It's like a Qatari media saying "in the region" to describe the Middle East. So I would definitely not use "region" as a generic term for administration levels. --NaBUru38 (talk)

  • Some problems regarding to the topic from he.wikipedia. Apparently suitable to ohter languages as well:
    • There are Engils words translated to Hebrew differently for differnt countries. For example: Province in English be פרובינציה (Canada) or מחוז (Iran) or חבל ארץ (Sweden).
    • There are Hebrew words that are suitable for more then on option (In some cases there is no direct Hebrew name for particular subdevision so we use general name - מחוז). For example: "מדינה" can be country or ‏state. That can be solved by using the description but Edit of the same property not allowed.
    • ‏region. It can be subdevisin in country (Regions of France), Geographical area or cultural area ect like The Caucasus. Completely different names in Hebrew. Geagea (talk) 00:40, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I would suggest to look in the OSM Wiki where they defined their standard for all the countries. Fale (talk) 09:12, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
So what properties we need: state, province ...? See also: Wikidata:Requests for deletions#Property:P68 (municipality). --Kolja21 (talk) 18:23, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
There is also this helpfull table that is simpler than the table of OSM wiki.--dega180 (talk) 09:10, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
I think that we have two possibilities:
  1. we create 4 properties named "administrative unit of 1st level", "administrative unit of 2nd level",... and we use the this table to know wich is the level of each administrative division, for example: <Grand Canyon National Park> administrative unit of 1st level <Arizona>, <Big Ben> administrative unit of 3rd level <London>;
  2. we create one single property that describe the smaller administrative division that contains the object. For example, if we call this property "administrative division", we have <Grand Canyon National Park> administrative division <Arizona>, <Big Ben> administrative division <London>, and for countries that don't have administrative divisions small enough to describe with precision the location of the object, we can use properties named "city" for the big and medium towns and "village" for small towns.
--dega180 (talk) 09:52, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the question has been solved in the thread below. --Zolo (talk) 10:03, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

We have also to remove the limitation about adding the same property name for the cases when two English name have the same one Hebrew name. Geagea (talk) 13:34, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Inactivation of unreliable properties, and importing all iw infobox parameters?

Property:P47, "shares borders with", is wrong for some countries. It can not be automatically imported since it does not correspond to any parameter in the infobox country Wikipedia template, and it can probably not be imported as structured data from any external source. It requires manual verification. I suggest that this kind of property should be removed or inactivated for now. Instead, all parameters in the country infobox should be added. For example population. (Why are the other country parameters missing as place properties?) I also suggest as goal of phase 2 that all parameters of all Wikipedia infoboxes that have iw links ultimately should correspond to a Wikidata property. (Mange01 (talk) 20:01, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Different Wikipedias have different infobox formats, and many entries just can not be imported (for instance, one can not import the population before deciding what it actually means). Conserning SBW, I personally added it to about a hundred of entries and do not see much of a problem now. Indeed, it is not in infoboxes (at lest not on the projects I know of), but with a possible exception of contested borders, it can well be in infoboxes, and if we add it to Wikidata fro all countries / administrative divisions, I am sure the info will be used on the projects.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:17, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Ok, I get that, but why not start out from the enwp infobox way of defining things? Enwp has in many cases solved the problem, for example by offering several different population parameters for cities. It is better the work is done there than here, because much more people are involved in enwp - from all countries. Enwp infoboxes serve as pattern for infobox parameter naming in most other Wikipedias. Often the infoboxes of other Wikipedias also accept the english parameter names. Okay, this approach may give a somewhat anglo-saxic perspective on how to define things, but when the rest of us have problems with that, we should try to solve that in the enwp infoboxes. Russian Wikipedia should be considered more reliable than enwp when it comes to data for russian speaking countries. But the property naming and definition should follow enwp i.m.o. Mange01 (talk) 20:34, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Specifically for Russian-speaking countries English Wikipedia is much more reliable than Russian one, since User:Ezhiki and me are checking numbers and sorting out mess. However, this is a good example why infoboxes are difficult: For Russian districts and localities on en.wp we use a custom infobox rather than the common locality infobox.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:19, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
In my Wikipedia language version, infoboxes are rather reliable, since a user has developed a kind of central national wiki solution for many of the geographical infoboxes. His bot pushes population data from |a pseudo-database to many of the infoboxes. The central table is regularly updated with data from the [www.scb.se Central Bureau of Statistics].
Why is geographical data still missing as property for places? Mange01 (talk) 16:18, 10 February 2013 (UTC)


Still "shares borders with" is wrong for some countries. Any suggestions on how to deal with this issue? Mange01 (talk) 16:18, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Um...fix them? -- Ypnypn (talk) 17:56, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I wait a while to see if a bot automatically detects the inconsistency between countries, in the example I have in mind. Keepting track of shared country boarders manually is manageable, but region boarder are not scalable unless it can be imported from Wikipedia infoboxes or external sources. Can we inactivate that property for regions? Mange01 (talk) 20:26, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Now I myself got a problem with this property. Indeed, I think at any rate we need to keep it reciprocal: If A shares border with B, B also shares border with A. This implies that if Russia shares border with Latvia, Latvia shares border with Russia. Logical. Now, Pskov Oblast is a first-level administrative division of Russia which has a direct border with Latvia. We can not write that Pskov Oblast shares border with Latvia, since the reciprocity would imply that Latvia shares border with Pskov Oblast, and this is not acceptable, since it shares border with Russia. Fine, then we have to write that Pskov Oblast shares border with the first-level administrative divisions of Latvia, which are municipalities. In particular, it shares border with Alūksne municipality. Fine. But then in Russia there are two more levels of administrative division - districts and municipal formations, while Latvia has none. Thus, for Russian districts, for instance, Pytalovsky District, which is adjacent to Latvia, we can not add a property "shares border with" without either violating reciprocity or just agreeing that it becomes incomplete - Pytalovsky district can share border with other districts in Russia but not with anything in Latvia. Given these considerations, I support indeed one of the two solutions: (i) as suggested above, only implement this property for countries and first level administrative divisions, to get reciprocity across the border; (ii) what one alternatively can do is to implement it fully for countries, and for administrative divisions, only add entities they share border with, which are located in the same country.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:33, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't see why we can't say that Latvia borders Pskov Oblast. In many cases, we might only want to record which countries border on a country, but in some cases it might be useful to record cross-level boundaries, e.g. that Turkey borders Nakhchivan (instead of Azerbaijan in general). --Avenue (talk) 16:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
We can, but then this property loses consistency (which is currently enabled). I understand that indeed in some cases we need to sacrifice it (like indeed showing what the Palestinian Autonomy borders? Does it border Israel? Doe Israel border PA?), but I am not so much happy with the massive violation of consistency (basically, at every border). Though it is a possible solution.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:01, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
The problem occurred to me as well. Is it a possibility to have sub-properties? Such as Norway shares border with Sweden and more specifically to M, N, O, S, W, Z, AC and BD (see Counties of Sweden)? I know this would make the property of "shares border with" huge. This I can see happening to several properties already (see item for the United Nations and its member states) and we should have some kind of "show/hide"-button to handle this. --Kristian Vangen 05:43, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
The problem is that Latvia borders (at least partially) every Russion subject on the Russian border to Latvia on every level. It borders Russia as well as the Pskov Oblast as well (on a part) to the town on the other side of the border. That's a result of the is-in-solution. We need to compare respective levels only for making this workable. --Matthiasb (talk) 19:41, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
I do not think that too rigid a system can do here. I would say use common sense and do not worry too much about consistency here, and do it for humans. Anyhow, once we have geocoorinates, bots can do thorough consistency checks. Saying, "a sovereign state has to border a sovereign state" seems to make sense, because sovereign states share important communalities, in particular in international law. But there is nothing similar at lower levels. There is no such thing as a United Second-level administrative divisions Organization (USO).
In terms of size, population, and possibly even administative autonomy, first level divisions of Estonia are more similar to second than to first-level divisions of Russia. And as it happens, there are no longer second-level divisions in Estonia, which would make the "second-level borders second level" rule rather problematic. To me, what makes sense here is: "Russia borders Estonia", "Pskov Oblsat borders Estonia" and "Pechorsky District borders Ludza municipality (etc.)". --Zolo (talk) 22:35, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Merge

"Cow fighting" (Q681969) is the same of "Bataille de reines" (Q2890633): the problem is that fr.wiki has two articles for the same item. Please fix it.--Patafisik (talk) 18:17, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think those are duplicates: "Cow fighting" Q681969 is the general action but "Bataille de reines" (Q2890633) seems to be a specific event. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 18:30, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
On another topic, w:nl:Wereldkampioenschappen schaatsen allround 2013 (Q2016153) and w:en:2013 World Allround Speed Skating Championships (Q2782403) are definitely the same article. I suppose this problem will come up more often in the future, could the solution perhaps be written in the Help:FAQ? - FakirNL (talk) 19:52, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Looks like it's been fixed. Yes, we should write something up for this. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 21:17, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
In the future I will probably use Wikidata:Interwiki conflicts for similar conflicts. That looks to be the right place. - FakirNL (talk) 13:10, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Wikidata:Requests for deletions is even better then interwiki conflicts. - FakirNL (talk) 17:05, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
I have changed the link in wikidata for the "Cow fighting" subject, I will do the merge on wp:fr between "Bataille de reines" and "Combat de reines". --Nouill (talk) 15:55, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Interwiki links with anchors

Can your technology implement links to Wikipedia with anchors? Say, a link to a specific section of an article; see m: Fine interwiki for substantiation.

If it is complex, then how can I help with it? Which software components have to be developed? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:48, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

This is more than a little complex, even if the technique with slapping an anchor on a link is easy enough. The reason is that the items on Wikidata is about entities, and the pages on Wikipedia should reflect the same entities. This is because we want to make an easy way to add information about property values for the entity given in statements on Wikidata (puh!) to the parameter for the infobox about the same entity in Wikipedia (2xpuh!). If we must use a fragment identifier to find the entity inside the Wikipedia page it means that the page is about several entities, and then our easy (default) lookup of data about the entity will fail. If so we're in an situation were we must identify the item on Wikidata to make the infobox work, instead of just slapping in a generic infobox that will always work.
It is although quite common on Wikipedia to make articles that are collections about several entities, for example in articles about music groups where the individual band members have their own paragraph. In those cases the article is about the band, it is not a biography about the band members. On Wikidata that would be solved (given some changes to Wikidata:Notability) as a band item and separate items for each of the band members. Those band members will have some kind of link back to the band item, possibly also some kind of link to Wikipedia, but they will not themselves have sitelinks to the band page on Wikipedia. (Actually they can't given a constraint in the database, it is explicitly forbidden to link a Wikipedia page more than once.)
That said there are some ideas about holding several items on one page but that is slightly different. Jeblad (talk) 16:35, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
I read the explanation with interest, but it is sad that you didn’t read my link, and that developers were not interested in anything but a dumb relation semantics on pages. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:39, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
We are interested. But this is anything but trivial with the rest of the system we're working on. We're trying our best to make this system as useful as possible. There have to be some constraints to achieve this. This is one of them. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:33, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
l1: WDATA l2:
Art ← Q3 →‎ Art
Other languages: l2:Art

… … …
… … …
… … …

Other languages: l1:Art

… … …
… … …
… … …

Article ← Q4 →‎ == icle ==
Other languages: l2:Art#icle

… … …
… … …
… … …

Other languages: l1:Article

… … …
… … …
… … …

I am far from the idea to demand “your best” to satisfy my semantic desires. I said you made a dumb semantics – it’s true, the discussion about interlanguage links is active for years, but your team did not use anything of this but an elementary picture from graph theory. What hinders the current software can generate http-links with #? If nothing serious, then the second question: what is an obstacle for mapping in the opposite direction? Such that MediaWiki would search for #-records for, say, all sections in an article, in the same way as it currently searches for article links in Wikidata, but to place resulting interlanguage links into corresponding sections (see the table). Is it heavy to implement technically and, if it is, then why? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 22:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Because Wikidata is about much more than language links. Phase 2 brings a lot of implications with it that make it non-trivial to do what you want. See meta:Wikidata/Technical proposal for what the plan is. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 22:30, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Couldn't that be implemented as a one-way relationship?
if "en.wp.Article" is the same as "fr.wp.Article#anchor",
- you would put them in the same Wikidata ID page
- when creating interwiki links, "en.wp.Article" would have an interwiki link to "fr.wp.Article#anchor"
- but "fr.wp.Article" would not have an interwiki link to "en.wp.Article", because "fr.wp.Article" is another Wikidata ID (this is also the current behaviour on Wikipedia).
or, said otherwise, "fr.wp.Article#anchor" would be considered as a different entity than "fr.wp.Article" (well, the URL is not the same...). In any case, there are so many of these anchor-interwiki-links out there that it would be nice to find a solution. --Kip (talk) 09:02, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
A possibility is to allow sitelinks to redirect pages.
Where a WP page has details of more than one entity a redirect can be provided for each of these entities, linking back to this page. wikidata pages for each of the entities can link to the redirect pages with separate wikidata page linked to the general WP page.
It is (apparently) possible, even now, for a WD sitelink to point to a WP redirect page provided the WP page was converted to a redirect page after the sitelink was created - so it shouldn't be that difficult to allow us to create sitelinks to redirect pages in the first place. Filceolaire (talk) 17:04, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
How can I help with it? Usually, I am present on IRC. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:10, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
I would be all-for for being able to create sitelinks to redirect pages. It is very common to combine on Wikipedia lists of books and other media which are not notable, but which do have redirects from distinct entities which are. Take for example Q2866955, which has two articles currently listed in fr. and it. The associated English version at wikipedia:en:Assassin's Creed: Ascendance is a redirect to the wikipedia:en:Assassin's Creed page, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't link to the redirected page here. I personally wouldn't want to see anchors introduced, because then that puts the burden on the bots and people here to update the entries accordingly.... but this middle ground would be very helpful! This also allows editors at the various wikis not to care about the iw links when expanding those articles from redirects, as the data will already be present here. --Izno (talk) 17:36, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Bot problems and suggestions

We have some problems with interwiki bots

  1. none of them can add interwiki to en.wiki for other namespaces (i.e. category, Template,...)
  2. When user makes an article and adds other wiki's interwiki none of bots adds it's interwiki to wikidata!
  3. We need Bots which are adds none interwiki articles to wikidata.

in my opinion we should have standard bot that they can add interwiki form localwikis to wikidata. it is confusing for many users to work with wikidata . when they make an article they don't come here! to add interwiki !!Reza1615 (talk) 15:01, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Xqt is working on that. See the following bug: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=3586247&group_id=93107&atid=603141. --Snaevar (talk) 19:18, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
1) that was a community decision to add only article items for the moment
2) my bot Interwikibot MerlIwBot checks all new articles on every wikipedia once a day. And of course it can connect these articles to existing wikidata items. Just check the bot edit in the early morning.
3) This is currently done my Bene*s Bot and ‎Sk!dbot. My bot currently ignores articles without langlinks because merging items (if langlink was only missing) is not so easy. But i will change this also for my bot in some days.
Merlissimo (talk) 20:22, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
thank you for answer:
1-now my bot Stopped (by new changes which are done in interwiki.py code) in en.wiki for adding interwiki also for other namespaces. in ckb.wiki we made many categories which are only have interwiki to en.wiki but no-one (bot) adds them to en.wiki or other wikis. what we should do?
2-how many page does it check ? in these days in fa.wiki we make 2000 pages per day (by bot) and I checked most of them doesn't have interwiki in wikidata!
3-which wiki do they cover? in wikidata I didn't find none interwiki pages from fa.wiki.
If they share their codes we have many toolserver accounts in fa.wiki and we can help fa,ar,ckb,tr and other communities. Reza1615 (talk) 21:05, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't know how pwd handles wikidata in detail. But my bot checks if a page is connected to wikidata. If it is not connected it either adds it two wikidata or changes langlinks locally. But enwiki is the only wiki where my bot is not active.
As i wrote all pages having langlinks and can be imported automatically are checked by my bot. Last week this was about 93% complete. I prepared Wikidata:Wiki import task force/fawiki, so that you can work on import conflicts. Merlissimo (talk) 09:08, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
@Merlissimo:thank you for your lists if it is possible please make this list for ckb and ar.wikis we have some active users who are volunteer for solving their wiki's conflicts .now they works on Farsi and in these two day they solved many conflicts :)Reza1615 (talk) 10:26, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Linking to redirect pages

What's the policy on linking to redirect pages? For example, enwiki doesn't have a real page for Q3596966 but it does have a redirect page en:11067_Greenancy which redirects to en:List of minor planets: 11001–12000. Should I add a link to that page on Q3596966? 86.44.163.139 21:11, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Redirects don't get items. I see the link has been removed now. Ajraddatz (Talk) 00:45, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Where is that policy/guideline documented? I would like to change it, because I think it would help us with the problem of large use of anchor links. (It won't fix it, but it will allow people trying to navigate to the redirected article's page. From the article to which it is redirected is naturally a different story.) --Izno (talk) 16:45, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Redirected targets, certainly, should be allowed (see m: Fine interwiki and the thread above. But it is only a partial solution since there is no ready-to-use mechanism to allow a reader to jump from the redirect’s target (say, a section) to the redirect page itself (where Wikidata could provide links). Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:10, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Changing title of moved article

Apparently I can't change capitalization of the English link at Q3141419 from Jacob wrestling with the Angel to Jacob wrestling with the angel, despite the fact that the article has already been moved. Any idea how to correct that? Even if I delete the entry and retype it with the correct capitalization, it shows up as the old title for some reason. Thanks, Jafeluv (talk) 00:07, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Hey, the link is pointing to the correct article, but the label isn't. You need to edit the label at the top to change it :) (now done) Ajraddatz (Talk) 00:44, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Oh, right. Pretty sure I couldn't change the capitalization by editing, but removing and re-adding seems to have worked. Thanks. Jafeluv (talk) 22:48, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Namespace ignored

On English Wikipedia, on the page en:Help:Interlanguage links, the interlanguage links have been removed. This seems valid to me, since after that edit the interlanguage links are still listed in the left margin. Yet when I click the "edit links" link at the bottom of the language list, I arrive at Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/Help:Interlanguage links which is empty; and I notice that the namespace prefix "Help:" is not shown on that page, except in the URL.

On a more serious matter: compare en:Wikidata with en:Wikipedia:Wikidata, which are different pages: one is in main space, the other in project space. The "Edit links" links have targets of Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/Wikidata and Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/Wikipedia:Wikidata respecively, which are also different; yet both of those lead to Q2013. How can the interlanguage links for two different pages be exactly the same?

I have noticed a similar problem with other non-article pages in Wikipedia: and Template: spaces. It's clear that the namespace is being ignored. It's not the presence of a colon which is the problem - see en:Magic: The Gathering, where after this removal of interlanguage links, the "edit links" link provided is for Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/Magic: The Gathering which correctly goes to Q207302.

So, for pages outside article space: (i) what is the correct page to edit the links on; (ii) why does it go to the wrong page; (iii) can the bad link be fixed? --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 12:18, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


This is a known bug - bugzilla:44536 . 86.44.163.139 13:12, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Redrose64, a bug fix was made today that solves the problem. If you try the "edit links" link again, you should arrive at the right Wikidata page. Espeso (talk) 00:47, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

It's broken again. Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/Wikipedia:Wikidata is supposed to go to Q4847210; and yesterday, it did: but it now exhibits the empty page problem as described above for Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/Help:Interlanguage links (which itself is working, it goes to Q4097370). --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 16:56, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Removing interwiki links from English Wikipedia?

Right now almost every article on the English Wikipedia has hard-coded interwiki links at the end of each article. Is it a good practice to remove these links at this state of the Wikidata project after checking if all links have been migrated to Wikidata? --Faux (talk) 17:44, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

As far as I have seen, this is not a problem, but it might be a good idea to justify the removal in the edit summary (maybe with a link to en:WP:WDATA), as not all Wikipedia editors are informed about the Wikidata deployment. Regards --Iste (D) 17:47, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
In my opinion this should be a local decision. But in general I see no problems with removing them. Vogone (talk) 17:49, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
They only "problem" we might have is, that bots might restore the interwiki links again. This needs to be checkt on a per Wiki basis, I would say. --Faux (talk) 19:13, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
I thought we chased those bots away... Sven Manguard Wha? 19:14, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
We did. I'm nearly done with a bot that will remove the links and checks that they match with Wikidata. I expect to find a lot more interwiki conflicts this way :P Legoktm (talk) 19:16, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
In fact, Lego, according to that warning you sent out, aren't we gonna start blocking them soon if they don't turn themselves off? — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 19:22, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict × 3) I've been helping to coördinate efforts to make this run smoothy on en – we've had a number of incidents of users failing to explain their removals, or failing to consider the case when reverting. Our current solution is to say about 15 times in en:WP:WDATA that you're strongly encouraged to add an edit summary linking to that page, and it seems to have helped somewhat. On that note, though, I'd encourage Wikidatans who are also EnWikipedians (or who aren't, but speak good enough English) to add themselves to en:WT:Wikidata/Wikidatans. I've added a few people who I figured wouldn't mind (feel free to remove yourselves if you do mind, of course), but it'd be nice if we could make that a long list of names. That way, EnWikipedians will feel confident that we here know what we're doing, and are ready to help with any issues that come up in the transition. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 19:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
This is a bit crazy, but what if we started one of those boxes or some reference page for all projects? --Rschen7754 22:05, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Start boxes/pages on Wikidata, on the projects themselves, or both? The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 23:38, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Possibly both. --Rschen7754 01:05, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

en:WP:WDATA is the best document that I am aware of, anywhere, to explain to regular Wikipedia users what is going on. I would suggest we use it as the basis for translations to explain to future Wikipedias what is going on. (Note: I am presently user:Kolophon (and contributed to that document under that name) on enWikipedia. I am still trying to figure out how to unify accounts...) Espeso (talk) 00:54, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Thanks everyone who worked on that. I'll add a recommendation and link to my message to the village pumps of the remaining Wikipedias. Will probably send that out today or tomorrow. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:04, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Good idea! Let's get Q4847210 up to 286 links! :) — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 21:03, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to add a sub property claim

I would like to propose that we add a sub-property claim. Let me explain it via example,

Person A (Item) 

   Govt Office Held(Property) = 
       Value: President of ZZZ(Item)
           Preceded by(Sub Property) = Person B(Item)
           Succeeded by(Sub Property) = Person C(Item)
       Value: House of ZZZ(Item)
           Preceded by(Sub Property) = Person D(Item)
           Succeeded by(Sub Property) = Person E(Item)

Train Station X (Item) 

   Connecting Line(Property)
       Value: Train Line WWW (Item)
           Next Station(Sub Property) = Station B(Item)
           Prev Station(Sub Property) = Station C(Item)
       Value: Train Line QQQ (Item)
           Next Station(Sub Property) = Station X(Item)
           Prev Station(Sub Property) = Station A(Item)

I think this would allow addition of other entries in the info box. Of course it can make the structure complex but we can limit the level of Sub Property to just one level.

You mean like the "Source" field? I agree to this, even if I don't agree to your examples completely. I think this would be practicable for something which describes the value more concrete like dates (value valid since, ...). To your example: It would be interesting to know, if phase 3 lists will be ordered or unordered. If they are ordered, they could provide the next/previous or successor/predecessor information, which would make changes in the order much easier (eg a new train stop between station A and B). Otherwise it might be much work to update all the next/previous values. --Faux (talk) 09:43, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
One level won't be enough. For office holders "Preceded by" and "Succeeded by" will need "source" properties. For stations "Connecting line", "Next Station" and "Previous station" will need "From (date)" and "to (date)" as well as "Source".
This was brought up before and is (I believe) in the plan for phase 2. Phase 3 lists will (as I understand it) include info from multiple related items and will (I hope) be able to use properties like "Succeeded by" and "Next station" and "From (date)" and "Has as Mother" to produce ordered lists and even complicated things like family trees and branching train lines. Filceolaire (talk) 09:56, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

bad conflict

I want to add interwikis to Q4924879 but it says most of them are linked to Q209208 what should I do?Reza1615 (talk) 10:21, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Why not just moving the en and fa interwiki links to Q209208 and deleting Q4924879 as a duplicate? --Faux (talk) 10:27, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Interwiki conflict. En-wiki has also w:List of cities and towns in Germany which is more like Q209208. --Stryn (talk) 10:30, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
as Stryn said they are not the same and should be different.Reza1615 (talk) 10:47, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
How are the two farsi articles different? If some of the articles in Q209208 should be in Q4924879 then delete them from the first and add them to the second. They cannot be on both pages. Yes; this does mean Q4924879 will have very few links. Filceolaire (talk) 10:28, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

admin bot

In fa.wiki I run admin bot (Rezabot) which runs speedy delete code for these cases: if

  • Page creator and the user who request for delete are the same and in history no one edited that page (only creator)
  • page is sub-user page and delete requester is the creator or that user
  • request of (white list bot) which are admin's bots. usually it uses to help admins when they want to clean some pages with huge delete amount
  • Broken redirects

If you want I can share this code. but we need community's agreement.Reza1615 (talk) 10:46, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good (of course if operated by an admin), but do we have that amount of user subpages? For Q#... items it is not likely to work with the same code. Regarding broken redirects, my experience as admin is that they often need further investigation before deletion to guess what wnet wrong and why and what kind of addditional problems are to be corrected. Bináris (talk) 11:02, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm usually not in favor of bots with admin rights, but that is me. Jeblad (talk) 11:05, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't think were at the point where we need adminbots yet. Admins are able to keep up at WD:RfD, and we don't have a ton of broken redirects lying around everywhere. If it becomes unmanageable, then we should probably take a second look at adminbots. Legoktm (talk) 11:08, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
I think deletion request get wheedled well by the current administrators, so no need for a bot. --Sk!d (talk) 11:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
If users had a permission to delete items that they are the only user is was good. for example I made an Item wrong and I should wait for an admin to delete it. after that I can merge it to other Item! it is boring! here is completely different form wikipedia because if you made a mistake you should leave it and wait for adminsReza1615 (talk) 11:36, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict x2) You can delete links from the wrong item, and move them to other item. --Stryn (talk) 11:38, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Currently we don't need this kind of bots. --Stryn (talk) 11:39, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Ok :) Reza1615 (talk) 12:04, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
There was a discussion previously about deletions after merges and it was pointed out that after a merge we should have a redirect rather than a delete so that we have stable URLs. This is a bit theoretical as the devs haven't implemented Redirects yet but, when they do it may make sense to have bot to make sure all the steps are done. Filceolaire (talk) 10:34, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

"infobox" property instead of all classification

There has been tons of classification wars on this and many other pages, but I think a much more useful and immediate benefit would be to have an "infobox" property that points to the Q page for that template. Once the infobox is set, different languages would use that infobox to present information relevant to it.

For example, Marie Curie has "infobox" = "Infobox scientist", and that infobox has fields like who her doctoral students are, the spouse, awards, etc. So having "infobox scientist" determines the schema of the entry, which values are needed/will be used (it doesn't have to be enforced, but could be highlighted as used). Once that is done, enwiki or any other could have some complex template that pulls this infobox value, and includes the needed template, which in turn pulls all the available wikidata values. --Yurik (talk) 12:19, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

This is fine, but how does it incorporate the fact that different projects have different templates (and some have strong feelings about theirs)?--Ymblanter (talk) 12:26, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
I think we in the end will get very generic Lua-based infoboxes that adapts to the actual statements in the items, but that is a whole subproject alone. Jeblad (talk) 15:21, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
  Support This is what we should replace the "Is a" property with in most items. In every Item add this as the first property. When this is completed have a script to automagically import the properties associated with that infobox. If our wikidata infobox is a superset of the info included in the various language infoboxes then their should be no problem with differences between those infoboxes - they just set their own info boxes to import only the info they want. Filceolaire (talk) 10:47, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
  Support Otherwise we only get long lists with any kind of source-free info, including nonsense, calumnies, and errors we will never find. --Kolja21 (talk) 22:46, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

ENwiki to be added

Please take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Addbot/log/wikidata which is a list of interwikis found on en that are not on wikidata yet. Would be great to have some people come over and help carry the links accross to wikidata or someone to write a bot to check the page and update links on wikidata! ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 14:44, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

There are a lot of conflicts on there to be fixed :/ ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 17:51, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Looks like Legobot will add links to wikidata. In fact, should Addbot just stop and let Legobot take over? Here's an example where Legobot already cleaned up after Addbot. —Naddy (talk) 19:01, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Interlanguage links with a section

For example, in the English Wikipedia article w:iPad Mini, the German link had an interlanguage link to de:Apple iPad#iPad mini, which is a section in an article. Because Wikidata does not currently allow sections in articles, the interlanguage link was lost and was not carried over. I restored the German link for now, but what should Wikidata do about this? Should we just continue to manually include it in the article? The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 17:52, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

As explained on w:WP:WDATA, interlanguage links with anchors should be retained in the article for the time being. —Naddy (talk) 19:05, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
I hadn't seen that section before, thanks. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 19:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Language Links: Counts DO NOT Match

[newbie] As of right now, the Infobox mineral template (permlink to current version) displays 33 language links.
Shouldn't the wikidata page list 34 language links
1 (for the language in which I'm viewing the page)
+ the 33 other languages?
Why, then does the wikidata page list 42 (permlink to current version)--that's right Forty-Two language links?

--TheMightyHercules (talk) 19:42, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

fixed. Legoktm (talk) 19:45, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Interwikis (mlwiki) did not match

I just looked at the mlwiki mismatch Legobot reported for w:Animation/Q11425 and it's an odd one. The page names look the same (as far as I can tell with an unfamiliar script and a lousy font), and both links lead to the same article without any redirect. So why is there a mismatch? I've noticed the same thing a few times before with ml: pages while manually removing interlanguage links, but didn't pay attention to the details. I've copy-and-pasted the names into a hexdump and the byte sequences sure are different. Is this an issue with Unicode equivalence? Anybody familiar with the Malayalam script and its Unicode representation? —Naddy (talk) 20:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Hm...its possible my script has an error. I'm going to do some more debugging... Legoktm (talk) 20:36, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Well, checksitelinks.js shows the mismatch, too. (Check with an older revision, somebody's just changed it.) —Naddy (talk) 21:21, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

A sandbox

Lately I've been seeing a fair amount of edits that are most definitely unconstructive, but don't really appear to be malicious – removals of valid links or descriptions are the most notable example. And, like any good recent-change patroller, I drop the users a note. The thing is, though... I keep on wanting to refer them to the sandbox, since I figure they might be just testing out what all the buttons do, but I find I have nowhere to direct them. So, I was wondering what others would think of creating an item that would serve as our sandbox. It would be explicitly exempted from WD:N, and would be cleared by a bot every few hours, with an explanation on its talk page, as well as in the default status of the label and description (i.e. what the bot would revert to). I mean, we have WD:Sandbox, but that doesn't actually use the mainspace software, and directing them to the test repo seems inconvenient and confusing. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 01:55, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

We already have Q4115189 for this, and it's linked from the main sandbox's header. — Hazard-SJ  ✈  02:39, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Oh oops lol. You know what they say about great minds.... ;) Thanks. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 02:56, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect edit summary

I added an alias to the sandbox, and this edit summary showed up: "(Added and removed [en] alias: the sandbox)". I definitely did not remove any aliases. Any clue? -- Ypnypn (talk) 02:46, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like it's an misleading edit summary; maybe it should have been "(Added or removed [en] alias: the sandbox)", or simply "(Added [en] alias: the sandbox)". The automatic summary seems to be also used in mainspace statements as well. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 06:10, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Ideally, we could have it so there are separate summaries for when you add or remove, but, for the time being, could an admin please change MediaWiki:Wikibase-item-summary-wbsetaliases-add-remove to "added and/or removed"? — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 12:04, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
I've changed it to use "or" when it's only one alias, and "and/or" when it's multiple. --Yair rand (talk) 13:29, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

What is the discrete "Statement" section for and why am I having to ask?

I'm sure there has been reams of discussion about Wikidata and its many aspects all through development with many people involved. Yet, until I came here a few weeks ago and added them to the introduction (the page most people will land on to learn what this place is and how to contribute), having never heard of this until that day, the help pages for label, description and aliases weren't even linked. Today I see a new section in entries for "Statements" which is completely non-self-explanatory (I still have no idea what it's for). So on a lesser note, what is it for? Far more crucially, the introduction, the most prominent page where people who aren't insiders will learn what's going on, should be much better than it is now, and it should be your first stop to update after anything of note is added or changed.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:15, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Statements are facts about the subject that you would find in an infobox. They are one-way "links" to another related article or Commons image (more data types are coming soon). For example, United States of America is California's country (Q99), animal is bird's kingdom in taxonomy (Q5113), and Michelle Obama is Barack Obama's spouse (Q76). The current plan is to use this data for creating new articles, if I understand correctly.
As far as the documentation goes, yes, it is lacking. I'm really surprised that there isn't a help page for statements yet; I might start one soon. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 06:20, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
The introduction page was essentially a teaser written when Wikidata was not yet launched. I have drafted a new version at Wikidata:Introduction/sandbox. Does it sound more informative ? --Zolo (talk) 07:08, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Definitely a step in the right direction Zolo. Thanks for the description Anonymouse. Yes "statements" certainly needs a dedicated help page. The parameters of what one might add to it are very hazy and need to be defined or people will not bother because it's not clear what to do (or stumble around in the dark adding things that don't belong; they'll start writing articles there in no time, or dumping the entire content of existing encyclopedia articles in that section. I used Q3297154 as a try out entry (a featured article I wrote at en: (w:Masako Katsura)) If you visit the article you'll see it has a well-developed infobox. What items belong and which don't? I have no idea right now. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:35, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
For a biography, I usually add entity type = "person" (to show the item is for a person), place of birth (city, town, village, etc. of birth), place of death (city, town, village, etc. of death, if applicable), sex (male or female), and image (photograph from Commons). Wikidata:List of properties has a complete list of all current properties, and Wikidata:Property proposal is the place to discuss new properties to be created. You might also get a good idea by looking at other examples of biographical entries. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 18:52, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Also, Help:Statements has been created by someone. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 07:21, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Can't add Tagalog links

I'm unable to add Tagalog (tl) interwiki links. When I click add and then enter tl or Tagalog in the first box, nothing comes up. Bgwhite (talk) 07:13, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Location of code

Where is above paragraph for I can translate it. This text appears when I am editing a item, adding interwiki, description, title.

By clicking "save", you agree to the terms of use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC0 license. I accept these terms for my future edits. Do not show this message again.
--Vivaelcelta (talk) 08:09, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

You can translate it here. Csigabi (talk) 08:13, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. --Vivaelcelta (talk) 08:56, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

If you are not experienced in TranslateWiki, you can put the translation here, and I will change the text in the Spanish version. Csigabi (talk) 09:08, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I have a account in Trasnlatewiki and I have 1,177 contributions. :) --Vivaelcelta (talk) 09:37, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

More inline guidance required

Can I ask for the project to consider the use of Mediawiki's Editnotice facility to head up all main namespace pages, and to include in their links to Help:Label and Help:Description, and possibly even make them language specific. For those not familiar with wikidata it will assist with the hurdle of having the hard slog to remember, so ready links would be most helpful.  — billinghurst sDrewth 09:45, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

It would also be great if there were also some quality examples linked for people and place, and the like.  — billinghurst sDrewth 10:26, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Be-x-old interwiki

There are many articles in English Wikipedia where be-x-old interwikis are absent after moving them to wikidata pages. So I should add them manually (see my contributions). --Taravyvan Adijene (talk) 09:49, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I had the same problem yesterday. The script does not seem to handle the properly for whatever reason.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:14, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Maybe we should file a bug report at Bugzilla? It Is Me Here t / c 10:34, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
It is most likely the script problem. Let us wait a few hours, may be the author of the script will reply here.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:38, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
I've solved the problem: by default the script blocked all the "old" wikis. I've added an exception for be-x-old. Tpt (talk) 14:58, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Great, thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:52, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Could somebody run import script on be-x-old Wikipedia? I noticed that bot which removes interwikis on English Wikipedia often left mostly be-x-old one. Just to avoid its unnecessary passes. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:38, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
PyW interwiki bots has problem with some of interwikis which has - in their name also some of them has problem with wikidata API.Reza1615 (talk) 14:48, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't remember problem be-x-old interwikis in standard interwikis bot. At least in not so distant past (~ year ago). --EugeneZelenko (talk) 16:03, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
After an hour of debugging with my bot, I figured out that the issue is with _ vs -. The interwikis are stored in pagetext as be-x-old, but to add them with Wikidata's API, you need to use be_x_old. Most bots just tack on "wiki" at the end, so this is why it screws them up. I fixed this on my bot by adding a .replace('-','_'). Legoktm (talk) 16:34, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
if for API developers make redirect for languages form - to _ it will helpfulReza1615 (talk) 16:45, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Help desk?

Hello. Your Help:Contents doesn't include any obvious links to a help page. Is this the right place to come? If so, it's rather obscurely titled.

My question is based on this diff from en:. Why has the bot ignored two languages? Are they not yet covered by the project? --Dweller (talk) 11:34, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Those two links have not been added to Wikidata yet and that bot removing the interwikilinks is unable to add them automatically so it just leaves them behind. There's another bot running that does try to add missing links to wikidata first. 87.38.8.2 11:45, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Here, we have an interwiki conflict: The Hebrew interwiki is listed elsewhere. I will try to see whether it can be repaired.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:47, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
The Hebrew one leads to a section of an article, we can not yet handle this. I have taken care of the Romanian interwiki.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:52, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. That makes sense. What about the name of this page? It seems like it's not for newbies asking silly questions like mine. And the Help:Contents page doesn't list any venue for that kind of thing, not even this page (though it does offer a tiny link to chat for those comfortable with those things, which is a nice idea). --Dweller (talk) 11:57, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, for EnWikipedians at least, we've tried to set up something of a local embassy at en:WT:WDATA. In the future we probably should create a help desk for questions about how to edit Wikidata, but for a question like yours, which was more about how we're currently running things on En, I like the idea of handling them on the relevant 'pedia, rather than making you all come to us. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 12:10, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree that creating a Help Desk is a good idea. Project Chat covers a lot of ground and sounds like it's for "vested contributors" (never mind IRC, where apparently you have to go to truly be a member here... like en:Wikipedia's early days all over again). We need to triage new users from Wikipedia etc. to a place where they feel welcomed. Reviewing help questions is also a good way to approach documentation and FAQs. Espeso (talk) 19:26, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I am not on IRC, I am not going to be on IRC, but I pretty much feel myself a member here.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:43, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Good. I've just seen so many references to it, including an edit summary that turned a draft into a policy (for a while) on the basis of a "conversation on IRC"... :) Espeso (talk) 19:48, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
What's wrong with IRC? The channel is publicly logged in case you think people are "omg cabal"ing. Feel free to join in, you'll find out that the conversation is mainly about...wikidata. Legoktm (talk) 20:06, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Bots and Page.interwiki() method

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I didn't find information anywhere else.

Is pywikipediabot being updated to deal with interwikis not being hosted in articles? Or, have been any workaround been planed?

It seems that Page.interwiki() method (from wikipedia.py) is no longer working as usual in enwiki, and I'd like to find an alternative before interwikis move to wikidata in all wikipedias.--Pere prlpz (talk) 12:05, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest to ask on a discussion page of the pywikipediabot project page. The framework has been extended to support Wikidata directly, but I don't know how far the Wikidata part has been ported to the Wikipedia part. --Faux (talk) 14:44, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your suggestion. I think I got a good answer in ca:Viquipèdia:La_taverna/Ajuda#IW's en anglès (sourced in mw:Manual:Pywikipediabot/Wikidata, where I had previously missed some important details).--Pere prlpz (talk) 20:05, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit/remove Lables and descriptions in multiple Languages at once

The resolving of the interwiki Conflict for Q188561 left many lables and descriptions and this will prevent a lot of items from being created. It would be good if you could edit all Lables and desriptions simultaniously in a List. Even in the Lable Lister you have to choose a language. In this case it would even already help if you could just remove all and then refill automaticly.--Saehrimnir (talk) 14:01, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Stupid question time

I'm new here and just getting my head around the potential for Wikidata. But as I gnomishly add claims for properties, here and there, I'm struck by what an endless task this would be, if it remained manual. There are millions of Wikipedia articles and each one has a rather large set of potential properties. In some later phase, bots are going to be creating all these properties -- right? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:06, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Almost, but the bot need a little help from his human friends. --Kolja21 (talk) 15:15, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you! Yes, and I see that Special:Contributions/Legobot lets me see what it's up to. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:29, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Sources

Russia was mentioned as a good example. The statements in this item have already sources. Does that mean we can/should use this feature now? --Kolja21 (talk) 15:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

These are not "sources", these are references to Wikidata items. A source should be something, usually made with paper, which has not been produced by amateurish geeks playing with a Wikimedia Foundation website but by some scholar. Of course, a book can be displayed through a Wikidata item, but sources should be items whose subject is a book or, if this is not possible, a website. What has been tried in Russia is, for my taste, a funny and delightful game but certainly not a good example. Touriste (talk) 15:42, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
We currently lack both the technical infrastructure (property types, etc), and discussion/policy on using the sources section, so I see no point in using it. I don't understand why it was turned on recently. Anything entered there is, for now, harmless but ultimately pointless. Espeso (talk) 18:20, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
In my opinion, insofar as this infrastructure does not exist, we could play with properties to get a feeling of them and solve (or get puzzled by) many questions met while playing. Not more. I am really amazed and frightened to see robots beginning to do mass editions without the addition of a source. Everything which is entered before source sections are operational is ultimately pointless. Touriste (talk) 18:25, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
But there's nothing to play with when you can't even make a numerical or string item value. Second, I am not alarmed at all: the day that this project starts calling for "sources" for sex, entity type, and location, is the day it goes off the tracks and I'm outta here. "Everything which is entered before source sections are operational is ultimately pointless." If you don't understand how your use of the word everything is frankly, absurd, than I am afraid, very afraid for this project, and I've seen others make similar horrifically broad assertions. Espeso (talk) 18:39, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
I am sorry, but I just see Legobot has just added the claim "Finneland is a geographical feature" on Finneland. As far as I can verify, w:Finneland seems to be a "municipality" (in German w:de:Gemeinde) in Sachsen-Anhalt. It is very far from obvious that Gemeinden are w:geographical features -there are very few interlanguage links on w:geographical feature which is a quite technical article of geography about a concept I know nothing about. Deciding whether a en:Polity, that is an entity in public law can be assimilated as a settlement, an entity in human geography, is a difficult question. This question is far too technical for me, and I doubt that Legobot knows much more than I do in philosophy of law or epistemology. This is not a "trivial" assertion. Touriste (talk) 18:53, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
I understand your concern here. This "geographical feature" claim comes about in an odd way. It is attached to the "entity type" property, which has been defined as following the GND authority file. (See the talk page of "entity type" if you dare!) One of the main classifications in GND is "place", which has somehow become "geographical feature" on Wikidata. So if you reads this statement as "GND entity = place", hopefully it becomes more acceptable? The problem here is that people tried to retrofit existing items with encyclopedia article links to GND entities... and frankly, the English Wikipedia for example does not have an article called "place", that's rather a dictionary entry, so they attached "place" to the closest concept they could find (I think). I have always been a proponent of creating new Items that say exactly what we want them to say. I hope I have clarified this one example for you? Espeso (talk) 19:00, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes I see, there should be an item about "places" (and there probably is one, perhaps an article written on some remote Papua language Wikipedia :-)). See a few sections below how my concerns evolved when I looked deeper into the subject - things have been decided perhaps a bit too hastily. Touriste (talk) 19:11, 20 February 2013 (UTC)


As far as I could understand, the development envisioning to use items as sources. That means creating items for many many books, articles etc. but it sounds reasonable to me. What I am not clear about is how properties are supposed to be used in sources. --Zolo (talk) 20:03, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
How can an item capture a page number (or a URL, or an access date)? There have to be some non-item aspects to source information. Espeso (talk) 20:13, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I think the source field will eventually include "qualifiers" as well. --Zolo (talk) 10:01, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Which Property to use?

I'm slightly confused by Wikidata's Properties. Which Property should I add to Q849607, Q172610, Q239793 and Q4999061 to say that they are all automobiles? It Is Me Here t / c 18:16, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

You have hit on a key issue under discussion right now. There is a property called "is a" which some people want to delete (discussion). I have argued that it is a useful classifier/grouper for the case you've described, as long as the values used with the property are kept to the most fundamental one applicable to the item. Espeso (talk) 18:23, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
@It Is Me Here: We've just started to add properties. If you're missing one, please add your suggestions at Wikidata:Property proposal. --Kolja21 (talk) 01:15, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Q5000000

In a few minutes, we should hit item #5,000,000! -- Ypnypn (talk) 18:21, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Accomplished! -- Ypnypn (talk) 18:24, 20 February 2013 (UTC) Never mind. -- Ypnypn (talk) 18:25, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I hope that we don't skip it :) --Stryn (talk) 18:26, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Accomplished, for real. -- Ypnypn (talk) 18:30, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for posting it in the news section. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 18:43, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Vandalism pattern

I have noticed today a pattern of similar vandalism from four different IPs (apparently unrelated): in an item with a large amount of interwiki links, the first link get removed. Whereas this is not extremely harmful (the link I assume gets re-added by bot reasonably soon), is there any way to prevent this, by filter or smth?--Ymblanter (talk) 19:02, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

We could create a filter that detects all edits where a sitelink was removed. Not sure if that would be userful. However, there has to be a good reason (eg deleted/moved) for removing a link --Bene* talk 20:33, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
There should be some kind of tool to verify that the sitelink clusters are sane and complete, but it is slightly difficult as a sitelink in general can go to a site that isn't part of a page cluster on Wikipedia. Not sure if this is a problem we can solve. Jeblad (talk) 10:41, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Well, I just filed bugzilla:45224 after noticing the same trend. This would make it much easier to deal with these removals, I think; we could create an abuse filter for unexplained link removals by non-autopatrollers. I also think it might be time for us to bite the bullet on templated warning messages, since this is probably the largest type of unconstructive edit we have that isn't unambiguously vandalism. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 11:42, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

What is Q618123 about ?

Q618123 is presently massively used as a value of the property Property:P107 (entity type) on hundreds or perhaps thousands of items - see Special:WhatLinksHere/Q618123.

There are five Wikipedia articles linked to Q618123 : w:de:Geographisches Objekt, w:en:Geographical feature, w:fa:عوارض جغرافیایی, w:ru:Географический объект and w:uk:Географічні об'єкти. I can only read the German and English ones (though I can notice that the Russian and Ukrainian have a title that sounds more like the German one than the English one) and I discover they are not about the same topic : w:en:Geographical feature is on a very broad class of geographical concepts, de:Geographisches Objekt is cartography-orientated - it is about places which can be geolocalized.

OK interwikis were approximate. Not a very big affair - this item should be split in two (or more, difficult to know without a knowledge of farsi). Not a big affair ? But what to do of the myriad of items pointing there ? Should they remain directed to the article about "Geographical features" ? Or should they remain linked with "Geographisches Objekt" ? Touriste (talk) 19:08, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

In the way that we've been using it for P107, it's the broadest possible understanding - so it sounds like the de/ru/uk ones at least may be mis-linked. James F. (talk) 20:20, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Q618123 is a (unsatisfactory) compromise solution for the term "place". "Place" is one of the six main types of items (Wikidata:Infoboxes_task_force/places). If we have adapted WD:N to phase 2 (items without Wikipedia articles), I hope we can create an item "place" that fits. --Kolja21 (talk) 01:25, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Some good news about the future

Please see this blog entry :) --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 20:22, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

To the glorious, glorious future! :-) --Magnus Manske (talk) 20:48, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Excellent news! James F. (talk) 21:03, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
+1 Snipre (talk) 21:12, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
+1 --Goldzahn (talk) 06:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
+1 --Gloumouth1 (talk) 08:38, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

interwiki with flags?

I propose to configure wikidata for view the interlinks with flags. --Marce79 (talk) 10:11, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

With interlinks, do you mean sitelinks? Languages does not in general map to nations, and sitelinks can go to sites that isn't about a specific language or nation. Jeblad (talk) 10:35, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Please see this why this is not a good idea. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:37, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
I badly explained. Example:

before
Deutsch
English
Español
Français

after
  Deutsch
  English
  Español
  Français
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Marce79 (talk • contribs) .

Some languages are spoken in many countries. --Stryn (talk) 11:06, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
@Marce79: as Stryn said most of languages spoken in different countries .if it is useful for you. you can write or ask for Js tool which can add these flags to your user interface.Reza1615 (talk) 11:48, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

IAR

I just created WD:IAR, since it's one of those policy pages that every wiki should really have. I think y'all can guess what policy I cite in defense of marking it as a guideline without discussion. On En there's a bot that notifies VPP if someone does that, but I don't believe we have one here, so here's everybody's courtesy notification. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 12:13, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

We already have that policy. No need for two of them. Ajraddatz (Talk) 12:31, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Oops. Haha. Second good idea I've posted here that somebody's already had. :P Well, that's what you get for not creating redirects. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 15:08, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Fixed :D Ajraddatz (Talk) 21:17, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Edits not being added to watchlist

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41573

Before making any edits here, I went to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist, and switched on "Add pages and files I edit to my watchlist", "Add pages and files I move to my watchlist" and "Add pages I create and files I upload to my watchlist"; but I don't think that these are working properly. Of the six pages that I have created or edited, the first three (User:Redrose64, Wikidata:Project chat and User talk:Redrose64) were correctly added to my watchlist upon saving; but the last three (Q4997878, Q3246420 and Q5047881) were not added to my watchlist upon saving - I had to click the "watch" star as a separate operation. Is this a general problem with Q-type pages, and is it likely to be fixed? --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 14:10, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

It's a missing feature. The bug report for it is at bugzilla:41573. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:18, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Can I translate a property?

Hi, I'm on holiday but I take a few minutes to view the email. A question from one user of es.wikipedia is about translate the properties untranslated into Spanish (pe Property:P110). I'm trying to do, but everytime I have the same error (An error occurred while trying to perform save and because of this, your changes could not be completed.). The translation, Is reserved only to sysop users?. Regards Superzerocool (talk) 15:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Cualquiera puede traducir, acabo de hacerlo y no tuve problemas. --LadyInGrey (talk) 15:10, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
sometimes changing to www.wikidata.org helps. --Goldzahn (talk) 15:12, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

adding other namespaces

Some name spaces like category are very important to have inter-wiki without conflict. I read Wikidata:Requests for comment/Inclusion of non-article pages and except (user and Books) namespace other namespaces doesn't have Oppose. why shouldn't we add them to Wikidata?

using two methods (wikidata and interwikis links) for editing in Wikipedia will be complicated for users.

in my opinion we should move all of them except user namespace which is not very important and it can be in old method! in another hand Now pywikipedia bots doesn't add interwiki to all namesapces in en, hu, it, he wikis and it is not goodReza1615 (talk) 17:44, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Deployment of phase 1 on remaining Wikipedias

Hey :)

earlier today I sent out a note to the village pumps of the remaining Wikipedias who do not have Wikidata yet. Roll-out of phase 1 there is planned for March 6. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 18:23, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Could we have dialog box (master/wizard) in client for adding interwikis ready at this time? It's still not there even after English Wikipedia deployment. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 04:19, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes templated messages suck, but...

... we kind of need them. I've been seeing a lot of unexplained link removals, and almost none of them have been followed by user talk page notes (which I think is one En tradition that's a good idea, though I agree that non-templated ones are preferable). If you have the time to write out a nice note, then more power to you, but if you don't, {{subst:Uw-link-removal1}}, {{subst:Uw-link-removal2}}, {{subst:Uw-link-removal3}}, and {{subst:Uw-link-removal4}} are there for you. It'd be great if we could get some translations of these, since it's not very easy to tell what an editor's language is simply based on their removal of a link or two. Of course, I haven't seen any link removals become enough of an issue on their own that blocking was necessary, but to me this is as much about encouraging confused test editors to stick around as it is about anything else. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 19:47, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

User:분당선M/Statistics

I made daily wikidata statistics. please help me to record daily.-- DangSunM (T · C) 20:50, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Properties waiting

I am new to Wikidata this week, and tonight I have been linking some languages in the Language task force. I have also been adding 'is a : language' to them, as had already been done for Italian language. I then thought that a more useful set of properties to add would be "member of language family", and went looking for whether this property existed, or I could add it. I find that, with some other language-related properties, it was proposed about two weeks ago, but there has been little discussion. What happens now? Is it just waiting for anybody to create the properties? Or does it need more discussion (WD:P says "two or three days")? --ColinFine (talk) 22:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

It would be great, if you add "language family". Till now, we have a lot of problems organising properties, working with three different concepts, plus free added properties. Clean up takes most of the time. --Kolja21 (talk) 22:29, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll try it! --ColinFine (talk) 22:34, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
OK, I've created properties language family and dialect, but the other two suggested are not yet implementable because of their type. I've added them to WD:P, but not sure what to do to them on WD:PP. --ColinFine (talk) 23:18, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Very confusing. What is the language family of Italian? Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Italo-Dalmatian? And dialect is an extremely charged and politically sensitive term. —Naddy (talk) 23:38, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
en:Infobox language has a hierarchy "fam2", "fam3", "fam4". Since the Wikidata software is not ready yet, I don't now how this will be solve here. --Kolja21 (talk) 00:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
(ec) In my view, all of them. Biological taxonomy has got in a mess now because of the lack of objective criteria for distinguishing levels; there's no need for different names for the levels, and linguistics has little in the way of agreed conventions. I don't see a problem with using the same phrase ("linguistic family") for any level, and I also don't see a problem with marking a language as in all its constituent families. As for "dialect", yes it is sometimes politically sensitive, but in places where it is, "language" is often also sensitive. And in many places it is uncontroversial (though the particular dialects recognised may be disputed). But in any case, I found two proposals which had been there for two weeks with little discussion, and created them. I did not initiate them. --ColinFine (talk) 00:16, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Good job! --Kolja21 (talk) 00:33, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I miss a link in WP to create a Wikidata item from the WP article

If no Wikidata item is found, there is no easy possibility to add one available from the en.wikipedia article. There should be a link (similar to the "edit" link in the interwiki section) that creates an item and uses at least the title of any given en.wikipedia article for that. Is there at least some gadget that can do this? --FA2010 (talk) 13:14, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Tool, yes: Wikidata:Tools#Display_Wikidata_Info_on_Wikipedia. But first you need to check/be sure that article does not have item yet on Wikidata. --Stryn (talk) 13:16, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Maybe bugzilla:40949. --β16 - (talk) 13:21, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. --FA2010 (talk) 09:54, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

New features and bugfixes rolled out

Hey :)

We've just rolled out an update to the codebase here. The most important new features and bugfixes for you are probably:

  • Diffs for claim edits are no longer empty
  • Entity selector now lets you see all results so you can add all properties and items to claims without workarounds
  • Ability to add items and properties by their ID as well, not just their label
  • Automatic comments are set for edits of claims
  • Fix for the "edit links" link in non-main namespace articles

And as a small weekend project:

  • You can now have a table near the top of each item showing labels and descriptions in other languages you speak. FOr this to work you need to add a BabelBox to your userpage. Check mine for how this looks like if you're not familiar with it.

--Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 20:41, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Woo! Sven Manguard Wha? 20:46, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Good idea, but HUGE :-( Should be half-sized. JAn Dudík (talk) 20:51, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Nice. :-) Bináris (talk) 20:56, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Good stuff. Having the language names in the "In other languages" section function as setlang links is a nice touch. :) --Yair rand (talk) 21:37, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
I've already reported bugzilla:45136 and one more that was minor. :( Legoktm (talk) 21:39, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
I really love the babel idea. It even works for languages I don't speak (add "-0"). --Kolja21 (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Wow; nice! -- Ypnypn (talk) 23:19, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Is it possible to add some perfection to edit summaries? :-)
  • How about adding link to property? (for those who don't remember magic numbers :-)
  • How about adding item/file name for value? Of course with link.
  • How about adding aforementioned thing to removed property case? Now it's just ‎Removed a claim.
  • How about adding links to old and new value for changed property value case? Now it's just Set a claim value.
  • When edit summaries will be added for older edits?
EugeneZelenko (talk) 03:07, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Link to property would be good. Or maybe property's name after p19? (‎Created a claim: p19) don't tell much. --Stryn (talk) 07:23, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes we'll work on improving the summaries. However that needs some hacking in MediaWiki core that still needs to be done. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:51, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Is there a possibility to get rid of this box without deleting my babel if I'm not interested in it? NNW (talk) 08:32, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Put this is your User:NordNordWest/common.css
.wb-terms-heading, .wb-terms {display:none;}
--Kip (talk) 09:13, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Is that known bug, that when looking diff like this, I can't see the property which was added? --Stryn (talk) 12:39, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Bugzilla:45244. --Stryn (talk) 13:02, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Internationalization templates

Currently, templates like {{Support}} rely of {{LangSwitch}} for internationalization. But as the translate extension is installed here, couldn't we use the translation namespace instead ? That would make translations more visible and easier to reuse in other places. --Zolo (talk) 08:36, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the particular of {{support}} will benefit from Translate extension, because it's too short (one word) and almost surely will need no update. However, I do encourage using the tool for longer or frequently updated templates, if it doesn't cause problems when transcluded. Do we have an example? --whym (talk) 12:43, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Article vs Article (given name)

I came across these two pages today:

Q4125649 - Patrick

Q4927850 - Patrick (given name)

The first is a disambig, and the second is a list. I'm told the distinction isn't always so clear cut on every wiki, and from what I can tell, that seems to be true. Is there anything drawn up currently regarding how to deal with these situations? InShaneee (talk) 12:38, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

First one is fine, but second is a mess, it contains names like Patrik, Patrici, Patrick, Patricio, Patricius, Patrizio, Patryk. I don't know what to do with it. At least disambiguation page should be deleted from it and make a new item for those. --Stryn (talk) 17:27, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
This is known problem - some names looks different, but are from same origin. E. g. in russian language Ivan means John, and on pl.wiki there are often mixed these "different" names in one article [14], In some langauges are article about names marked as disambiguation, in other not.
Its the same problem as with disambiguations (see above).
JAn Dudík (talk) 11:48, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Orkhon inscriptions and alphabet

The valley of Orkhon in Mongolia contains a number of medieval inscriptions in a specific rune-like alphabet which is our main source of knowledge on the Old Turkic language.

Different Wikipedias treat this situation differently. Some (such as az (1/2), en (1/2), fr (1/2), sv (1/2), tr (1/2)) have separate articles for the Orkhon inscriptions and the Orkhon alphabet. Some have an article covering both the alphabet and the inscriptions in one single article, with some naming this article after the alphabet, and some naming it after the inscriptions. Some Wikipedias are, of course, completely indecipherable to me.

The only Wikidata entry so far covering this seems to be Q334704. So what should be done? Should there be two Wikidata entries? Or perhaps three, one for the alphabet, one for the inscriptions, and one for articles covering both? Is there some precedent for situations like this?

My real question isn't even so much "what to do", as: where do I even begin the discussion for this? Here? The talk page for Q334704? Some place else? Gabbe (talk) 15:31, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

As to where to begin the discussion, this is as good a place as any. I would encourage you to create a new item for the script (I see the English article is not attached anywhere) and split off entries from the existing item as necessary, and if you need help I can create the item. Espeso (talk) 15:49, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
I went ahead and created Q5058305 for the alphabet. If you wish to move more items to that entry, or clean up the Wikipedias' links etc, please do. Espeso (talk) 17:15, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
These situations are not uncommon. There is no way around the fact that different language editions may organize information differently. Sometimes the English Wikipedia splits things more finely, sometimes another edition does (e.g. en:Catalysis vs. it:Catalisi/it:Catalizzatore). Where I have encountered such cases, I've either made a decision which ones to interlink (people can still change it) ... or backed away. How many of the articles linked at Q2277 should really be at Q1747689? And even if different editions have equivalent splits, the article correspondences can still be surprising (e.g. compare en:Netherlands and fr:Pays-Bas (pays constitutif)). I don't think there are any easy solutions. And that's if you already ignore the even worse mess of the disambiguation pages. —Naddy (talk) 21:17, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! Gabbe (talk) 07:02, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

ZWNJ Problem

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 45111

Hi, I have problem with Interwikis with ZWNJ in them. I get this error, while adding.

The external client site did not provide page information.

about ZWNJ

Thanks in Advance--Pouyana (talk) 22:01, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

no some new Persian Wikipedia articles don't show up here. an example: The Weinstein company as I have added interwiki myself. and I couldn't add the word واین‌اشتیان because it has ZWNJ in it. I just tricked it with adding a redirection to the main article and then the Wikidata application itself added the real name.--Pouyana (talk) 22:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
I think that is the same problem that kept me from adding the fa link to Q211960. You should take this to Wikidata:Contact the development team. —Naddy (talk) 23:29, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I've brought this up with the developers. A few examples of what is failing would be very useful. Thanks! --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 09:34, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Ok it looks like we found the issue. Will work on a fix. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:32, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Confirmed the issue. John Erling Blad (WMDE) (talk) 10:36, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

accidentally created a bogus item, where do I go to have it removed or what have you?

I created Q5084100 after thinking I'd searched for the topic, but having somehow missed Q4995136. I'm new here, where's the best place to indicate this needs deleting or whatever else would need to be done? Thanks! --Joe Decker (talk) 02:01, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

  Deleted. In the future, Wikidata:Requests for deletions is the right place to go.--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:05, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Awesome, thank you! --Joe Decker (talk) 02:07, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Protip: Enable RequestDeletion on your gadgets panel.  — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 02:19, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Bonus! Thanks! --Joe Decker (talk) 17:33, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Zazaki interwiki links

Now, as Addbot started removing interwiki links, in particular, from the pages on my watchlist in the English Wikipedia, I noticed that in most cases several links are not removed, because they do not match Wikidata. The most common cases, in my observation, are (i) one link leads to a section; (ii) one link leads to a redirect; (iii) one link leads to a deleted article. In none of the cases the import script works; it gives an error, and the interwiki should be fixed by hand. This is often annoying, as there could be say five of them, some in non-Latin script. Whereas there is very little we can do for (i) and (ii), for (iii) the main source of errors are diq:Zazaki articles. Apparently, recently someone bot-created a zillion of empty articles there, the interwiki links made it to Wikidata and stay there, and then these articles were deleted. The Zazaki Wikipedia currently has over 4000 articles; I have no idea how many were deleted, but I gues for instance every Russian town (over a thousand) had an article, an all of them were deleted. Would it be a good idea to first bot-delete all Zazaki interwiki links on Wikidata, and then bot transfer them for Zazaki Wikipedia? This can only make sense if done before March 6, since when Zazaki Wikipedia gets migrated to Wikidata, the task will be impossible anymore.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:23, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Nah. Ask Hazard-SJ to use his Hazard-Bot to go through the deletion log at diq wikipedia. I really won't agree with deleting all of the sitelinks of one wikipedia unless there is no other option.--Snaevar (talk) 09:26, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, the deletion log sounds like a better idea. Thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:30, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Dab pages in different languages

The item Q3463955 was linked only to fr:Saint Léon, which is a dab page. I have linked it to en:St. Leon, which is also a dab page, but with a different scope (the French is only to saints, the English to other topics bearing the name). Have I done right? --ColinFine (talk) 09:57, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

That looks fine ColinFine. I noticed there is also a disambiguation page called en:Saint-Léon but it is attached to different French dab page. Espeso (talk) 16:46, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata and IE8

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 44228

There was a topic here previously but it seems to have been archived. With IE8, Wikidata pages didn't allow editing, although IE9 was OK. A bug cure was stated to be available and awaiting deployment. I see that IE8 now shows "add" and "edit" links, but they don't actually do the job as they all link to http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/ rather than allowing edits. - David Biddulph (talk) 12:27, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I came here to report precisely this problem. It's somewhat different from before the fix — we didn't even get edit links then, while now we get them but they're useless. Nyttend (talk) 14:22, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
It was brought up with me already. Thanks. We're investigating. It looks like an oversight during the preparations for the last deployment. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:31, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

restricting properties and items - some explanation behind design decisions

Hey :)

There have been a few requests about allowing to restrict possible values for a given property or to restrict the list of possible properties for a given item. I asked Denny to write an explanation about his decision not to do this. It's published here now. I hope this clarifies why it's not possible at this point and why we consider it important. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:36, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Everton F.C.

Is this just a bunch of mistakes or does it mean something to anyone? (Seems to be okay now, but the first viewing of it had Q numbers and hash numbers in the properties....) The Rambling Man (talk) 16:15, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

does using such services like google,or wiki make you an employee

they take info from our searches and clicks on the web, compile all info. then begin differentiate what we the users of these services are interested in. then sells wat we search and etc. on the web as profiting leads to business'. so they use us(web users) for profit and gain is that correct? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.95.37.12 (talk • contribs) 16:26, 22 February 2013‎.

Not sure what this has to do with Wikidata, but... no, you're only an employee of a company if you sign an employment contract (or, in some cases, I believe, just if they pay you money). Wikidata, of course, doesn't pay you any money, and will never ever require you yourself to pay money to use its services. If you're concerned about Google using your browsing history for commercial purposes, there's a Google account setting you can disable to prevent that. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 16:53, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

conflict

I think that have a conflict between Q3943414 and Q1156659 have the same articles in wp. --Anskar (talk) 17:18, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I think (from looking) someone has fixed that, in general you can report conflicts like that at Wikidata:Interwiki conflicts. --Joe Decker (talk) 17:45, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
ok, thank I'm newbe and is dificult find were talk about that. --Anskar (talk) 17:48, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Yep, I'm still fumbling my way around here too. That's part of the fun of getting involved in a new-to-me project, though! I'll see if I can add something to the Help somewhere. --Joe Decker (talk) 17:56, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Confirmed permission

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Thanks, Reedy!!!! — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 01:46, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 45124
Resolved fixed

Prior discussion at meta: meta:Steward requests/Permissions#The Anonymouse@wikidata

According to WD:Confirmed users, currently only stewards can give a user the confirmed bit. Instead of having to go to meta every time, should we file a bug report requesting that administrators be given the ability to add confirmed (and other users rights) here locally? The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 05:48, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

There was a discussion about this before which failed to gain local consensus. I'd support letting admins add/remove the confirmed group locally. Ajraddatz (Talk) 12:25, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
This seems reasonable.   Support Legoktm (talk) 23:17, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
  Support --Rschen7754 23:24, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
  Support --Iste (D) 12:23, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
  Support. — mantis [religiosa] — 18:50, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
  Support.Reza1615 (talk) 14:54, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
  Support. Typical admin activity. Bináris (talk) 15:00, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
  Support Techman224Talk 06:12, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
  Support Next person who comes here to support gets to file the bug instead.   Sven Manguard Wha? 06:38, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Looks like it's been   Done pending here. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 19:06, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

The bug has not been marked as fixed yet ;) Regards --Iste (D) 19:07, 18 February 2013 (UTC
Oops   At least it's almost done. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 19:14, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
  Pile-on support as the one who proposed this last time. Btw, in that discussion, it was pointed out that it's roughly the same level of trust as autopatroller. Assuming this proposal passes, would anyone object to me adding a line Wikidata:Autopatrollers saying that, when autopatrolling a user with less than 4 days of experience, admins should confirm them as well? — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 19:09, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
That seems reasonable, since if you trust someone with autopatrolled, you probably would trust them with confirmed. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 23:33, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Couldn't we add the confirmed rights to the autopatrolled package as well as discussed previously? This makes no sense to me to always put people into two groups when one would be enough. Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 11:08, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
I think that granting permissions is not only a matter of trust, but also a matter of need. Since most autopatrolled users are already autoconfirmed, I don't consider it very useful to grant a user 8 rights that he or she already has. The cases where it is really necessary to confirm a user manually are quite exceptional. Therefore it might not be a bad idea to keep it as transparent as possible which rights are actually granted, as many users are not familiar with Special:Listgrouprights. This is why I oppose merging confirmed and autopatrolled. Regards --Iste (D) 12:58, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Rollbackers

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

We now have rollbacks. Ajraddatz (Talk) 00:35, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Draft guideline at Wikidata:Rollbackers, if anyone's interested. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 01:44, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 45165
Resolved fixed

As I see, this was already proposed in the past, but now that Wikidata is deployed on the English Wikipedia, non-constructive editing has remarkably increased, and I assume this increase will continue when interwiki links and infobox data go live on more wikis within the next few weeks. Therefore I suggest to create a rollbacker permission which can be assigned or removed by admins. Regards --Iste (D) 16:53, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

  Support also, I was going to suggest this :P ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 12:22, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I count 13-aught. Shall we file a bug? — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 21:24, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Lets wait at least 24 hours.... Legoktm (talk) 21:27, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Oh wow didn't realize this was started so recently. Sure, sounds good. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 21:41, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
I have filed a bug now as there don't seem to be any objections against creating a rollback permission for non-admins. Adding any other rights, as proposed above, can always be done when there is a consensus. Regards --Iste (D) 18:56, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Featured article status?

It's great that Wikidata can now be used for article language links. Can it also be used to say which of those language links are featured article status on that wiki? Jason Quinn (talk) 05:28, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

It is currently a planned feature. There's probably a longer discusion somewhere in the archives. Legoktm (talk) 05:32, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Discussions: Good and featured articles, Featured articles and good articles and en:Template:Link FA / en:Template:Link GA. And most important: bugzilla:36735. --Stryn (talk) 06:00, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
This was discussed very early in the project and it was decided to wait until we knew more about what was needed and if we could reuse other parts of the code. It is very tempting to use some kind of snak list for this, like sources or qualifiers in statements, but there could be even other solutions. The initial idea was something very simple that only identified some kind of badge, but then it was realized that there was several different types of markers that could be necessary and that some of them could hold data. A specific badge would be a simple marker (quality) while some kind of text measurement (quantity) would be something that holds data. Perhaps the task is a bit big but it could be something for a volunteer. ;) Jeblad (talk) 11:16, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
I think we may have let the best be the enemy of the good here. There is general agreement in those various discussions that badges for 'Featured article' and 'Good article' would be good things. The suggestion that there could also be a badge for 'disputed article' had some interest too but the problems with how to get agreement on which articles are disputed was too big a problem so the whole thing was put on the back burner. I think it is time to bring it back to the front now that we have a larger community of editors here on WikiData and my proposal would be that these badges attached to sitelinks should be confined to information provided by the various language wikipedias. If the arab language wikipedia think that the hebrew language wikipedia article on a certain topic should have a disputed badge next to it's link, even though he:WP hasn't tagged the article that way, then the arab language wikipedia should (if we decide to have this feature at all) add this by hand. Filceolaire (talk) 10:18, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
"Disputed" badges seem like a very bad idea. "Good" and "Featured" article status badges mean that the editors of a particular language wiki have determined that the article has achieved the standards for the badge on that wiki. Nothing more. Badges do not mean that those articles actually have that quality in some literal, absolute sense; that is humanly impossible to realize. Introducing "disputed" badges will conjure a new thing to argue about out of thin air. They will act as a lightning rod for biased quarreling since most of the generated discussion will be driven by opposing biases rather than neutral objectivity. This is even if the badges do generate discussion. Instead of pointing out bias, they may, in fact, expose bias just as often as not. Language barriers will likely prevent realistically balanced discussion from occurring so badges merely end up being litmus tests for bias on the accusing wiki, not the accused wiki. A very large doubt must be had that these badges would achieve anything productive. Wikis need less "work" revolving around unproductive tasks. If editors think that some language's article is of dubious quality and can rationally support their view, the correct thing to do is discuss that on that language's wiki, explain why the article doesn't deserve the badge, and possibly ask for review. In other words, the "correct" mechanisms to deal with these issues are already in place. A new type of badge isn't needed. Further, even admitting that cultural biases may exist even in GA or FA articles, the ability to have FA status on both sides (like Israeli and Palestinian in your example) is itself something of an equalizer. In that sense, there's a "natural" solution to bias. So even if "neutral" articles cannot be achieved in some language wikis due to the cultural biases of a wiki's editorship, it seems far more civilized to allow readers to read "both sides" to make up their own minds, than also adding "disputed" badges into the mix which are basically a disguised form of finger-pointing. Jason Quinn (talk) 19:47, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Mandatory referencing ?

Some initiatives import data from wikipedia using bots. These large scales importations are a problem because we didn't discuss about the need of reference in order to justify the conservation of statements. So there are two questions:

  1. Do we require for each statement (when reference structure will be available) a reference in order to keep the statement in the Wikidata satabase ?
  2. Do we require a reference for all statements or we define for each property the necessity or not for a reference ?

Snipre (talk) 09:47, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

It is a pity your don't attract more answers, since I think you are asking politely an essential query - I asked a similar question on a more provocative tonality, for instance at Wikidata talk:Requests for permissions/Bot/Legobot 4 and, as could be expected, received the obvious answer ; "this has not to be sourced, this is obvious enough". I see below that people are beginning to insert by hand much more contentious properties (linguistic taxonomy - see section "Properties waiting") and I can bet that some bots will not wait one hundred years before entering the dance and setting also such properties... We need urgently sourcing tools, then sourcing policies. Only when we shall have both at disposal is it reasonable to send bots to the frontline. Touriste (talk) 10:24, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
There was an proposal for "Every "statement" added to Wikidata must be sourced, no exceptions". The vote results on that where:
Support Oppose Neutral
7 4 2
I hope that answers one of your questions.--Snaevar (talk) 01:11, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Is it a wise Idea to Bot create Items for Wikipediaarticles without Interwikilinks

I think this will create a lot of duplicates because there might be a lot of Articles which are about the same subject in different languages which are not currently linked because a lot of things have to line up in order for an article to get interwiki links, because right now the creator of an article only knows that another article exist for that subject if he speaks different languages and even then he might not have looked in that Wikipedia or does not have any knowledge about interwiki links.--Saehrimnir (talk) 15:31, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I doubt there will be a lot, at least for the major languages; humans and interwiki bots have done a good job of matching them up so far. Small languages might not have many articles linked up, but then they don't have so many articles in the first place. --Magnus Manske (talk) 16:01, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Sure, sometimes we get items that need to be merged. One of our most common reasons for deletion at RfD. But we wouldn't discover those if we didn't create the items in the first place. Really, one of our main accomplishments so far is adding more interlanguage links to articles on some wikis. And once we go live everywhere on March 6, we'll start to really see the benefit of that. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 16:24, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Maybe start from smallest languages, there are often articles with conflicted interwiki so they are not added to others. And then bigger and bigger... JAn Dudík (talk) 21:07, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

tool for showning unlabel items

some items has user language (for example fa) but they don't have label so system in recent changes show them in other lang!

It is good if we have a tool for highlighting or add (NL) NoLable before items's name, in recent changes and users can add label to that Items.Reza1615 (talk) 19:08, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

There is a special page which gives a list of items without labels, Special:EntitiesWithoutLabel. Items without labels can also be seen in the RC since they have no other text attached to them :) Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:09, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
in here it doesn't show items which has fa language. for example Q5132677 doesn't have fa.lang!Reza1615 (talk) 19:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Ah, I see what you mean. Ideally, all languages should have a label for an item, even if there isn't a link in that language. Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:16, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
EntitiesWithoutLabel shows label because of fallback languages. --Stryn (talk) 19:18, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
We can change the coloring so it is visible when the fallback languages kicks in. Jeblad (talk) 01:31, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Bot-generated descriptions?

Does anyone have a guess as to when bots will start to auto-generate descriptions for items? That is coming, right? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 21:47, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

There are already bots adding descriptions, for example "disambiguation page", "commune in France" ("französische Gemeinde", "commune française") etc. --Kolja21 (talk) 03:08, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Translation reminder

There are several extensions that needs translations if Wikidata shall be localized properly. Check out if any of the extensions listed below needs translation into your language, that is change from qqq and to the language(s) you usually translate into. Sorry for the nagging about this! ;) Jeblad (talk) 22:55, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

To avoid any misunderstanding: the messages behind the qqq links are not the messages to be translated! The qqq messages are help text only to help translators to understand the original English messages better. Otherwise, admins should be take care that all messages are on translatewiki.net and that they are up-to-date. --Michawiki (talk) 17:29, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
However, it's highly appreciated if Wikidata community members can click the qqq links above for Wikibase and DataValues extensions and add or improve the information available for their messages, to help translators understand where and how they are used and what's the meaning translations should convey. --Nemo 15:52, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Unusual item

Q1640470 is unusual. Each linked interwiki is about words in Greek imported into their respective languages or vice versa. The English one talks about Greek words from the English language, while the German one talks about Greek words from the German language etc. They are not all about exactly the same topic in the strictest sense. Should new items be created for each language? They can't all be grouped under the current English label. --130.88.99.229 10:55, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Fixed by creating new items for Greecisms in each language. Del♉sion23 (talk) 12:56, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

wikidata101?

Hi all - found my way here as a result of seeing a lot of inter wiki bot edits in my watchlist. I really like the concept of a wikidata project as I'm a bit of a data geek in RL. But I'm struggling to see how I get started here. Is there a wikidata 101? Or a "Start here" article that will introduce me to the basics? TIA Atlas-maker (talk) 07:54, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for you interest. Documentation is still very much a work in progress. I have tried to draft a new very short introduction at Wikidata:Introduction/sandbox and feedback would be appreciated. The main gate into documentation will probably be Help:Contents. --Zolo (talk) 08:29, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
You mention you are seeing inter wiki links changed. See Help:Sitelinks on Wikidata or Editors on en:wp have created a great page with all the necessary information for editors. HenkvD (talk) 15:09, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

error

When I want to remove/add/modify some items it show me this error what should I do?

An error occurred while trying to perform save and because of this, your changes could not be completed.'

but it works with interwiki importer! for exmple: I want to add fa> انجیر معابد to Q3071706 and I can't!Reza1615 (talk) 12:04, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Just asking, if problem is same as this: hanges of an item can not be saved when on "wikidata.org" (without "www.")? --Stryn (talk) 12:07, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
no it is not the same. i can modify items but for some Items it shows the error! also I use https://www.wikidata.org Reza1615 (talk) 12:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Do you always get this error on fa.wiki? Also when it happen check if your username is listed on the top of the page. Jeblad (talk) 15:16, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
I have this error on fa.wiki a lot, and on other languages when my username is on top of the edit history.--Taranet (talk) 21:41, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

unable to add new interwiki links to items

I'm using Opera 12 64bit, javascript enabled but when I'm clicking on [add] nothing happens except that the spinning wheel is bringing me on the except same page without any edit box. Is that somehow my fault? Mabdul (talk) 11:07, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Where does it happen? Does it also happen in another browser? Which language are you using? --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:32, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
German browser UI; English at wikimedia projects;
Every dataitem I want to add
Same PC; IE9 (German UI) is working, but then I won't add here stuff, because this is my company computer.
Newest Opera 32bit and 64bit at home doesn't work, too.
Opera Dragonfly (Opera's debugger) gives following error message:
Uncaught exception: ReferenceError: Undefined variable: mw
Error thrown at line 41, column 1 in https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4743369:
    mw.loader.using( 'ext.centralNotice.bannerController', function() { mw.centralNotice.initialize(); } );	Inline script thread	Q4743369:41
		Uncaught exception: ReferenceError: Undefined variable: $
Error thrown at line 178, column 3 in https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4743369:
    $( ".wb-entity" ).fadeTo( 0, .3 ).after( function() {	Inline script thread	Q4743369:178
A few days ago everything worked without problems (see my contribs).
Hope that help. Regards, Mabdul (talk) 16:19, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. Now it works again :)
Your session has expired. Please log in again.
Details
Edit not allowed: * Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please try again. If it still does not work, try logging out and logging back in. * <session-failure>
Uhm that is bad...
Reloading etc., doesn't help Mabdul (talk) 23:23, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Are you using wikidata.org or www.wikidata.org? There are issues if you don't have the "www" in front. Legoktm (talk) 00:08, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Hierarchy of astronomic objects

Dear all, I want to open a discussion concerning the organization of astronomic objects. At now we have three properties:

Some professional astronomic archives try to make order to the hierarchy of astronomic objects (see here for example).

In my opinion we need to decide if:

  1. have properties both for the relation "minor body" in "major body" (e.g. natural satellite and planet) and the opposite (e.g. satellite of and planet of);
  2. have properties only in one direction of the hierarchy;
  3. have few general properties that cover all cases (e.g. my proposal of the property orbit) or lots of properties more specialized.

In this discussion PiRSquared17 said that a property like orbit in some cases has not a clear physical meaning. Espeso here prefers more general properties like orbits or is orbited by.

A final consideration: with the implementation of lists, maybe properties as satellite of or planet of will became more important than satellite or planet. --Paperoastro (talk) 14:07, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for inviting me to the discussion. I am far from knowledgeable of astronomy, but I will contribute my 2 cents on the properties I would use for astronomical objects. (I posted to Property:Planet because I could envision 2 or 3 different ways to use it (has-a-planet (orbited by), orbits-a-planet, is-on-a-planet)... and thought that could be a problem.)
First, astronomical objects seem perfectly suited for type categorization with the "is a" property: comet | Near Earth asteroid ("is a" asteroid) | moon | planet | star | binary star | galaxy | etc. I have placed "is-a binary star" etc on a few items myself. Second, I would use "satellite of" for moons around their homes, and planets around their suns. Third, I would use the inverse of "satellite of" ("satellites"/"is orbited by") on items about stars (etc?). The only problem remaining that I know of is how to specify components of a system such as the Solar System (sun, Jupiter, Oort cloud, Pluto). I don't have a suggestion for a property name, but presume such a property would be desirable. Espeso (talk) 22:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

property translation

Hi all, Where can I find list of properties which are not translated for tr?Marcosebro (talk) 19:53, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Hello, you can see all the properties here. If your current language what you use is tr, then you know that properties with English name are not translated for tr. --Stryn (talk) 20:36, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Translation administrators

I noticed existing administrators are currently unable to add themselves to the translation admin group, so I've posted a comment about this at Wikidata talk:Translation administrators. Greetings, Mathonius (talk) 01:16, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Paul Dalglish

I tried to find this, couldn't, then tried to create it and was told it already existed.... Can anyone help?! The Rambling Man (talk) 10:29, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

It don't exist, what I see. Try to add it again. Sometimes I get also message that here is already item with the same name, but when clicking again "create", it works. --Stryn (talk) 10:35, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
How strange. It worked this time. Thanks! The Rambling Man (talk) 10:45, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I want to report something similar. At Special:ItemByTitle I entered "Site: enwiki Page: The Android Invasion" which returned no results but did state "You can also create an item", so I clicked that and filled in the form with "Label: The Android Invasion"; "Description: Doctor Who serial"; "Site of the first linked page enwiki"; "Name of the first linked page The Android Invasion" but on clicking "Create", I got the red error message "Could not create a new page. It already exists.". I repeated the procedure and this time it worked - and Q5250546 was successfully created. --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 11:43, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

New tool: Wikidata_useful

Wikidata_useful adds quick statement links to your page. Something I wrote for myself, might work for you too (especially in "random page" mode :-) --Magnus Manske (talk) 15:18, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that's useful. --ColinFine (talk) 10:07, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Editing a section at WD:RFP

I note that when I edited a section at WD:RFP, the automatically included text in the edit summary (which is normally the section heading), said "{{Int:Ratinghistory-table-votes}}: ". It should have been "PinkAmpersand" or "Votes". I guess this is a bug? Has this been noted before? Is it being dealt with? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:08, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

The section header for the "Votes" section is {{int:Ratinghistory-table-votes}} in wiki markup, and the automatic summary seems to use the actual template code rather than the end result (which may be a bug or feature – I'm not sure). The reason the template has to be that way is for multi-lingual purposes (it automatically translates "Votes" into the current language of the user). The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 18:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Seems like a "feature" to me as this is entirely unhelpful in locating where the edit was made. Is there a centralised Wikidata place to register this? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:17, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Register what? The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 18:22, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Wikidata:Contact_the_development_team I suppose, but I think I've seen this elsewhere and it might not be a software-end thing. Ajraddatz (Talk) 18:28, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
It's definitely a MediaWiki problem, since it happens at Wikipedia too. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 18:32, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm sure it refers to message MediaWiki:Ratinghistory-table-votes which belongs to the message group Reader Feedback - Rating history on translatewiki.net. It is a subgroup of the group All Reader Feedback messages within the group MediaWiki extensions. Its text is Votes. --Michawiki (talk) 18:35, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Curiously it looks like it's been fixed... cool. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:56, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Italian person data

Hello. As you may know, the Italian Wikipedia has been using for a long time the w:it:template:bio to generate the lead section of biographical articles; it therefore has the largest and most complete set of structured person data of all Wikipedias. As previously done with other properties/claims like "person" and "female", we're of course going to import such data here via bot, see technical details. As per guidelines, we need more opinions in particular on the following:

--Nemo 09:09, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

By the way, de:WP has also such a template (de:Hilfe:Personendaten, de:Vorlage:Personendaten) in 445.000 articles. Therefore there are more than one source of structured person data. Maybe we could look if they have the same info or not as a first step and import the data as the second step. --Goldzahn (talk) 11:29, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Sure, I know Personendaten very well. Which of those fields are mandatory and how are they enforced? It's not as easy to import but it's true that we should do a mapping:
  • NAME and ALTERNATIVNAMEN are like Nome + Cognome but need some cleaning to separate first and last name (properties currently missing here).
  • GEBURTSDATUM and STERBEDATUM are like GiornoMeseNascita + AnnoNascita and GiornoMeseMorte + AnnoMorte, translation should be trivial (properties currently missing here).
  • GEBURTSORT and STERBEORT are like LuogoNascita and LuogoMorte but they don't have fallbacks to ensure the template/bot can find an existing title i.e. something that can be used as value here on Wikidata.
  • KURZBESCHREIBUNG can't be used in a programmatic way but may feed item descriptions a bit like FineIncipit.
  • Other things missing on the de.wiki template: gender (but there's a category), citizenship, image, titles, occupation(s) in structured way, room for sources and notes.
Looks like the de.wiki data can be used later to fill the blanks and check inconsistencies: great! Collecting multiple statements and resolving conflicts is the very purpose of Wikidata. :) --Nemo 12:23, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
There is en:Template:Persondata too. It seems, this template is used in more than one million articles at en:WP. I have no knowledge if that is true, but if it is, the en:WP should be part of this. --Goldzahn (talk) 04:31, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
As a technical note, the Italian template is the most easy to convert using a bot to Wikidata values (items), I believe. That is why the focus is on the Italian data at this time. Espeso (talk) 04:50, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
The other big difference is that the it.wiki template is not hidden but highly visible, makes those fields mandatory, yells at you if you do some mistake, is checked regularly by a bot (BioBot) for mistakes to report to the WikiProject Biographies. It's surely correct that the en.wiki version has over a million calls, but I don't find stats on how many of those are complete (with all fields); anyway, the format was copied from de.wiki and is the same, so the comparison above applies. --Nemo 07:08, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes I could easily believe that the it.wp system leads to less chance of error and more completeness. Because "persondata" on en.wp is separate of infoboxes or anything else, unlike it.wp, it is easier to neglect. I have already commented in the section below, but I do support proceeding. Espeso (talk) 07:17, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
I have worked some time at de:Personendaten. You are right that it is a problem, that this template is invisible. Sometimes editors change the information in the article but missed to change it in the template too. I don´t know if it is difficult to compare data from it:WP with data from en:WP and de:WP. I don´t mind, if the data is taken only from it:WP, but I think we will have now and in the future the situation that we have more than one source of data. For example de:WP works together with our national library and it is not unusual, that ISBN-Numbers and such data is wrong at the libary. The national library gave us the possibility that we could tell them if we found something that might be wrong. As far as I know, this gives us a lot of reputation, because we are the biggest contributor of such data. The point is, I think, we should have some rules/advice/proposal,Idon´tknow how to deal with such a situation. The chapter below, about how to source this, is a part of this problem. For example, if we would compare person data with a database that is not Wikipeia. What should we do, if the data is different? Maybe we should define a possibility (a qualifier, a property, ...) to tell that something is disputed or give a second statements with the same property? --Goldzahn (talk) 08:45, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
My suggestion would be to have the bot(s) log discrepancies. I mean for example: after the basic it.wp biographical data is imported, we move on to the de: or en: data sets. There will of course be great overlap in the people covered, so if the bot finds that a property value imported from a later data set does not much what was already imported, it does not update the data, but rather logs it for editor review. (Reply to the sentence you added after: I think it makes a good deal of sense to add a source on each imported value such as "import source=Italian Wikipedia". In that case both values could be kept on the item with different sources, but we'd still need the log to determine which one to keep.) Espeso (talk) 09:01, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I think nobody wants to use only one source of data, rather the opposite! I also agree on libraries, in fact we've just finished adding VIAF codes to some 60k articles on it.wiki (a second step will follow in a few days), then it's expected that Max Klein (Notconfusing) will use structured data here on Wikidata to find more connections between our biographical data and the VIAF's. His VIAFbot Debriefing is also an example of how we can use bot imports of data as tools for humans to find and correct (on wiki) or report (to libraries) the mistakes. --Nemo 09:03, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
I saw on meta:Wikidata/Notes/Data_model_primer#Ranks the information, that there will be "three ranks of statements". One is called "Deprecated statements" "for statements that are being discussed, or known to be erroneous". Maybe this would help us? The question would be, if we could import the data from it:WP now and add the rank later. --Goldzahn (talk) 09:13, 24 February 2013 (UTC) One chapter below I made the proposal, that unsourced data from Wikidata could be seen in Wikipedia in a different color (or in italics, for example). That would mean, that data imported by bots would be as a standard "Deprecated statements". The editors or a bot could change that rank later, for example if de:WP and en:WP have the same data. I´m sure the developers could do something. --Goldzahn (talk) 09:54, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes is possible made cross check with a bot, but maybe is better check before to import data for to correct discrepancies --ValterVB (talk) 09:30, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
+1 people and bots can already create data storage with cross-checking and later add the data on wikidata once all properties and structures are created. Create task force, build bots, perform data extraction and store them in some temporary files with references. Then once you have the insurance to add later the references you can add the data because we have the references in your hand and not somewhere with the hypothetic possibility to add them one day. Snipre (talk) 10:13, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

validation user script

I'm working on an user script that validate statement values of the currently seen page at its load. Currently it only checks if the "genre" and the "main type" properties have one of the possible good values and, if not, shows a tooltip near of the value. For using it add to your common.js: 

// [[User:Tpt/validator.js]]
importScript( 'User:Tpt/validator.js' );

Feel free to proposed changes in order to improve it. Is there any people that see a problem if I move it to a gadget? To test it, I've added some silly values to the sandbox. Tpt (talk) 17:13, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

thanks. I tested it .it only shows last two properties as false but it should show all of them as false Reza1615 (talk) 19:48, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Please read Restricting the World. In general we would be better off if we can give hints about most used values before they are entered and find outliers that breaks the pattern afterwards. This script does the later but the accepted values are hardcoded, or in other words it creates a fixed ontology for a specific problem. Jeblad (talk) 15:47, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Search error

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41738
 

When I click on this little keyboard icon in search bar, the upcoming window does not fit in the page size and is anreadable as shown. Is this e local gadget or the software itself? Bináris (talk) 20:55, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

It's a monobook-only bug, bugzilla:41738. You don't need the input method selector to search, though. --Nemo 21:28, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh, thank you really! It is just annoying that I don't see what there is, but now I switched to Vector for a minute and had a look and I already know that I don't need it. :-) It was obviously tested on Vector where the search bar is in upper right corner. Not too nice from a programmer. Bináris (talk) 08:30, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

The keyboard icon gives access to the input method editor (IME), and that makes it possible to write strings in other languages were you may not have a keyboard that supports all the characters. The IME is part of the UniversalLanguageSelector and can be turned on and off by opening the dialog for ULS (the link beside your user name on top of the page) and clicking on "Input settings" at the bottom. You can then enable and disable the input method tool. If you turn it on you will get a small keyboard in the lower left or right corner of text entry fields. If you click on it you can for example set it to "Norwegian" and "Normal transliteration" to get the letters æ, ø and å, and then write "Ålesund" on an English keyboard by typing "Aalesund", "Bodø" by typing "Bodoe", and "Vikværsk" by typing "Vikvaersk". Similar things can be done for other languages too. An other interesting thing is that we can extend IME to also include super- and subscripts, which makes it easy to write chemical formulas and similar. I think it is quite useful, but perhaps not to the average user that is only editing in one language where she has a specialized keyboard. Jeblad (talk) 15:11, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

add Wikidata:Interwiki conflicts to the top

I suggest that we add Wikidata:Interwiki conflicts to the top of Wikidata:Project chat and other related noticeboards.--Taranet (talk) 08:22, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Place entities

Having seen an item with an "entity type" statement, I have started adding these where I can. But though the description for entity type lists 'place' as one of the types, there is not currently an item called 'place'. There is, however, one called Place, which is a Wikipedia disambiguation page. I'm not sure whether this should be renamed 'place', whether the description of 'entity type' should say 'Place' instead of 'place', or whether there should be a new entity type for the target of the property, distinct from the WP disambiguation page. --ColinFine (talk) 10:01, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

use the tool of Magnus Wikidata:Tools#Wikidata_useful for datatype statement: you don't need to select the item. Snipre (talk) 10:16, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
I am now using that tool, and through it I have seen that the relevant item is geographical feature, so I have updated the description of the property accordingly. --ColinFine (talk) 11:06, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
And I have also renamed Q1794067 to "place" rather than "Place", according to Help:Label#Capitalization. --ColinFine (talk) 11:08, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Technical issue: set/change claim

I am developing a script to quickly set (or change) the element's gender (male or female) by clicking a button. Trying to set the claim via the JSON API seems unsuccessful (after some tests), and this guide isn't very clear. Any help would be appreciated!! --Ricordisamoa 21:32, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

If the claim does not exist it must be created with a post of the action wbcreateclaim. If it already exist the value can be changed with the action wbsetvalueclaim. If it shall be removed you can do that with the action wbremoveclaim. Use the built in documentation from api.php. Jeblad (talk) 21:55, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank YOU!!! It works!! I'll publish the script soon. But I have a final problem: how do I set an edit summary? It doesn't seem to work. Thanks again. --Ricordisamoa 22:43, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Creating/modifying claims don't support edit summaries yet. Legoktm (talk) 22:45, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
So, editing the whole item to create the claim would do the work? --Ricordisamoa 23:00, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Translation admins

There is a proposal to give admins the technical and procedural ability to assign translationadmin to themselves, without going through Meta. Stewards would still close all non-admin translationadmin requests. Wikidata talk:Translation administrators - please comment! --Rschen7754 23:12, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Chuuk and Chuuk State

There is some collision between Q221684 and Q5302236. They both refer to the same country in Federated States of Micronesia. - Brianhe (talk) 04:49, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed--Ymblanter (talk) 05:03, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Delete translation tool from Help:Aliases page

Because so quiet on page Help_talk:Aliases#Delete_translation_tool_from_this_page, I ask from here to come there, and say your opinions, thanks. --Stryn (talk) 06:43, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Changing editboxes (but not saving) with JS

Hi! I'm trying to write a gadget that will fill in (but not save) an editbox such as "label" or "description" based on a sitelink title. However, I can't make the "save/cancel" buttons become enabled once I fill the text in with JS. I have tried triggering a change and keypress event on the element, to no avail. I can, however, add a space or letter in the box manually and the "save/cancel" buttons come to life. However, this is a bit annoying when the gadget is supposed to reduce clicks and keypresses. Is there a programmatic interface to cause the box to notice such a change in contents? Thanks Inductiveload (talk) 23:44, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

If you have a reference to the input element you can trigger a keydown event manually in jQuery. That's what I've been doing to overcome the fact that pasting with the mouse doesn't enable the save button either
$(window).on('paste', function (e) {
   $(document.activeElement).trigger('keydown');
});
Works just fine in my Firefox. /Ch1902 (talk) 10:48, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Hi, thanks for your help. I still can't get it to work. Running the following in the Firebug console when the label editor is open will change the text but not enable the "save" button:
$('.wb-ui-labeledittool input').val('new label').trigger('keydown') //same for keypress or change
In using Firefox 19, and interestingly pasting with the mouse (middle-click or from context menu) does activate the button. Inductiveload (talk) 13:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Aha, the one edit box I haven't been pasting in! For the label box try triggering input (which in turn triggers eachchange if the value has changed). /Ch1902 (talk) 15:14, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Great, thanks! I hadn't tried the "input" event. Now it's working! Inductiveload (talk) 15:57, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

User pages?

Sorry this is probably in an FAQ somewhere (could not find an FAQ). Is the intention to migrate interwiki links on userpages in the same way? --BozMo (talk) 08:53, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

No, see Wikidata:Notability. --Stryn (talk) 08:56, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Also, there are two FAQs: Help:FAQ and WD:Project chat/FAQ. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 09:21, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Main type, Item and Entity definitions

Please vote for name for Property:P107 (originally Main type of item, currently Entity type).

Also please contribute to the glossary. Many terms have vague or confusing definitions. I recently changed the defintion of Entity, Item and Datatype (which is not Type) in an attempt to reflect the original meaning of these terms in the software development project. Mange01 (talk) 12:54, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia Categories

Interwiki language links from articles are almost imported in Wikidata. Are you going to do the same with interwikis of categories, templates, etc? --Kizar (talk) 16:36, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

According to WD:Notability, all types of pages except user pages will have an item on Wikidata. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 17:58, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Documenting crony capitalism DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:06, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I want to crowdsource research and investigative journalism in crony capitalism. My initial introduction is available at v:Documenting crony capitalism with an incompleted draft of an important case study at v:Finance industry in the United States.

This needs some kind of database for help with both input and output:

  1. Input: What's the source of data used? This needs a system for (a) recording links to places that have data in a variety of formats, plus (b) code for accessing said data and computing therefrom what is needed in any particular case, and (c) generating a graph to push to Wikimedia Commons, from whence it would be available for any specific instance of v:Documenting crony capitalism as well as stories in Wikinews and elsewhere.
  2. Output: A system for identifying standard data elements like investments by year in lobbying and campaign finance, what that group of crony capitalists got for that investment in both monetary and nonmonetary terms, the w:Return on investment for the monetary part, and the money spent on advertising that serves to limit media feeding frenzies involving advertisers.

This raises two questions:

  1. Is Wikidata an appropriate tool for either of these purposes?
  2. If yes, how do I get started?

Thanks. p.s. I read German, French and Spanish routinely, and I could use any documentation in those languages that has not yet been translated into English. I could probably translate material in those languages into English if that were needed. DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:06, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

For "#1. Input", I'm currently adding datasets, functions, and descriptions of data sources and how to produce plots to the "Ecdat" package for w:R (programming language) on R-Forge and the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN). This has the advantage of making it publicly available with documentation to users of the free open-source software R. R is the platform of choice for an increasing portion of the people worldwide engaged in new statistical algorithm development. However, I suspect that Wikidata could offer something better -- but I don't know what nor how to get started. DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Install LiquidThreads

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Not done, per lack of consensus below and the fact that it is not technically possible. Even though I would support its addition. Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:24, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Note: LiquidThreads is an unmaintained extension and won't be installed on any other Wikimedia project.

What about installing mw:LiquidThreads to this wiki for better discussions? This seems to be used on MediaWiki.org without big problems. I can not stand having to watch whole discussion page myself... which results in me not discussing at all (maybe better for you :D). Anyways, please consider! --Kozuch (talk) 13:04, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd support that, liquidthreads are lovely for discussions, especially on a huge page like this. Ajraddatz (Talk) 13:28, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
LiquidThreads deployments are "on hold" last I heard, meaning that it's not being rolled out to any new wikis, even those that gain consensus for enabling it. --Yair rand (talk) 13:29, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
You can ask on translatewiki.net about experiences with LiquidThreads, e.g the user Siebrand. --Michawiki (talk) 13:56, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
(You know, this has got to be the third or fourth time I've seen people discussing enabling LQT where I point out that enabling it is not actually an option because the devs just won't allow it, yet the discussion just keeps on going about whether it should be turned on or not anyway. Am I missing something? --Yair rand (talk) 22:33, 21 February 2013 (UTC))
Well, gerrit:12366 / bug 37778 is from 2012 (more than one year after LQT deployments were put "on hold"...) Helder 19:59, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Helder, you know very well that chapter wikis are and were treated as an exception here. This wiki is not going to have LQT enabled whatever happens, this discussion is pointless. --Nemo 21:33, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Oh, no. Absolutely horrible.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:05, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
I have to use it on translatewiki, and I don't like it. Maybe I'm used to current system. --Stryn (talk) 14:37, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Please.Do.Not.Install.LiquidThreads.Ever!! --Matthiasb (talk) 19:48, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
;-) Vogone (talk) 20:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
It has better optic, but worse way of save and versioning the content... Better not .) . Conny (talk) 19:50, 21 February 2013 (UTC).
For what it's worth I far prefer Liquid Threads and would love to have it. Filceolaire (talk) 19:56, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
That would be really useful! Helder 19:39, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
  Oppose LiquidThreads works fine enough on MediaWiki.org, but it is not scalable enough to be considered for an extremely large project like this one, in my opinion.--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:42, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
  strong oppose I really hate this extension. Don't enable it please. ---Bene* talk
  Oppose Per Bene. Sven Manguard Wha? 19:03, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Proposal: preventive control of imported data correctness

Touriste's proposal was moved from User_talk:Legobot/properties.js#Italian_person_data; relevant reading: Restricting the world by Denny Vrandecic from Wikidata's blog
See also #Sources, #Mandatory referencing ?

My God you are not going to insert such highly non-trivial info as Nazionalità or Attività without a source ? On a Talk Page Legoktm answered my fears with the obvious answers ("Do you need a source to prove that California State Highway 1-200 is in the California Highway System? No you don't"). OK let's admit it. But now we are leaving cartography. I definitely need a reference to be sure that w:it:Wissam Joubran is israelian, or that w:it:Fryderyk Chopin is a Pole or that w:it:Bernard-Henri Lévy is a philosopher (all examples are not random and have been discussed in detail on French Wikipedia Talk pages - they are non trivial). Not to speak of the rough way that _loads_ of article editors have to "guess" the nationality and insert it in the article (X has a German sounding name and is an artist active in Germany - OK he is german - and indeed it works right 99,5 % of times, and misses the hidden Swiss or Austrian expatriate). We should wait to send the robot for such data until there is a sourcing policy on Wikidata, and accept only to bring here data which are supported by a source. Touriste (talk) 15:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand, are you kidding? you seem sarcastic. This claim of yours seems very strange, is it supported by consensus? It makes no sense to discuss it here. First establish a consensus and then complain about activities outside it. Personally, I think we can obviously review data only after we got it... and that importing data from Wikipedias is also the only way to find inconsistencies. --Nemo 22:20, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
I am certainly not kidding, though I can never resist being a bit playful in my serious interventions. I don't know the states of consensus here -Wikidata is not old, and discussions are only beginning. I have noticed on the Village Pump that I am not completely alone in being a bit frightened by how things go fast, and how things are not thought in terms of verifiability ; and I am ready to admit I am perhaps speaking from a minority. I am discussing the problem here because I have read on a talk page of :en that massive insertions originating from Italian templates were soon to take place, and I have supposed that things could be discussed before being launched. I don't understand your last sentence, the problem I fear is not "inconsistencies" -indeed I hope there will soon be "inconsistencies" in Wikidata since the libraries are full of inconsistencies. The most immediate problem is the loss of any hint of the place whence data do originate. When Legobot will have inserted on the item "Fryderyk Chopin" that this musician was Polish, all that will be found in the history is the name "Legobot" - there will be no way to know that it comes from the :it Wikipedia and to check whether there is a source or not on :it Wikipedia for this fact. Non-verifiable assertions will be mixed with verifiable ones (but verifiable ones which will have lost their verificability). Touriste (talk) 22:30, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Touriste, can you easily provide the link to the discussion you mentioned on en:Wikipedia? I'm only asking because I'd like to read it. (No plans to be involved in this discussion, I simply had this page watchlisted.) You may feel in a minority, but probably not as great a minority as it seems. I remember reading about similar concerns on the Pump here before I joined. The project is so new, and especially the second phase of it, that the direction it goes depends entirely on the predilections of the editors who show up and participate. Espeso (talk) 01:03, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
I believe I mentioned it on en:WT:Wikidata.[15] Legoktm (talk) 01:23, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying that this is only your own position. It's of course wrong that people don't value verifiability, we have the possibility of multiple statements and sources for them for a reason: it's just your method to be different from the accepted one. This is just the data we are already using on our Wikipedias according to our policy, so importing it can't make things worse: it will only make things better by allowing to spot controversial cases and mistakes. --Nemo 08:50, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Here we are, I moved your proposal to the project chat for wider consideration, to see if it has consensus. --Nemo 09:09, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

We could create a property called "imported from" and add as object the item Q11920 (= Italian Wikipedia). --Goldzahn (talk) 11:19, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Uh, so simple a solution that I would never have thought of it. :D Seems very reasonable. Of course one can only say that part of the item was imported, and multiple sources may be added. --Nemo 12:25, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
I forgot to say, that this would be the source of the value. I saw that first at Russia. But some people say, we shouldn´t do something like that. --Goldzahn (talk) 13:11, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
The real problem when talking about nationality is what we mean exactly. Do we mean the country recognizing the person as a citizen (and issuing a passport) or do we interpret in a broader sense - the reasoning behind defining an author of the XVI century Italian when Italy was not a country. In this case I'd say stating according to which source(s) the person can be considered Italian (from a cultural viewpoint) is a good idea. And if other reliable sources define the same person as Venetian, we'll include that as well. --Cruccone (talk) 14:19, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Italian wikipedia is not a source so it is not possible to source using that reference. I support importation of data from italian wikipedia only if italian wikipedi has references for the data. Massive data importations have to avoided without the insurance that we can retreive the source later when the reference structure will be available. Snipre (talk) 16:39, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
I think we should be more concrete. It's impossible to find a source for 200+ thousands biographies. By importing data from Italian wikipedia we have a substantial amount of information (verified and valid for the policies of the local community). The disputed cases will be evaluated one by one, and for these will be requests more reliable sources for each statement. --β16 - (talk) 18:04, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
I think there is a second problem with "nationality" perhaps more important than the subtle case of people living more than a century ago. It is that this field is very often filled in a random way by good faith editors. If they had a source and did not take the time to write it down, it would be bad but not awful ; but in most cases, in a biography of a second-rate living person, there is no source giving his citizenship. So if some artist or some scholar has an Italian sounding name and lives in Italy, the first author of the article writes something like "Luigi X is an Italian song writer, born in Novara in 1967 ...". But when he writes that, "Italian" is completely random -it generally happens to be true, of course. It makes no sense to insert such kind of rough guesses in a data bank. Touriste (talk) 09:20, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
@β16. Can you prove that all data from italian wikipedia have references ? Again one wikipedia is not a reference and we cannot accept dissociation of data and references. Before the importation the bot has to check on the wikipedia article that for each imported data the available reference is present. Without that insurance we have to avoid the importation and please do not say that people will add those references later because if we can wait for references we can wait for the data too. Snipre (talk) 18:23, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
The problem is very simple: Do we accept data without references on Wikidata ? Right now we don't have the reference structure but we can assume that manual addition of data until that time can be corrected later. But by performing massive importation of data using bot without the insurance that references exists it will be impossible later to complete the missing references. Or we accept later (once reference structure is available) to delete all data without references.
Be efficient: define target now and work towarsd that target avoiding useless work. There is no need to go too fast: there is no application now for that data so why do we have to urge to fill wikidata with data ? Snipre (talk) 18:35, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
  Comment Assumption 1: it is good to start building our structured data. If someone says it is more efficient to wait, they are narrowly correct, but with the staged Wikidata rollout, we will always have some excuse to "wait" or say "what if". This is an open, experimental project and use cases develop when data is made available (see Magnus' tool that already displays family relations graphically from Wikidata). Assumption 2: designating a person's nationality is often controversial. Assumption 3: designating a person's occupation is rarely controversial (who is a "philosopher" is a classic exception to the rule). Nor is designating sex, birth place, or death place. Therefore, proposal: proceed with importing the following biographical data from the Italian Wikipedia's bio templates: birth place, death place, sex, occupation. (With the lack of other properties, it's almost all that can be imported right now in any event.) That's a great start for the project: hundreds of thousands of core biographies will get some basic biographical information attached. Espeso (talk) 22:43, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
First a reminder of a discussion I did not know, from another editor (Snaevar) in a section above : "There was an proposal for "Every "statement" added to Wikidata must be sourced, no exceptions". The vote results on that where:
Support Oppose Neutral
7 4 2

"

Or course I know perfectly well that the 13 editors who took this "decision" are not representative of anything - neither are we. The only conclusion I will keep from this debate is that nothing must be done too lightly when we think of inserting several thousand of data before knowing how to source them.
My personal opinion is similar to Snipre's : we should only insert data coming from Wikipedias if these data are sourced on Wikipedias. On the other hand, some data are generally non-sourced, but also non-controversial and 99,999 % times true. For these an interesting compromise is to source them by the Wikipedia article whence they are imported, with version number. This seems to me a very acceptable compromise a minima (or course a debate is necessary in every specific case to decide if a class of data is non-controversial and generally true). There remains the software problem : we have not yet a way to insert a URL as a source. As long as we cannot do that, I think we should refrain from importing anything from any website by bots ; when it will be possible to import the URL together with the data, I shall not object any longer (I shall keep grumbling though, but not in a public way). Touriste (talk) 09:11, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
What you are describing is a big problem. I am referencing each data I write into de:WP. Using data without a source is a step back. But I don´t think we will ever move forward if we don´t use our data (see also en:Eating your own dog food). In en:WP they write behind every data without a source the information that a source is missing. In the chapter above there is the information that data could be deprecated. I don´t know, maybe it is possible to - for example - write deprecated or unsourced Wikidata data in a different color in Wikipedia? --Goldzahn (talk) 09:36, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
[edit conflicts, where to put this] I think the threads on this topic "invent" a lot of problems. I understand that my view in that regard may be a minority view, but we'll never get much done, in my opinion, when we keep over-complicating the matter. In the end, it's quite simple; a lot of benefit accrues to the project from such an import; as with all things in life, it will not be perfect, and 1 in 2000 data elements will be wrong. We are not running an air traffic control centre here or a nuclear power plant. This is a structured data wiki; it is built on the idea of continuous refinement. We are leveraging what the Wikipedia projects have spent years implementing. It's a feedback/feedforward, cooperative process. We can have tools to compare structured data against other, independent structured data to look for problems. But we need to get the data into Wikidata first (to implement the structure against which to compare), and we have editors willing to implement all the technical background required to make it happen. I don't see a problem. Final words on the topic from me. /promise to self Espeso (talk) 10:17, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
If you want to do test, ok import data about 100 persons and do your test on that, experiment, compare do what you want on a sample but do not perform massive imports which will be delete later because no person know where data are coming from. Wikidata is experimental, ok, but nobody use now that information so no need to fill wikidata just to have a filled database with deprecated values. Again what is the objective ? Think as a data user and not as a data miner because the purpose of data isn't to be filled in database but to be used and one condition to use data is to know where it comes from and what is its validity. Snipre (talk) 10:41, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
My proposition: 1) we define for each property the necessity of a reference 2) bots can already extract data and their references and store them in a buffer file for later. With that solution no need of extra referencing properties and no problem about sources quality 3) for data with references or data for property defined as no need of reference in the buffer storage importation can already be performed in Wikidata. That will be the golden age of data mining. Snipre (talk) 09:58, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
The idea of a "buffer file" is extremely disturbing to me: it means that the actual work (improving our information) will not be on the wiki pages but elsewhere. In short you're proposing to repeat the Nupedia vs. Wikipedia mistake: haven't we learnt anything from history? As others said above, we're not adding new information, we're just collecting and structuring the information we already have (on Wikipedia articles): you propose to do the correction outside the wikis or at least outside Wikidata, I say that doing it here is the very purpose of Wikidata.
We can discuss what are the best tools to let people check data afterwards (actual references, edit summaries, other mentions of the page/wiki/database the data comes from, ...), but it's IMHO out of question that we do it outside the wiki(s). Look at the example:
  • we have reasonably clean data that is quite easy to import;
  • then we can add de.wiki data, if it's consistent all good, if it's not the bot will either 1) not add the inconsistent info and report it on a wiki page, or 2) add it as additional statement, or 3) remove the unsure info and report both, whatever;
  • then we repeat with en.wiki data, VIAF data, whatever;
  • then we have a very efficient way for humans to check information, its sources etc., not randomly wandering in the dark but guided by actual hints of errors, and correct it directly on wiki.
Suggesting to do it elsewhere means that: 1) we'll never find the mistakes in the first place because we don't have a way to easily compare sources and don't know where to start, 2) nobody will bother correcting them because they're not on the wiki. --Nemo 10:50, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Ok, Nemo just explain one thing: why do we need data about 220k persons right now ? There no use of data from wikidata now so if it is just to do some experimental stuuf just import data about 100 or 1k persons and test with that. And again what is the purpose of wikidata: filled boxes with bits or data which can be used later by external persons with no doubt about the validity of those data ? Snipre (talk) 11:10, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
You already asked this question, and you had an answer (not by me). It's not the answer you like, we got it. As for "used later by external persons with no doubt about the validity of those data", OMG like... Wikipedia and its readers? Seriously, people are already using this data without questioning it, it's called DBPedia; but this is a wiki, we'll get the data and edit it, using references etc. --Nemo 12:17, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, the only answer I have is that data in Wikidata have to have references. Then the policy on wikipedia is to provide external references; if you source data in wikidata with wikipedia as reference and later theses data will be used by wikipedia articles they will be sourced by ... wikipedia as reference. And if you delete infoboxes in wikipedia to use the inclusion syntax of wikidata there are big chances to delete the references too because often references are included in the infoboxes syntax. Snipre (talk) 15:26, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Sources (bot imports)

I just (boldly) created a source property P143 Wikipedia to be used when importing from Wikipedias. The item references should be a language version of Wikipedia (like English Wikipedia). This implies the source should be w:en:Cat. When the proper source is found it can be amended to for instance CBS as source of dutch population numbers. As an example I added it to cat at the family statement. HenkvD (talk) 09:25, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort. It obviously goes in the right direction, but I thinks this is very far from sufficient : now we know that "Cat are Felidae" originates from the English Wikipedia, but this is like saying that the needle we are looking for is somewhere in the wheat fields of Ukraine... We need a minima a way to insert the version number of the page whence the information comes (and when you think that the longer Wikipedia articles are equivalent to printed documents of more than one hundred paper pages, one could wonder whether even this is precise enough...). Touriste (talk) 09:32, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't think we have to go so far about references now: without a reference structure it is impossible to have the good way to link data and reference. The proposition of HenkvD is good but in one condition: as en:WP or it:WP can't be a reference the import bot has to check that the data imported have references on the wikipedia article. The mention of the origin wikipedia is enough because we have the insurance that references are available in some way. The best solution would be an extraction of all data including references in a text/excel/python... file as buffer storage and the importation of data from that file according to Wikidata availability. From my opinion this is the right to work with Wikidata: creating buffer storage from different sources and then feeding Wikidata with that data using bots. Snipre (talk) 09:44, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
My proposal for auto-importing biographical data:
  • No importing till we can add a source statement for each imported statement.
  • Import statements from one WP at a time (say wp:it first), adding a source for each imported statement imported from wp:it:name (if imported from wp:it).
  • Import statements from other large WPs, amending the source for each imported statement to read imported from wp:it:name; wp:de:name, wp:en:name if the same info appears in wp:it, wp:de and wp:en.
  • If different info appears on different wp's then create separate statements for each info, sourced with the wp it came from and add it to a page of disputed items that need to be checked.
Filceolaire (talk) 11:04, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
If we use an external file where collect all data, who can work in this file? Only its owner. We can importing data from en.wiki with source "importing from English wikipedia", and then add more source "importing from de.wiki" if the value is equals, or add a new value with the appropriate source. In this way every user of wikidata can be check the possibile values and correct them if necessary. If en.wiki, de.wiki, it.wiki, and an external source (not wikipedia) have the same value, I think we can consider it true. --β16 - (talk) 11:27, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
First the solution of external file is just a temporary solution the time for the development team to provide the structure, second email or repository like commons can be used and I don't think we will have more than 20 persons working on that subject because it's mainly a bot and/or programming work, third comparison between is the worst solution to define quality of data because there is often a reuse of data from one wikipedia to other through translation work or simple copy. Snipre (talk) 15:34, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
On the creation of Property:P143, I think this is the way to go but I would also like to have a property that points to the correct revision. Perhaps the Iri-type can be used for that when it is finished. Use of P143 is the best for now, and it is very good at one thing – it identifies the source as being a self-reference in the WMF universe. Perhaps the MediaWikiTitle-type could be extended to take a revision, I really don't know. Jeblad (talk) 21:38, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

When there is no other bot-friendly source available, it may make sense to add claims from Wikipedia on a provisional basis. But there are many cases there are free, authoritative and well structured databases readily available. People may not be the best example, but even there I would prefer data from, say viaf participants than from Wikipedia. It would still have to be to be supplemented by more detailed other sources - books or articles - but that would be a good start. Of course, it would still be useful to run bots afterwards to check for consistency with Wikipedia. --Zolo (talk) 12:19, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

As I said above, VIAF is already in the works too. --Nemo 20:29, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Sitelinks and Statements

For the last few days I have drafted Help:Sitelinks and Help:Statements with explanation what those are and what rules they follow. Have a look at them and feel free to comment or amend. HenkvD (talk) 13:59, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I've taken a look through them, and they seem good. Nothing else to say really :3 Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:28, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Articles that aren't articles

Moved to WT:N/EC in the interest of centralized discussion. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 02:08, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Piet Aalberse

Piet Aalberse was a Dutch politician. His son, also named Piet Aalberse, was also a Dutch politician. The Wikidata software tells me I can't give the son the same description. How should this be solved? If there's a better on-wiki place to ask this question, please let me know. Mathonius (talk) 02:40, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe for the son: "Dutch politician, son of Piet Aalberse"? Legoktm (talk) 02:48, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your response! I've added your suggestion. Mathonius (talk) 02:51, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Use the birth and death dates? I've changed the descriptions to Dutch politician (1871–1948) and Dutch politician (1910–1989). I don't know if there is a consensus for this. —Naddy (talk) 13:44, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
In my opinion, the best sintaxis would be "Dutch politician born in XXXX". Good bye! --NaBUru38 (talk) 22:39, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

"is a(n)" versus "occupation"

I've been updating a bunch of pages, mainly bios of actors and actresses and entertainers. Sometimes I come across "is a(n)" = actor. Sometimes it's "occupation" = actor. Which is preferred, and do we have any written guidelines to assist with this potential overlap? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:07, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Advice at Wikidata:List of properties seems to be to use the more specific property if one exists, so occupation would be the one to use. Noq (talk) 20:40, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
As far as I know, it should be "is a person", "occupation: actor". --NaBUru38 (talk) 22:43, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Oops, I'm wrong, it should be "entity type: person". --NaBUru38 (talk) 22:44, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Some coat of arms variants could be more useful on Wikidata than others

Hi. Currently, it's possible to add "coat of arms image" as a statement. That's great, but many countries' heraldic emblems have several variants, any one of which could be defined as "the coat of arms image". For example, Belgium: File:Greater Coat of Royal Arms of Belgium.svg, File:State Coat of Royal Arms of Belgium.svg,   and  . The latter variant, the quintessential part known as the escutheon, is generally the only one which allows for an orderly illustration of entities – e.g. in lists of countries, regions, cities or persons – by means of coats of arms, due to its uniformity with other coats of arms. This is explained in the description of en:Template:Coat of arms. "The omission of all elements of achievement save the quintessential escutcheon is a conventional heraldic practice that ensures the distinctiveness of the motifs even at low resolutions (20px is default). This also provides a meaningful degree of uniformity." Thus, I suggest sub-statements, under coat of arms, which enables the listing of the images of "escutcheon", "lesser", "middle" and "greater" coat of arms. Or at least a separate statement named "Escutheon image". The use of heraldry as a means to identify geographical entities is a centuries-old tradition, preceding flags. Especially for historical articles (historical countries that had no flag), and in lists of cities/states (this can be seen in e.g. en:List of cities in Germany by population, en:Battle of Landriano), an escutheon database on wikidata would be extremely valuable. Could this be done? Thanks. - Ssolbergj (talk) 01:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Your property proposal makes sense [to me]. Please visit the property proposal page for details on how to suggest it formally. Also, welcome! And while you are visiting WD:PP, we need more discussion on the properties already proposed there. Espeso (talk) 08:06, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Ok, thanks! - Ssolbergj (talk) 00:10, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Language preferences

I prefer to work on Wikidata in English, so I have put that as preference. But today I was changing things at the article "Culinaire Verwennerij Bij Jef" and wanted to enter a description in Dutch. So I did, but suddenly my language preference was also changed to Dutch. I had to change in manually back to English. Something is not okay here! The Banner talk 16:59, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Have you tried using labelLister which is enabled in gadgets, in your preferences? Danrok (talk) 17:47, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
No, because I had never heard of it before.   But even so, it is not okay when you change to another language your preferences are changed without notifying. The Banner talk 17:59, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
The language switcher or UniversalLanguageSelector (ULS) will change both content and user language on Wikidata. It informs you that it does so and gives you an option to switch back. ULS is not unique to Wikidata, but it might be the first place you notice it because it is so integral to how things work here. Jeblad (talk) 22:02, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Items for specialpages

I found Q20582 which is link to special:recentchanges in some languages. What do yout hink about such items? (my opinion - delete) JAn Dudík (talk) 20:49, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Delete since sitelinks are not shown on special pages (see test2wiki:Special:RecentChanges for example).--Snaevar (talk) 22:42, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I think we should delete it. Will now transfer to the requests page.--Ymblanter (talk) 00:15, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Moved to Wikidata:Requests for deletions#Q20582, please continue the discussion there.--Ymblanter (talk) 00:21, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
And deleted.--Ymblanter (talk) 02:31, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Automatic properties and translations of items

Hi, folks! After spending some weeks clicking on "random" to add item titles and descriptions, I started to search for specific types of items. It quickly got very repetitive. For example, I wrote "French racecar driver" and "American auto racing team" on dozens of articles. It should be easier if I entered a driver name into a box, then select the nationality and sex, then click on a button and voilá: the item get the description in all languages, plus some basic properties. Can someone create a program that does that? A million thanks! --NaBUru38 (talk) 23:00, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Did you check out the Labels and descriptions task force and the autoEdit tool? --Sixsi6ma (talk) 23:50, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Sequence of items in drop-down lists

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 45351

Assigning value to a property prompts a drop-down list of items. I don't know what is the criteria of sequence of items but whatever it is it's not helping. For example, if I try to give Asia value to continent property the sequence is: Asia (Wikipedia disambiguation page) → Asia (Roman province) → Asia (Oceanid in Greek mythology) → Asia (skyscraper) → Asia (album) → Asia (British rock band) → Asia → Asia → Asia → Asia → Asia (continent). So, I have to trace ten different items to find Asian continent. And, when you click on "more" option, many times an incorrect value get entered. Any solution to this problem?--Bill william compton (talk) 15:30, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

One work round is to enter Q48 for Asia, and so avoid the drop-down list. I'd guess the list will work better at some point in the future (as it does on WP). Danrok (talk) 16:38, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
While I don't remember the specifics of how it's going to be done, I do remember that the dev team has committed to fixing this issue. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:58, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm using the Q48, but how much can you remember? Asia is just an example of course. A simple string can be used to resolve the problem: http://" + lang + ".wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=opensearch&limit=10&namespace=0&format=json&search=. This is used by all the Wikimedia projects with .wikipedia.org domain name. Paste this in a new tab, replace "+ lang +" part with a language code (e.g. en) and enter any search value (e.g. &search=U), you'll find that it suggests articles according to their relevance (page view, I guess). For example, string en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=opensearch&limit=10&namespace=0&format=json&search=U generates: ["U",["United States","United Kingdom","United States Census Bureau","United States Census, 2000","United States Navy","U.S. state","Unincorporated area","United States Army","United States dollar","United States House of Representatives"]].--Bill william compton (talk) 18:56, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
As far as the problem is not yet solved directly by devs the two workarounds are (i) heavily use aliases; (ii) open abother browser window with English Wikipedia and proceed from there to the Wikidata entry.--Ymblanter (talk) 00:45, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

It's planned. However I don't know when we'll get to it tbh. I filed it as bugzilla:45351 so we don't forget. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:36, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

The list order could be based on item number. Items under 10,000 are typically very frequent. --NaBUru38 (talk) 22:42, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Even the item number is so random that it cannot be used for anything. Q29 is Spain, Q30 is US, Q31 is Belgium, Q148 is China, and Q668 is India, what logic is behind this is pure mystery to me.--Bill william compton (talk) 05:45, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
A "Q" number is simply an identifier, to make one record uniquely identifiable from the next. A Q number is not intended to "mean" anything, or have a "logic behind" it any more than the unique number on your government-issued identification, for example. The Q numbers are assigned consecutively, so "Spain" happened to be created slightly before "India". None of this changes the difficulty the finding the right item in the dropdown, of course. :-) Espeso (talk) 06:13, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Agree that sorting by Q number in the dropdown would increase the probability of most-used items showing up in a convenient spot on the menu. What would be really useful is an sitelink-based lookup like typing "en:Asia". Espeso (talk) 06:22, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
It'll probably be done by the number of language links an item has. It's dirty but should give good results in most cases. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:27, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

User friendliness

If one adds an interwiki item in Wikidata, it's not readily visible in the corresponding Wikipedias, only after a "purge" action. This is not user friendly, since it is not only not WYSIWYG but not even "What you save is what you get" (i. e. how Wikipedia always worked). As soon as we remove ourselves from this policy, it is a constant source of questions and misunderstandings (see the ubiquituous and never ceasing questions on "sighted versions" on de.wikipeda). Wouldn't it be possible that for any interwiki edit in Wikidata, a "purge-action" is executed in the corresponding wikis? (at least for any non-bot edit?) --FA2010 (talk) 14:44, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

A new version of that whole thing is being worked in. This will include purging the page. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:50, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Very good. Thanks. --FA2010 (talk) 13:24, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Item by title doesn't work with question marks

The "Item by title" function seems to be broken if the title contains a question mark. When, for example, I click on the "Edit links" in the article "en:What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962 film)", it doesn't redirect me to the appropriate page, Q26644. Same thing for "en:? (film)", and others.

Is this a known bug? I couldn't find any mention of it on Bugzilla or in the archives. Gabbe (talk) 18:26, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

bugzilla:45223 :) --β16 - (talk) 18:34, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
This isn't a bug, its a feature. The bug is in the client that doesn't expect the feature. Jeblad (talk) 22:10, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Spoken like a true coder! Shawn in Montreal (talk) 22:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Haha! :) Gabbe, I'll translate it to plainspeak: that is intentional, but causes some side effect like it happened yo you. Good luck! --NaBUru38 (talk) 22:49, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
I understood the problem, namely the lack of percent-encoding, since this works fine, I was just curious if there was an effort under-way to remedy the fact that "Edit links" doesn't convert question marks. Gabbe (talk) 09:22, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes there is. For further updates on it you can add yourself to the CC list of the bug Beta16 linked above. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:29, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Splendid. Thanks! Gabbe (talk) 10:48, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Problem with London?

Hi. When I try to manually add Q84 as a property, say, as for place of birth for someone, I seem to get other Londons but not the London. Anyone else having that problem? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:18, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I see: keeping clicking on more. But we have got to come up with a way that the more likely or possible options appear first. I've been trying without success to add that Robert Kennedy was a member of the Democratic Party of the U.S. and it doesn't appear to me that the U.S. variety of the party is anywhere on that list, no matter how many "mores" I click. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:35, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
The "more" button doesn't work at all for me. Danrok (talk) 20:38, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
What browser are you using? Ajraddatz (Talk) 20:41, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm using FireFox 18.0.2 on Windows 7. Danrok (talk) 20:44, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
fwiw, I'm using Chrome on Mac OSX 10.7.5 and the "more" button works intermittently. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:45, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm on Chrome on Ubuntu 12.10, and the "more" button doesn't work well for me either. As a workaround for problems like this, though, you can input the item number. So for London, type in "q48", and the correct London should appear. It's a bit messy, but it works. (If you don't know the ID for an item, just use Special:ItemByTitle and search for it by its Wikipedia article name, then copy-paste the ID.) Jon Harald Søby (talk) 20:56, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
We're aware of the issue. It should be in the next update here Wednesday next week. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:32, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
A similar problem has been discussed on this page. Jon, Q48 is Asia not London (Q84) :)--Bill william compton (talk) 21:27, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that's where I saw the tip! (The q48 vs. q84 thing was just purely a typo though – pretty random that it was the exact same example used in the other section.) Jon Harald Søby (talk) 21:58, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

magic word for locale label

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 45418

Does exist any magic word or template to show Property:P107 in locale language name? i.e. for fa Property:P107 > نوع ورودی ‍. it will helpful for this or similar reports

Also if we can have the same magic word or template for description and aliases to know which links doesn't have them. (i.e. in these report)Reza1615 (talk) 10:36, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Not quite sure what you say, but it is possible to create a parser function that access a specific language version of the label and it is also possible to turn off some checks and that will make the links turn up localized to the users current language. The later is simpler to do than the former as the only thing necessary is to comment out a few lines, but note that it could be necessary to do additional changes also in existing pages on Wikidata. Perhaps we should have parser functions for accessing the label and/or description anyhow as it could make it possible to access a specific language. That could be necessary in some discussion, but it would be used rather seldom… Jeblad (talk) 13:49, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Now in RecentChanges users can see items, properties by their language's label we can have an option in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering which shows every links (item, property like [[Q123]]) which used in other namespaces (wikidata, talk pages) show them by their label as RecentChanges do, also it could switch to show them by description or aliases. ▬ Reza1615 / T 16:46, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Medium wikis' problem

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41050
Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41051

I think there is problem and it must be solved. All of wikis have articles which doesn't have any interwiki and it's not an important issue for wikidata but medium wikis have articles which doesn't have any big wiki's interwiki but they have a smaller wiki interwiki. e.g. This article is about a waterfall in Iran which does have article in glk (a small wiki) (this) and these articles hasn't imported in wikidata yet (The example is imported though) , and becoming a client of wikidata without considering these issues will cause a lot of problems. I suggest I run a SQL query for medium wikis like this and I'll import the articles via bot. are you agree? any comment?Ladsgroup (talk) 11:48, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

All articles from all wikis will be imported with time, just be patient. :-) (~25 million articles takes a bit of time to import, even with our awesome botmasters on the task…) Jon Harald Søby (talk) 12:14, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm a botmaster (12) and I've worked on running bots on wikidata since October 2012 I want to know what articles must be high-prioritized and what of them not. And I want to know in which speed you want to import articles (I can write a code and import all of 25M articles at once. It's not a big deal technically)Ladsgroup (talk) 13:24, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
There are two reasons for sitelinks; the first one is to set op a replacement for langlinks and the second one is to make access to an item where an infobox can be built. The first one would imply that you need two Wikipedia articles on different languages before sitelinks should be added, while the second one imply that you need the sitelink already for a single article Wikipedia article. Initially the discussions (and the notability guideline?) focused on the first case, but I think the second case is the correct one. In short; add a sitelink for all Wikipedia-pages, but note that missing langlinks can be because nobody have connected the pages yet. We probably need some tool to identify prospective pages that should be added to an item, and also tools to identify Wikipedia-pages that doesn't belong in an item. Jeblad (talk) 14:08, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes I think it is a good idea to prioritize articles with interwikilinks especialy in arabian languages because few other people can read them. As for the speed some bots are working at 1/s maybe you should limit it to that. Maybe you could have the bot translate and Check if it in fact does not exist in the say 20 biggest Wikipedias I think we will find that in fact there was a big problem linking between languages with different scripts. --Saehrimnir (talk) 14:54, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Elements for templates

Can we create elements to link a template in various language versions in wp? --Ricordisamoa 15:06, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

how to merge items?

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 38664

Hi!

The help isn't really helpful - at least the query "merge" returns zero results...

Q1498023 and Q5081019 are identical, both forms are used but most scientists prefer Crotalus mitchellii instead of Crotalus mitchelli (see e.g. RDB).

What is the SOP for merging items?

Thanks, Rbrausse (talk) 15:26, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

(after 2 edit conflicts) For merging two items you need to move all interwiki links from one of the items to the other item. The deletion of the empty item bust be requested on WD:RFD afterwards. Kind regards, Vogone talk 15:36, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Short overview: Remove properties from one of the two, add them to the other, then request deletion of the first.
The first two steps, so far as I know, need to be done by hand. You can request deletion at Wikidata:Requests for deletions (There's also a gadget in your preferences called "RequestDeletion" which adds a pulldown for requesting deletion, which makes things quite a bit faster.) --Joe Decker (talk) 15:33, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
What Joe said. Something better needs to come. The bug to track this is bugzilla:38664. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 15:34, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Great, thanks a lot! (and the next merge will not require 3 contributors ;)) Rbrausse (talk) 15:37, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
I also added a Q/A at Help:FAQ. --Joe Decker (talk) 16:27, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
I've been wanting to suggest this for a while now: for user instructions and de facto procedure, let bots find the empty items and add them to the RFD page, as they already do. It would make a less cluttered RFD page, and there would be fewer steps in the directions for users to follow. When I end up with an empty item, I don't bother nominating it any more because I know a bot can handle it. Espeso (talk) 17:54, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

About the search

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 44624

Am I doing it wrong? If I hit "random item" then copy whatever label is there and paste it in the search box, that random item should be in the search results, right? Because it's working maybe 50% of the time and I'm really confused. Now maybe this is what is referred to above when people talk about "needed improvements of the search engine" but if this is really that bad, we should warn people that the search engine is currently basically unusable. Pichpich (talk) 21:23, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Of some reason the search index isn't updated, at least as fast as it should be, or perhaps not completly. It is on the agenda, and have been so for some time. Jeblad (talk) 22:23, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
In that case, I'm serious that we should warn users about it. Here's the sad tale of lil' ol' me trying to carefully experiment with Wikidata and figuring out that the search engine is failing quite badly. While doing new page patrol, I found a brand new article on en.wiki about Elize Ryd (Swedish singer) and I notice she has a page on pt.wiki and sv.wiki so I figure it's the perfect occasion to get accustomed to Wikidata. After reading the various howto sources, I come here and make sure that there's no Elize Ryd entry. The search confirms that there isn't so I create one linking to the en.wiki article (this works fine) but when I try to add the sv.wiki and pt.wiki links, I get error messages that don't make sense because they're suggesting that there's already an Elize Ryd entry which I know can't be true because I already checked. It took a while for me to realize that the problem was the search engine. By nature, I find this more amusing than frustrating in part because I understand the concept of a search index that's lagging. But this is such a fundamental problem that while we're trying to solve it, we should really let newbies know clearly that this is a problem. Keeping newbies happy = good. Pichpich (talk) 23:35, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Yep, search is broken (and has always been?). This leads to unnecessary duplicates. Fixing it should be top priority IMO. - Soulkeeper (talk) 13:52, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Any good workarounds? I've (on the basis of that search) generated a couple of items only to find out they were duplicative, and then had to request deletion, which sounds like a bucketload of process for fixing a merge at this point. --Joe Decker (talk) 19:23, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Geographical location of non-place entities

We can locate geographical features within other geographical features using Property:P131. But should we use that property to locate terms, for example Berlin Marathon located in Berlin? Danrok (talk) 17:49, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I support that. P131 is a complicated (yet simple) way of saying "this is located in this other thing". Eiffel Tower <p131> Paris, right? The only catch is that if the property value is not an "administrative division" (say it was used as "Building on Main Street" <p131> "Main Street"), then the definition fails... Espeso (talk) 18:00, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I think it is important to keep P131 for admin divisions only, but we should be able to say that this thing is located in this admin division. And, I think we need another property to indicate that a thing is located within or on another geographical feature, on this mountain, on this street, inside this building, and so on. Danrok (talk) 18:07, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
yes, I certainly agree with that. Q732147 in Montreal is located in a borough, on a mountainside, on a street, on a university campus. In fact, my concern is that these properties aren't being proposed and approved fast enough, but as a newbie here, spoiled by the massive structure of English Wikipedia, I suppose I need to learn Wikidatian patience. I'm sure this was considered and rejected, but would it not have been possible to create a set of properties based on a number of the most popular templates by default, then eliminate or change as necessary? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:52, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Which templates are you referring to -- infobox templates and their parameters? One thing to keep in mind is that we still can't record information that is numerical, or otherwise not representable by a link to some other entity that by definition has at least one Wikipedia article... which IMHO has hampered the ability to roll out a set of related properties like you suggest. But I may not understand your idea. And yes, the critical mass of Wikipedia (ooh, a double meaning) has not quite developed here. The conservatism of Wikipedia (of recent years), however, seems to have carried over. :-) (In property proposals and such.) Espeso (talk) 21:16, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
What I am suggesting is an item type of property. So, you would be able to specify the item which contains the subject item. That would be the immediate "outer item". For Percival Molson Memorial Stadium the outer container item would be McGill University. Danrok (talk) 21:25, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Danrok, fwiw, in the case of this particular structure I don't think it could be the university as it has two campuses, so it's not a geographical location until such time as a "main campus" article is created. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 21:45, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Espeso, I'm sure there is a reason it wasn't done this way but I was wondering about well-developed infoboxes on English Wikipedia for persons, organizations, and such, as collected at en:Category:Infobox templates. Rather than proposing and voting on them one by one, as if these fields did not already exist with parameters for use, a team would do a massive import into some kind of Beta version that people can then propose changes to... Shawn in Montreal (talk) 21:40, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposed guideline change: Notability rules

The current notability rules state that each item on Wikidata needs at least one corresponding page on Wikipedia. This was fine in 2012, when phase 1 (language links) was all there was to Wikidata. As discussed here, some of us think that the rules should be amended if Wikidata ever wants to be more than Wikipedia's language link directory. If we can create additional, important items, Wikidata can be a project of its own, like Commons, and not just a Wikipedia appendix. My proposal is therefore to amend the rules as follows:

An item can be created on Wikidata, even without a corresponding Wikipedia page, if it
(a) matches a (to-be-defined) list of positive criteria (e.g. places (towns and cities), taxonomic entries, astronomical objects, molecules), and
(b) can be connected to at least one other item

The list of criteria can be amended as we seem fit over time.

This would allow us to create structurally important items (as I did with the taxonomic family Rhabdinoporidae), without drowning in obscure, unconnected datapoints. Just because no one has gotten around to write a Wikipedia article does not mean the item is not notable. I could easily imagine the "other direction", where we generate a list of often-linked Wikidata items without a Wikipedia article, as an incentive to write about the topic. The rule would thus further both projects, instead of hampering Wikidata as the current rule does. I strongly suggest we discuss this and vote on it in a timely fashion. --Magnus Manske (talk) 12:55, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't like the idea that here is many empty items (=no links). In my opinion it's better to wait until article exists. I take an example about sports: if there (on Wikipedia) is not any articles about players of some NHL team, we should not add players yet here. I fear that here will be many duplicates, if items are already here, and when the articles have been done, and somebody don't know, that items already exists. I hope that someone understood. --Stryn (talk) 13:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
According to the Main Page, "Wikidata is a free knowledge base". Items are not "empty" if they have no Wikipedia links; they are empty if they have no data. As long as items have key information, they are useful. Some items, as my example shows, are useful here (to maintain coherent structure), but can likely be useful elsewhere, even if they "only" say what the item is and how it relates to others. That people will make new items for new articles on Wikipedia without checking Wikidata first is not related to the Notability guidelines. --Magnus Manske (talk) 13:31, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

  Support. Current rules were explicitly designed for "phase 1". Now that Wikidata also aims to make statements about the world, they impose we need something more consistent, and more in line with our needs. --Zolo (talk) 14:03, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

  Support we need a clever way for the authors to find existing Items anyway also for the language links, because if you create an Article you have to find the item even if it does not exist in the languages you speak or be willing to look for in seperately.--Saehrimnir (talk) 14:14, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

  Comment If we introduce this, there should be some mechanism preventing creation of dupes, otherwise the whole mechanism would not make sense.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:20, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

As far as I know, the Wikidata tech team is working to improve the search function and related tools. Also, I am certain there will be a "merge items" function, sooner rather than later. --Magnus Manske (talk) 16:06, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
The "merge items" feature was requested at bugzilla:38664. Helder 21:21, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

  Support Definitely a good idea in my oppinion. Imagine you want to associate the job of a person, but no Wikipedia has a page for this job, this would mean that the Wikidata item cannot be completely defined, even the value of the property is known. --Faux (talk) 14:51, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

  Support though I think criteria (b) should be more specific. For instance, if there is an item about a person A who has a child B, we should create an item for the child according to (b). Then, if B has a child C, should we also create an item for C since C also meets the criteria (C can be connected to B)? If so, what if C has a child D who has a child E who has a child F..... should we create items for all of them respectively even though they are obviously unnotable?--Stevenliuyi (talk) 16:47, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

  Comment You will notice that in the proposed criteria list, "humans" is conspicuously absent... That said, in my opinion, items for relatives should be created more freely as on Wikipedia; however, in the absence of a Wikipedia article about the relative, I would demand at least one reference. But, these details can be discussed later, some other place :-) --Magnus Manske (talk) 16:51, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, we could adopt the uncontroversial criteria list first and discuss the controversial ones (e.g. human beings) later.--Stevenliuyi (talk) 17:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
I take it that you mean "meets criterion a and criterion b ", not "or" ? --Zolo (talk) 17:10, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, hence the word "and" at the end of the (a) line :-) --Magnus Manske (talk) 18:32, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
I'd suggest that we have it that humans can be the subjects of items without having any articles if they're connected to at least two other items and said connections are distinct from one another. That is to say: While both my father and one of his sisters are the subjects of articles on En, I wouldn't get an item here because the same thing that makes me connected to him is what makes me connected to her. But if I were to write a somewhat notable book someday (but not have an article myself), then I'd be eligible for a link-free item. It just seems like a good common-sense bright line to keep us from having billions of potential new subjects. (Perhaps there'd also be a separate grounds for inclusion, for cases where someone's name redirects to an article on an event of which they were the focus, e.g. victims and perpetrators of crimes.) — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 06:17, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
This sounds like a good rule extension to have downstream, but I'd rather not overcomplicate things right now; this is a basic decision if we can have items without Wikipedia pages. Let's get that settled, and then work on the details. --Magnus Manske (talk) 08:45, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Fair enough. Just floating the idea. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 09:26, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

  Support On the English Wikipedia at the U.S. Roads project, we have articles like w:en:List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile (2–699) that are ineligible for separate items. --Rschen7754 17:14, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

  •   Support as a good part-way agreement. No-doubt we'll adjust later. James F. (talk) 20:16, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
  •   Support + 1. --Kolja21 (talk) 00:40, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
  •   Comment... can we just throw in some wording to clarify that you have to be connected as the object – that is to say, you can't create an item on some obscure building (e.g. my house) simply because you can say what city it's in... or on some obscure species simply because you can say what kingdom it's in. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 06:17, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
    • Again, buildings are not in the initial class example above. I am sure we will have special notability rules for buildings, humans, etc. in no time, if other Wikimedia projects are any indication :-) As for "obscure species", I see no reason to omit them; they might actually foster the creation of a Wikipedia article, or on Wikispecies once Wikidata gets linked in there. --Magnus Manske (talk) 08:45, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
      • No, my point is simply that if we allow "connection" to be read as "the item with no links has the item with links as the object of one of its claims", than that clause is essentially rendered moot. Almost every astronomical object is part of a known galaxy, almost every taxonimical entry is part of a known kingdom, etc. But if you read it as a one-way-only rule, as "the item with no links is the object of one of the claims of the item with links", then the clause makes much more sense, in my opinion. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 09:26, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
  •   Oppose because of many reason!
    1. with this rule we will allow people to add advertisements or their name or bad words or any titles with none Neutral point of view or Racism titles to wikidata (in their own languages) because checking notability for this amount of input is impossible for human! in 4 months wikidata had 5 million items but the most popular wiki (en.wiki) in 10-15 years couldn't achieve this amount inputs! so it is not possible to check every new inputs by users!
    2. here we don't have native user for every language so adding bad words or advertisements in other languages (none popular) is not possible for checking i.e. if a user makes an item for his/her name in hz language no one can check it! because hz.wiki has only 10 semi-active users! and by sure they don't check this amount of inputs! or they don't come here.
    3. because of case 2 we accept native communities decision for notability of each item but now we should decide instead of local wikis.
    4. this project is not only English project so we should ask other languages for this very important decision.
    5. if we allow system to accept none article items. people can add any word that they want to existing items instead of any languages that they want and it will increase Vandalism and it causes making double interwiki problems.
    6. after some years wikidata will be yellow book or name book! in different languages! with more that 7 billion items (world population :) )!
in my opinion if any item should be here it should pass some initial process ( having article in locale wiki)Reza1615 (talk) 09:29, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
It is already possible (and encouraged) to add descriptions to all items in all accepted languages. This means that people can already add an abusive description in a little-known language that no other active user can understand. Time will tell how much of a problem it is, but I am not too pessimistic on that. Most vandals are pretty unimaginative, and a multilingual abuse filter could probably catch a good part of it.
The propsal is not to abolish notability criteria, just to relax them. The current rule can be problematic. To take the initial example: with current rules Q4961526 should not be accepted. That means that some animal species cannot be properly placed in the taxonomic tree, jeopardizing the consistency of the whole edifice. --Zolo (talk) 09:58, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
how can we recognize people name with abuse filter? for example if I make item for all of my family members or my company in English or Farsi who can understand which one should be deleted? which one is notable? I am affraid after one year we will have more than 50 or 100 million items and controlling this amount of item for notability is not possible! and after that we can not delete users contribution in balk! Reza1615 (talk) 10:08, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Both of the examples you cite would not be covered under Magnus's proposed changes. Clearly for any members of certain categories (pretty much those that are eligible for A7 speedy deletion on En: people, companies, bands, individual animals, websites, and clubs), we'll need stricter guidelines. As to your other point, personally, I don't find susceptibility to vandalism a persuasive argument in pretty much anything other than page protection requests: We'll come up with means to combat any vandalism this creates, and considering how many admins up for confirmation have promised they'll edit more once there's more vandalism around here, I don't think we'll have any shortage of users to help in that endeavor. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 10:47, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Now system is locked for none article items so I can not make any items that are not notable in wikipedia's point of view. when you open the system to accept none article items people will make items or modify items as they want . the huge mount of edits and inputs are not controllable by human. for example (5,000,000/(4month*30day))=41,660 items per day! or 1735 items per hour! in en.wiki we have average 900 items per day! (by sure after all wikis join to wikidata it will increase! ) how we can check this amount of item which are not abuse! and it is not possible by bot or scripts!Reza1615 (talk) 11:00, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
It's very very easily checkable, through Special:RecentChanges (with "hide patrolled edits" selected). Unless you're worried about one of the bots going rogue... — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 11:35, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
  Comment Plain wrong. Currently, Wikidata is not limited by Wikipedia's notability rules, but by Wikipedia's coverage. There are millions of topics that would be notable on, say, English Wikipedia, but for which no article exists. Under the current rules, no such item can exist here either, not unless someone writes at least a stub. If you want to change Wikidata's notability rules to match en.wikipedia's, that would be fine with me; I propose something a lot more modest. Let's start with that, shall we? --Magnus Manske (talk) 11:40, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

  Comment It kinda makes sense for some things. Wikipedia does not allow writing about every village in the world. I do not see why not allow creating items here. If we need to get full list of geonames, Wikidata could provide that. --Papuass (talk) 09:50, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

  •   Support in principle, although the proposal seems too vague to be implemented as it stands. It leaves lots of questions open in my mind. What does "connected to" mean in practice? Will a source need to be provided to confirm any claimed connection? Is it acceptable for such items to be created with only a label, and no description (or with a description only in a language that isn't widely spoken)? Will we need to impose limits on what can be added for some types of entities? E.g. do we really want to allow arbitrary proteins or DNA strands (which are molecules, but are essentially unlimited in number) to be added? --Avenue (talk) 10:11, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
  •   Comment. Actually, for me both supports and opposes make a lot of sense. The only way I see to reconcile them is to allow creation of unlinked items only for special fields, to be discussed separately. Right now, it looks like taxonomic nominations are the only field we have unanimous support. We can start with it, think how it should be bot readable, and then think whether/how the scope can be expanded.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:44, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
  Support This will allow completion of various lists, inclusion of items that are notable enough to have anchor links but not dedicated pages etc. Filceolaire (talk) 11:23, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
  Support with the proposed list of positive criteria.--Snaevar (talk) 00:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

  Comment Some people mentioned that e.g. molecules are potentially too numerous. Note that molecules are, by default, notable on Wikipedia, which has yet to be drowned in them ;-) I have given an example list of allowed item types in my proposal, but the list itself is not essential for the proposal; even it were "just" taxonomy initially, it would be good, as we can (and will) add to that list over time. That said, I have seen no real argument to remove any of my examples. --Magnus Manske (talk) 11:50, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

So, what's the next step then? From the overwhelming support, I'd say it's accepted. Should we wait a little longer? Should an admin decide it's closed? Or should I be bold and just go change the page (I will, eventually, if nothing happens...)? It seems to me that there is no question that we should do this, just when, and now seems as good a time as any, before we have to put horrible workarounds in place (it's already starting; see this page further down). --Magnus Manske (talk) 09:08, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe we could define the list of positive criteria now. Since there is a worry about numerous molecules, I think we could adopt the other three positive criteria you proposed above (i.e. places, taxonomic entries, astronomical objects) to start with. Other criteria can be proposed and discussed afterwards. --Stevenliuyi (talk) 13:54, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Sounds sensible. Anyone opposed to these initial three? --Magnus Manske (talk) 14:42, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. I have a few more suggestions for this but that can wait till later. Lets start with these. Filceolaire (talk) 21:13, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
I also agree. Helder 13:29, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Altered Wikidata:Notability accordingly. Please check and improve wording! --Magnus Manske (talk) 09:20, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Looks good! I would add occupations and the six main types of items, since the items we use right now are just a compromise solution. --Kolja21 (talk) 01:09, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree to add the main types, but I disagree with occupations, since there is no real use for the existence of a loose occupation item. Main types have several fields which can be useful, even if the item is loose. An occupation usually does not have many properties. If someone wants to associate a non-existing occupation to a person, he/she should create it. --Faux (talk) 18:23, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
I really like the sound of this - I've been talking to some people from the historical GIS world about gazetteer data, and tying "lists of [populated] places" to Wikidata. One of the open questions has been handling cases where WP has as yet not got an article - more likely for now-vanished towns - and this seems like it would solve it neatly! Andrew Gray (talk) 14:51, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
A property notability policy (or other suitable name) is discussed in Wikidata talk:Notability#Suggestion for property notatibility policy. Mange01 (talk) 17:15, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Links in the sidebar not working

I'm using 'nds' (Low Saxon) as my default language by preferences. In the navigation panel on the left side the links to the main page and to the community portal lead to empty pages, because no Low Saxon translations exist yet. I cannot create a main page (or a redirect) either because the link is to the main namespace. Could somebody change MediaWiki:Mainpage/nds to "Wikidata:Hööftsiet", make that page a redirect to Wikidata:Veurblad and change MediaWiki:portal-url/nds to "Special:MyLanguage/Project:Community portal"? --Slomox (talk) 11:13, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Missing item labels for property references

At Q214438 under the property 39 'office held' I just see a reference to q319145 which reveals itself to be "Prime Minister of Australia" after clicking the link. The reference to q319145 is opaque because it has no label in the language set in my preferences. A decent fallback would be nice here in my opinion. But I guess people have thought about this and this is either a deliberate decision or hard to fix. So my question is: Is there a list of the most-referenced items so I can add labels in my preferred language to them making Wikidata less opaque for me and other people using my language? --Slomox (talk) 11:24, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

It is possible to set up a fallback chain in these cases, and I'm not sure if we really have a decision on not doing so. The problem is that we don't really have a preference list on alternate languages for a user, we just have a bunch of languages the user can use somehow. Those languages are the ones going into the box "In other languages". Note the order and compare it to what you have set in your babel-list, yes it is simply the languages in alphabetical sort order.
There is a special page EntitiesWithoutLabel you can use to list items with missing labels for a specific language. That list is not according to the most used items, either by traffic or by number of links, it is listed newest item ids first which is somewhat weird. It would be nice to reduce the list to items that has entries in one of the languages the user can read as that would make it possible to actually do something about missing entries. A kind of option to "only list those items that has some labels in languages on my Babel-list" or simply list languages that should be available for the labels. Jeblad (talk) 18:27, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

disambiguations

Q405678 (V for Vendetta) has the description "Wikipedia disambiguation page". Shouldn't this be a property? Seems more sensible than adding the string literal "Wikipedia disambiguation page" to hundreds of thousands pages for each single language. Another property should be whether it is a disambiguation for a literal string or for a translatable title (in this case it is a translatable title, but e.g. Q424758 (BLA) is a disambiguation for a literal string). --Slomox (talk) 11:41, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

It need to be both. the discription is true and all disambiguation page will have this discription and you can add is proprty that it is a disambiguation page. -- yona b (talk) 13:21, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, the description is needed for parts of the Wikidata user interface. I like the idea of a "Wikipedia disambiguation page" property (and likewise for other sorts of non-article Wikipedia pages, perhaps). The different types of disambiguation pages might be better stored as attributes of a single "Wikipedia disambiguation page" property (once this is supported) than as separate properties. --Avenue (talk) 13:32, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses. Could you elaborate which parts of the Wikidata user interface rely on this? It seems so massively redundant. Isn't there a way to put more meaning in the description? --Slomox (talk) 13:51, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Well, the interface works better when there is a description, in that it helps the editor distinguish between items with identical or similar titles. This is naturally important for disambiguation pages. I didn't mean that the description has to be "Wikipedia disambiguation page" specifically - sorry if that was unclear. Adding more meaning to the description would be fine, if it can be kept brief. --Avenue (talk) 14:41, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
At a lot of places in the UI we need a fast lookup of labels, aliases and descriptions. See for example Special:RecentChanges and hover over a link to an item. In some cases we could generate a missing description from properties, but more often than not a description is composed of information from several properties. Ĩn fact the descriptions are closely related to "main categories" in Wikipedia and also to tag phrases, which we don't use. See Help:Description for more, or Help:Label. Jeblad (talk) 18:43, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Problem with interface

I've set 'nds' as language in my preferences. If I look at any item that has no interwiki links added there is no clue for me at all what the item is about (I noticed this looking at properties, but the problem applies to other items as well). I'd expect that there would be a list with labels and descriptions in all languages (or at least in a decent fallback language). But there is nothing. I can get some hints what the item is about by clicking on the history tab, but that's not very convenient. I've also enabled the "labels list" gagdet in the preferences now which gives me what I want: a list with labels and descriptions in all languages. But this is still one more click and a few moments of loading away.

Did I do something wrong when I changed my preferences? Or is this indeed the standard behaviour? --Slomox (talk) 08:02, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh. Forget my question. After I asked this question my next step was setting up a user page with a Babel box. And apparently Wikidata is able to take the information from the Babel box to display my preferred languages. I wouldn't have guessed that. But now it works for me. --Slomox (talk) 08:10, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, it isn't obvious that the Babel box triggers the box about other languages. I would prefer a solution were the browser languages are used if there is no Babel boxes, but it seems like some os/browsers adds languages that are troublesome. Jeblad (talk) 10:43, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
+1. That is completely counterintuitive. We shouldn't be required to put a babel box in order to use the site. Helder 19:26, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Discussions about classes of objects

If for example I want to discuss about the structure and properties used to describe cities and towns, where exactly is the relevant discussion happening?

I've found task forces so far and Wikidata:Infoboxes task force/places for places. But I haven't found a place with in-detail discussions about the properties to use etc. --Slomox (talk) 11:49, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The main place is Wikidata:Property proposal. After the property has been added we use the talk page of the property or, in your case, the talk page of Wikidata:Infoboxes task force/places. Unfortunately for cities and towns there had been a lot of discussion on other pages, so now it's hard to put the info together. --Kolja21 (talk) 02:16, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Another noob question

Is there any plan or has there been any discussion about running a bot which could "fill in" the complement to a familial relationship? E.g. if I add a claim that "Grace Kelly" had "Rainier III, Prince of Monaco" as a spouse, could we run a bot which would find the one-sided edits and, in this case, add "Grace Kelly" as a spouse of "Rainier III, Prince of Monaco "? The Rambling Man (talk) 13:49, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, see Wikidata:Requests_for_permissions/Bot/ImplicatorBot. Legoktm (talk) 21:44, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

questions about local interwiki links vs wikidata links

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 45511

Suppose the wikidata entry, lets say for "brainstem", has interwiki entries for English and French corresponding to:

Now suppose on the English wiki, there's a local link to a French wiki article (which may or may not be fr:Tronc cérébral).

  • Question 1: it is my belief that a local interwiki link overrides the wikidata link. Is that true?
  • Question 2: Is any visual clue given that the language link in the sidebar is a local link while the others are still wikidata links? There doesn't appear to be. If not, shouldn't there be?

Jason Quinn (talk) 18:39, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes and no, but it could be added. I think its a good idea. Jeblad (talk) 19:08, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Great thanks. Jason Quinn (talk) 20:05, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

My understanding is that the goal is to have all interwiki links on wikidata, and that the so called local links are temporary until all conflicts are resolved. Danrok (talk) 18:59, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

That may be the goal, but the question still remains if the Mediawiki software is to still support local interwiki links. Jason Quinn (talk) 20:05, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

How to add new interwiki links

I'm not sure where to ask, or if it has been clarified elsewhere, but what am I to do when I discover than an article on the English wiki has a counterpart in another language? I don't seem to be able to access its Wikidata page if the other article wasn't registered before. Example: English article[16], Italian article[17] FunkMonk (talk) 21:28, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Go to Special:ItemByTitle, type the wiki code and the article name (e.g. "itwiki" and "Pliolophus") and you will be redirected to Q3906720: here you can add other sitelinks! ;) --Ricordisamoa 21:39, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
PS: you can enable here the gadget "slurpInterwiki" that will add a link at the left to quickly import interlinks from a language version. --Ricordisamoa 21:40, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
both of you? --Ricordisamoa 22:23, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Heheh, whoops, for some weird reason I glanced and thought the code was a username... FunkMonk (talk) 23:25, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Sidebar translation

Please copy MediaWiki:Villagepump/pt to MediaWiki:Villagepump/pt-br because the 'pt' fallback is not working if I choose 'pt-br' (I see "Project chat" instead of "Esplanada" in the sidebar). Helder 03:11, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

  Done --Stevenliuyi (talk) 04:03, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

local wiki articles which are became none-interwiki

In many cases because of abuse or interwiki-conflict or fault (in wikidata), articles in a locale wiki are became none-interwiki but they should have proper interwiki (old one or new one). in local wikis what we should do? imagine you created an article and it should have interwiki after some days without seeing any changes in your watch-list it's interwiki is removed!

in my opinion we should have one of these:

  • if article are become none-interwiki a javascript label or alarm or something similar in local wikis says this article some days ago in wikidtat had Interwiki !(JS code could be similar to delete candidate icon of wikidata which is shown in items)
  • have a list of articles that are became none-interwiki by bots.
  • a bot in wikidata checks interwiki changes and send alarm to article's talk page in local wiki.
  • a new table in database which records an articles interwiki changes (local interwiki history for a page). Reza1615 (talk) 07:58, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
If I'm not mistaken, you ask about what to do if a local article loose the sitelink, either by local vandalism or because of changes on the repo? It is partly possible to do this by using page props, but then we need some kind of maintenance page to list the changes. It is also possible to use tags in recent changes for this, and then mark local edits that results in lost connection with an item. Listing changes that results in lost connection with an item will then be through the ordinary tag filtering mechanism on the recent changes page. Jeblad (talk) 19:25, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
I tell it by an example: I made fa:۱۲ مرداد after fa.wiki is joined wikidata we will remove interwikis by bot from local wikis so we only have iterwikis in wikidata.
someone by fault or abuse removes fa link from Q3918571 how can I understand fa:۱۲ مرداد is became non-interwiki when I can not check repo's interwiki changes in local wiki or watchlist!Reza1615 (talk) 20:57, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Well once the "hide/show Wikidata" feature is fixed on clients' RecentChanges feeds (has it been already?), this'll be a bit easier. Anyways, though: Yes, that's something of a concern. This is why, though, we have Special:AbuseFilter/10. If sitelink removals become more severe, we can loosen the conditions on it, e.g. by increasing the user_editcount condition, or by switching to a userrights-based condition (either autoconfirmed or autopatroller). — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 00:00, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
I mean locale users should know what happened to their article's interwiki in their locale watchlist. many of these removing cause by normal users which have more that 100 edits. because of fault or solving conflict they removes and no-one check them because they are trusted !Reza1615 (talk) 11:33, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Language fallbacks do not work well

Moved to Wikidata:Contact the development team#Language fallbacks do not work well. Helder 14:21, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

My watchlist doesn't add edited items

I'm new to Wikidata, but I'm familiar with Wikipedia. When I make a contribution, I can see it listed when I click Contributions. However, if click on Watchlist, I'm told there's nothing listed. I've looked under Preferences and I can't see any feature to add edited pages to my watchlist. Am I missing something?--ML5 (talk) 22:22, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

In preferences, go to the "watchlist" tab, scroll down below the token and click on one of the boxes like "Add pages and files I edit to my watchlist". Alternatively, you can click the little star on every page you visit :p Ajraddatz (Talk) 01:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Correct. Unfortunately there is bugzilla:41573. A workaround is linked there. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:26, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Blocking without warning

Hi everybody. Needless to say, I think this is one of the issues on which various wikis the most diverge. However, I think any reasonable person would have to concede that:

  • There are some situations in which it's best to block without warning. For instance, earlier today I indeffed an editor on sight for highly racist edits, as it was obvious he was here to disrupt the project in an extremely offensive fashion. Likewise, spambots don't need warnings for obvious reasons.
  • And that there are some situations in which it's irresponsible to not give a warning. For instance, if an administrator has concerns that a trusted user is creating an unfriendly editing environment, there should be significant discussion before handing out any blocks.

And that leaves a lot of space in between. There are a lot of different ways to think about it, and I'm not trying to mandate any particular one, and I'm definitely not trying to impose some sort of system where there's a required number of warnings to block a user.

What I do suggest is this: We note in WD:BLOCK that, in the majority of cases, it's preferable to warn a user before blocking them if their edits could be reasonably construed to be in good faith. (This of course allows IAR exceptions.) For instance, editors have been blocked without warning for removing multiple sitelinks in a row. This is a very common type of test edit, and, to the best of my knowledge, every single editor I've warned for it (with {{subst:Uw-lr1}}) has stopped, including editors who'd removed over 10 sitelinks. If templated warnings aren't your style, you can write a message yourself – in more serious cases, I'm a fan of saying flat-out "Hi. Don't do that again. If you do, I'll block you. Thanks." The point is that when there's a good chance an editor is just testing out the "remove" button (and testing it and testing it and testing it), it's unnecessary to strip them of their editing privileges when it's possible they might want to contribute constructively, and just don't know how. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 00:48, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

  •   Support as a general guideline.--Jasper Deng (talk) 00:53, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
  •   Support I'd like for us to have a warning template that basically goes "Hey, your last edit(s) weren't productive. If you're interested in helping out, here's a link to the instructions and here are some links to help pages. If you're just goofing off though, please stop." That way we could warn and teach in one swoop. I think that'd be more productive than the either existing warnings or going straight to blocks. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
  •   Support Sven's idea. The currently warning and block templates are pretty useless to either good faith or bad faith contributors, so let's make a more practical one. I would like to make sure that this is a guideline, though, not a set-in-stone policy - common sense needs to rule. Ajraddatz (Talk) 01:00, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
I would go for all cases, not for the majority.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:59, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Page for important Wikidata news, software updates?

I want to follow important changes and news around Wikidata (new software-features deployed, new rules, new highlights…), but it's not so easy:

What do you think about creating a new site Wikidata:Project News, where Lydia can post about new deployed features and we collect news about new bots, new project rules, admin votes, etc. -- MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 01:36, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

    •   Oppose I don't find Wikidata:Status updates to be overly bulky at all. The section is divided into sections, making it easy to... say... skip the "Development" section if you're not technically literate enough to understand it and just read the other sections (that's not intended as an insult, that's actually what I do every week). Sven Manguard Wha? 02:17, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

If there's anything I can do to make the weekly summaries more useful or easier to read please let me know. I'm happy to make changes if I can but I need feedback for that to see what works for you all and what doesn't. And the other thing: You're all more than welcome to send me things that you want to show up in there that I might be missing. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:21, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe you could separate the topic about the development more from the topics regarding live system. Maybe through adding one section "Wikidata.org" with all the stuff about the productive system. Also notes about new softwarefeatures on Wikidata.org should be more complete than last time where for example the info about viewing other languages was missing – or at least should link to some place where informations can be found. That would be an enhancement, but anyway I'd still wish something like WP:NEU on German Wikipedia. -- MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 13:11, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Best place to file bug reports

What is the best (right) place to file bug reports or requests for improvements for Wikidata?

My current problem is that I wanted to add a property to an item. My first problem was that the text field where I put the name of the property only accepts property names with correct capitalization. That should be changed and work too if I type lowercase. My second problem was that the text field for the property value (I wanted to add a Commons reference for a flag image) is roundabout two pixels high. It still works, but I cannot see the value after selecting it from the suggestion dropdown. --Slomox (talk) 09:56, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

There is Wikidata:Contact the development team if you're unsure or want feedback on something. And the real bug-tracker is at http://bugs.wikimedia.org --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:24, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Created item that existed

I created an item for en:Preise dein Glücke, gesegnetes Sachsen, BWV 215 because I saw no connection. Now we 2 instead of one, the other de:Preise dein Glücke, gesegnetes Sachsen, what now? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:00, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

I will now take care of this. Next time, please nominate for deletion (Wikidata:Requests for deletion).--Ymblanter (talk) 14:06, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:11, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Older browsers and Wikidata

There is no big secret that Wikidata isn't going to support some old legacy browsers like MSIE 5, 5.5, 6 and sort of 7. It is possible to edit Wikidata by using the Javascript-less user interface for those browsers, and even if only parts of the overall system can be edited this way more will come in the future. Even if this JS-less UI is good enough for some editing, it is not perfect, and it is horribly slow. If you are editing from some kind of environment were you are forced to use those legacy browsers there might be a solution for you if you are using Windows. While having access to a working Windows box you can insert an USB-stick and install PortableApps [22] and then install FireFox, Chrome or one of the other browsers. Using this tool you simply insert the USB in your limited work-pc or school-pc or whatever and you will then have an additional start menu with modern browsers. There are other tools for doing similar things, some of them take over more control on your pc and some do additional stuff. In my opinion PortableApps is a nice middle way and it usually work quite well. And no, I do not work for PortableApps! =) Jeblad (talk) 15:08, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Nice, but luckily IE6 isn't very used nowadays. --Ricordisamoa 15:41, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Administrative divisions again - hopefully, last topic

We are somehow stuck with the properties regarding the administrative divisions, but at the same time we need to decide what properties we are going to use, since this impedes progress with quieries on localities. The issue has been discussed many times, and four solutions have been proposed. I suggest to discuss it one more last time, and if there is no consensus, possibly just vote, otherwise we will never be able to proceed.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Variant 1

(seems to be supported by majority). Create for each country the whole set of properties needed. This means, for instance, the the property "state" will be moved to "US state", to only describe US states. Another property, "State of Mexico", will be exclusively used to describe states of Mexico. The property "Province of Canada" will only describe provinces of Canada (with possible addition of territories), but not for instance provinces of Kazakhstan. "The property "Oblast of Russia" or "Federal subject of Russia" will describe Oblasts of Russia (but not Oblasts of Ukraine, for example). Advantages: The clearest division we could have. Disdvantages: Too many properties (probably about 1000), difficult for drop-down menu.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I think this is preferable. Variant two is a possibility, but come phase three I think this option would give us a useful amount of flexibility. If variant two is a possibility, variant three isn't all that different, but on top of not being quite as flexible as variant one, I can't think of an appropriate name for the property you suggest – if the name isn't considered neutral, the property won't be used universally, regardless of consensus. Variant four would be of limited use on the client side, and should be discounted on that basis alone. —WFC— 21:44, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. Managing 1000 properties seems unwieldy. This could also make it difficult to do phase three queries across different countries, as WFC noted above. Note that some countries don't use the same names throughout (In Louisiana I believe counties are called parishes, In England boroughs and cities are more or less the same, with some exceptions! Filceolaire (talk) 00:52, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. The maintainance of sets of properties for each country would be high and the usability for each property in many languages would be low.--Snaevar (talk) 16:14, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Oppose It will make the data much harder to use! SilkyShark (talk) 01:48, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Oppose Snipre (talk) 09:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Support I think this is the most accurate solution. Administrative units in different countries are almost never identical because they are based on different laws. Most wikis have their own infoboxes for places in different countries because the administrative structure is not equal. I can't see that the data will be harder to use when each of that properties is well defined for one country. IW 15:45, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Support as the more consistent solution if variant 4 proves unmanageable. --Zolo (talk) 11:09, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Support. Seems to be the cleanest solution. Also, these properties being country-specific does not prevent them to be a subset of a more generic property (such as "level 1 division", "level 2 division", etc.).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 15, 2013; 17:48 (UTC)

Variant 2

To use the terms which describe (in English) divisions for all divisions they describe. For instance, "state" will apply to the US, Mexico, India, or Nigeria, but will not apply to Canada. For Canada, we will use "province", which will be used for Kazakhstan as well. Advantages: clear for English speakers and a reasonable number of properties. Disadvantages: may be not so clear in other languages (for instance, Russian uses Oblast for both Russia and Kazakhstan, but English Wikipedia uses Oblast for Russia and Province for Kazakhstan); could be also confusing, since for example District would describe such different entities as DC and Tosnensky District, Leningrad Oblast, Russia.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Strong oppose - using this data, it is not clear what level of subdivision it is. πr2 (t • c) 22:01, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Neutral. I prefer variant 3, but if that does not go through, I am willing to settle on this one as an comprimise.--Snaevar (talk) 16:14, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Strong oppose - not usable for users, which don't speak English; not translateable --Balû (talk) 21:27, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Variant 3

Use one property per level of administrative division. In this variant, it will be the same property for US states, states of Mexico, provinces of Canada, or Oblasts of Russia, but it will be a different property for counties in the US and districts in Russia. Advantages: only few properties. Disadvantages: It is often difficult to compare administrative divisions of different countries, and even in the same country it could be a mess.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand why it is complicated to have a level hierarchy: if in some cases the hierarchy can't applied just create a special administration level. Look at the infoboxes and we can see that isn't a problem to structure the data in a column. Using level hierarchy property will help later in the infobox building by allowing an unique infobox and not one infobox per country. Snipre (talk) 07:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Support. Just makes sense.--Snaevar (talk) 16:14, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I presume the levels are more or less as follows:
  1. Village - Parish council (UK), Ward (Newark USA)
  2. Borough (urban areas of England UK), District (rest of England UK), Municipality.
  3. County (USA, UK) Shire (UK), Metropolitan County (large cities in England), département (France), province (Italy)
  4. State (USA, Mexico, Nigeria), Regions (UK - proposed, France, Italy), Provinces (Canada, Ireland),
  5. Country (Sovereign state)
  6. Supranational organisations (UN, EU)
Some countries won't have all of these but we can just leave some levels blank in those cases. I think this could work but I prefer option 4. Filceolaire (talk) 22:25, 6 February 2013 (UTC)~
If some countries don't have the 4 or 5 levels of administration division, we don't need to fill every level: for each country we can developp a set of rules in order to guide contributors. Snipre (talk) 09:51, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
This seems somewhat workable, but at the local level it gets messed up completely. For example, in the US counties usually include multiple cities, but New York City includes five counties, each of which consist of one borough!
By the way, supranational organizations such as the UN or EU have nothing to do with this – we're talking about administrative divisions, not international treaties. -- Ypnypn (talk) 23:11, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I support this variant. With the order reversed compared to that stated by Filceolaire, this is what has been used on itwiki through the universal it:Template:Divisione amministrativa. And it works. --Ermanon (talk) 08:38, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. it:Template:Divisione amministrativa calls it:Template:DivAmm to diplay real division names, but we cannot do that here. That means we will have properties labelled "level 5 subdivision", which is always clumsy and often factually debatable (more details here). --Zolo (talk) 09:33, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Support Snipre (talk) 09:51, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
It is only necessary for each country to define the hierarchical levels. Very easy to do. After that everything is much more clear and uniform. --Ermanon (talk) 10:16, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
It is not necessarily easy to do. For instance it:Template:DivAmm/FRA is really debatable. By the way, as far as I can see, it:Template:Divisione amministrativa does not correctly handle cases where several kinds of divisions are on the same level - for instance it:Nuova Delhi incorrectly states that Delhi is a state). --Zolo (talk) 10:55, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Oppose, not flexible enough to deal with the messy situations common in the real world. Not all administrative systems follow a strict hierarchy of this kind, so it isn't always possible to define the levels this framework depends on. --Avenue (talk) 17:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Variant 4

Use just one property - "is in", and put there all we need. Advantage: simple. Disadvantage: there is no guarantee that this property will be used properly, and it is not exclusive for administrative divisions.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I like this one the most. It's the best one for data consumers. I don't know if I understood correctly, but I would call that property "administrative division of" and then only have one entry, the administrative division above the current one, the one it is in.Janjko (talk) 22:12, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
From a Wikidatian perspective, I also prefer this <combined with yes to bonus, that sounds like a well-matched couple>. If we need to make it more restrictive, we can probably find a better label. However I am not sure it will cater very well to the needs of Wikipedia infoboxes. Guessing that if San Francisco is in California, it is also in the US souds simpler than inferrences mentionned above, but still there is a technical side to the issue. --Zolo (talk) 22:19, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Support (and bonus question). This is similar to what I have proposed before on Wikidata:DEV#Is_this_technically_possible.3F. πr2 (t • c) 22:24, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Support as the neatest solution, if it's possible. I wouldn't think it's so hard, but what would I know? -- Ypnypn (talk) 23:16, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Support. We need a comment from the developers on this since the infoboxes will be fetching information from pages for linked items as well as from the page for the item itself. The Tower of London is in the 'City of London'. The City of London page tells us this a City in England. The England page tells us this is a Country in the UK. The UK page tells us this is a sovereign state in the EU. Note that an 'Is A' property is needed to tell us which is a City, Country, Sovereign state etc. (maybe this should be 'Is A (type of administrative unit)'). Note that the 1000 names for admin units are now values in the 'Is A' property and additional ones can be added without having to create new properties.
Similarly the 'Is in' property may need to be relabelled 'Is in (administrative unit)?
A similar hierarchy may be needed for taxonomy of living things although there at least the names of the different levels (species, genus etc.) are agreed.Filceolaire (talk) 01:13, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Actually that's not so simple either. Phylum or division? -- Ypnypn (talk) 01:26, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Support if the property's name makes is clear this is only to specify an administrative division that a place is contained in (e.g. "in administrative area" X). (The general "Is in" property should be avoided where possible, I think.) Yes, we should also have a corresponding property ("is an administrative area") to specify that an item actually refers to a administrative division (together with a value to say what type of administrative division it is, e.g. "U.S. state"). --Avenue (talk) 02:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Thinking about it 'Is A' can be a very general property to tell Wikidata which template to use. Values include Administrative unit, footballer, highway, software program etc. If Administrative area is selected then a template can be autoloaded with a standard set of properties in a standard order including the 'type of administrative division' property and the 'next highest administrative division' property.
I'm not opposed to the "is a" property, presuming it's set up carefully, but I'm less keen on the "is in" property. I think it would be better to have more specific properties for the various meanings of "in" and the various domains where those meanings apply. --Avenue (talk) 00:53, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
This is a very difficult question. I support something like this, defined as "the most specific administrative division(s) containing this location"--used for everything from lakes and mountains to populated places and other administrative divisions--assuming the software allows inferences. But I also suspect that inferences will be hard to use in practice, and most people don't want to go to extra work to find the right level of detail. For example, most people want "Paris, France", not "Paris, Île-de-France, France" and "Mount Vesuvius, Italy", not "Mount Vesuvius, Province of Naples, Italy". Therefore, I don't think using "is in" should make it "wrong" to add "country=Italy" to Mount Vesuvius as well. It is technically redundant, but we need to remember this is not a traditional database. Traditional databases have bounded use cases and types of data. Wikidata does not. Espeso (talk) 03:53, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
People wanting "Paris, France" will be looking on Wikipedia. People writing bots to find the details of "Paris, France" from wikidata for import to an external websites may have problems but so will people looking for details of Springfield, USA unless they can disambiguate it. I guess the response they will get is "Did you mean 'Paris, Île-de-France, France'" Filceolaire (talk) 22:51, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Requiring that the admin division contains the entire entity may be problematic for some border features. For example, the infobox in w:Mount Everest specifies the districts/counties in Nepal and China that each contain part of the mountain. This seems a reasonable thing to want to say, as simply stating that it is in Asia seems too vague. So I would hope that the property could be used in this way too. --Avenue (talk) 00:45, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
On second thought, perhaps a separate property "partly in administrative division" would be a better way to handle such cases. It could also be used for overlapping divisions. --Avenue (talk) 12:13, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. Too generic.--Snaevar (talk) 16:14, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Support redundancy in databases is to be avoided. If you fear is in is to generic, subclass it to next higher administrative division or similar. 17:48, 6 February 2013 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by FelixReimann (talk • contribs) .
Support if there is another property to indicate the item's type of administrative division, just like Avenue suggests.--Stevenliuyi (talk) 23:16, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Just to be clear, I was suggesting another property ("is an administrative area") that would apply to the domain of administrative divisions only, and would take a value specifying the type of the administrative division. The "in administrative area" property, which would apply more generally to all areas and places, would only require the item's enclosing division be specified as a value. It would not specify the type of that division, as that would be stored on the division's page instead. --Avenue (talk) 00:45, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Support - most sensible option IMO Ajraddatz (Talk) 14:49, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Support --Eric-92 (talk) 01:10, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

There is a problem with this variant. In Germany, we have different administrative structures in each federal state: In Q985 we have the following hierarchy:

  • state (Germany)
  • federal state (Baden-Württemberg)
  • district (Regierungsbezirk XYZ)
  • county (Landkreis XYZ)
  • association of municipalities
  • municipality

Not all federal states consist of districts, and in a federal state, not all municipalities are organized in an association of municipalities. But we have one infobox for all German municipalities' that has to provide correct information for all of them. For this reason, the solution on the next higher administrative division like suggested above is not possible in my eyes. IW 15:40, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't follow why different hierarchical structures in different places should cause problems with an "is in administrative area" property, or even a "next higher administrative division" variant. Can't an item's statements simply reflect the hierarchy in that area? --Avenue (talk) 12:13, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
You're right, here in Wikidata there is no Problem. But Infoboxes have e.g. different parameters for districts and counties. If the infobox just receives the next higher division, it can't assign the division to the infobox parameter because it's not defined what kind of division it is. IW 18:30, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Infobox could get the next higher division, then look up its "is a" property, then assign it appropriately on the basis of that. Nikola (talk) 20:20, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Support Hopefully on wikipedia it will be possible to say go two levles up/down in the hierarchy and give me the item link. --Sk!d (talk) 12:03, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Support I think that we can indicate that you must use the parameter that describe more precisely the location of the object.--dega180 (talk) 10:15, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Support Nice and easy. — ΛΧΣ21 19:39, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Bonus question

(Independent of the variants above). Should we put the whole ladded of properties, or just the last level of the division? For instance, Sussex County is one of the counties of Massachusetts. Should we just indicate there that it belongs to Massachusetts State, or also that it belongs to the US and to North America?--Ymblanter (talk) 21:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Probably just as little as possible, so Sussex County is in Massachusetts, but not USA. However, it ultimately depends on how smart the software is (i.e. can it do some really basic reasoning?). It's much simpler this way. -- Ypnypn (talk) 01:11, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, if the software can handle it, we should only enter enough levels to specify the administrative situation fully. In simple hierarchical systems, that would be the smallest/deepest division. In systems that are not a simple hierarchy, multiple levels might still need to be specified, but perhaps not all levels. --Avenue (talk) 02:14, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I just proposed a similar hirarchy for Biology. Instead of Species - Genus - Family - Order - Class etc just two properties: "Higher order" and the already existing taxon rank. Maybe we can combine all hierarchies with hypernyms / belongs to. HenkvD (talk) 19:41, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
I'd rather we not have to manually add any of this data at all. I think the best way that this could work would be that we'd input the geographic coordinates and boundaries, and the software would just figure out from that what's inside what. This would also make it easier to fine-tune what's what, as we could take the top-level entities (countries) and specify which parts are claimed by the country, administered by the country, officially part of the country proper, recognized by entity X as being part of the country, etc. as well as things like continents and such. We shouldn't have to specify the continent of every region in Russia, or that every region in North Korea is also claimed by South Korea, but with the current setup, if we don't then we'll be lacking important data. However, the software is not yet able to handle geographic data, much less make complex inferences from them. Personally, I think it would be better if we just left out this kind of data (including who borders on who) until the software can handle it well.
But if we're going to just use the system of inputting X is in Y, we should probably just add the last level of the division, except where it's otherwise ambiguous. --Yair rand (talk) 04:01, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I think the biggest problem with a system based on geographic boundaries is that most layman editors would find it very difficult to debug and correct, unless a lot of effort is put into developing a nice user interface. Attaching references to the relevant boundaries might be difficult too. Dealing with disputed regions would also be complicated. --Avenue (talk) 17:21, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
There is no reasoning built into the software as of now. Jeblad (talk) 09:22, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Instead of reasoning like guessing the administrative division based on coordinates it would be enough to allow iterative calls of the parser function: If in each division only the next higher division in specified (Sussex County is in Massachusetts, Massachusetts is in USA) and NOT a redundant Sussex County is in USA,Earth,Universe,.... , then {{#property:is in|Sessex County}} should return Massachusetts and {{#property:is in|{{#property:is in|Sessex County}}}} should return USA. No reasoning needed, no undesirable data duplication. FelixReimann (talk) 17:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
On the datatypes page (which I can't find just now. Has anyone got a link?) there is a "Geographical shapes" datatype. This would be some standard format which would generate a map with the boundary of that country or county or whatever. This could also generate rivers or highways. As these would be in standard formats they could be shown on miniwikiatlas maps or they could be used by others to calculate areas or distances. I don't see this happening anytime soon but I'm sure it will come. Filceolaire (talk) 23:08, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Properties could have the option to be inheritable. Thus:

  • On the property page for country (i.e. the location property), we say that this property is inherited by default. On the property pages for county and town (and state), we do exactly the same.
  • Now, we have a country named Farawayistan.
    • Next, we have a county named Farawayia, located in Farawayistan. On the item page for Farawayia, the property country is set equal to "Farawayistan".
      • Further down the hierarchy, we have the town Farawayburgh. On its item page, we select the property county to be equal to Farawayia. By default, the item Farawayburgh will now inherit the property country from its selected county property, so that Farawayburgh automatically has its country property set equal to Farawayistan.
        • Any object that is located within this town will have its town property set to Farawayburgh, and will thus also inherit both county and country.

Ultimately, this would/could lead to that Farawayburgh is also located within the Milkyway and the Local Group; however, this could be controlled by an inheritance depth setting, limiting how many levels the property can be inherited otherwise a greather/ full depth is explicitly requested. However, since each property is supposed to be requested individually (I guess?), this is just a user interface issue here on Wikidata locally, so its not the biggest deal; the item pages for towns would simply have a long list of unnecessary properties, otherwise something like an inheritance depth was specified (and which would only have to be visual, anyway; Farawaburgh can still inherit e.g. the property "host galaxy", but this property is simply not shown by default). Njardarlogar (talk) 16:31, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, inheritability would be a useful option. Similarly reciprocity could be useful for borders and so forth. Maybe asymmetric reciprocity too (e.g. "has as capital" versus "is capital of"). I think part of our difficulty in agreeing on some properties is that people have unstated assumptions about what "properties" the properties can and should have. --Avenue (talk) 01:37, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Summary

Anybody wants to summarize? I am reluctant to do it as I feel myself involved. We need two summaries (they do not have to come from the same person): choosing variant 1/2/3/4 or smth else; another one about the bonus question.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:57, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Variants
# Synopsis Pro Contra Result Advantages Disadvantages
1 for each country a whole set 3 4 -1 clear many properties
2 guided by US-System 0 2 -2 few properties not language neutral
3 one property per level 3 2 +1 few properties difficult to apply to all countries
4 "is in" 9 1 +8 one property, simple very generic  Y

Variant 4 is the chosen one. I could not find a majority opinion for the bonus question. --Sixsi6ma (talk) 21:21, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Keep in mind that some of the support for the "is in" variant was conditional on making it less generic, i.e. specifically about admin divisions. --Avenue (talk) 01:40, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I created this request. When it gets created, we should indeed make clear that this is only for administrative units, we did not discuss other options.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:07, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I see the problem, that the discussion is very much US-centered and therefor makes it difficult to use its outcome for the world. For example, in some South American countries provinces are the second level, in other the third administrative level. Furthermore, at the moment virtually the most articles for administrative units are such within the EU. None of the models above is compatible with neither the older NUTS system nor with the LAU system.
  • BTW: The Is In system won't work with a bunch of cities. E.g. w:en:Flin Flon. I am almoste sure that none of the "voters" above ever wrote article about administrative unitd in Wikipedia. That won't work. Sorry. --Matthiasb (talk) 19:01, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
    I have written/cleaned up plenty of articles on administrative units. Actually this is why I raised the topic.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
    Okay, but which countries? But this is yet much more complex. See, the Russian federal subjects. I did not look up in other languages than German, but even if they're federal subjects, they're different. There are regions (e.g. Chabarowsk, Krasnodar), republics (Altai, Comi, Carelia), oblasts (Kaliningrad, Kursk, most of them), circuits, even towns (Moskau, St. Petersburg). However they're still the first administrative level. The problem with the Is-in-solution is furthermore: still w:de:Schwetzingen is in w:de:Rhein-Neckar-Kreis is in w:de:Regierungsbezirk Karlsruhe is in w:de:Baden-Württemberg is in w:de:Deutschland so is Schwetzingen in Deutschland. The is-in-solution is ambigeous. Yet, did you know, that many US cities are lieing on the border of different countys, that New York villages extend betweend different towns and counties? That New York towns never extend into other counties but villages do? --Matthiasb (talk) 19:36, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
    From what I can remember, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Sweden, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, France, Mongolia, Thailand, Algeria, Argentina, Nicaragua, Brazil, Cuba, and I could have forgotten smth. Yes, I know about these issues. Note that I did not advocate any solution, but we could not really wait for years without any way to proceed. At least now we have smth which can be connected to infobox entries.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:50, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
    I'll still have to oppose. We don't have the resources to start a system and then in a couple of weeks or months to realize that it won't work. We don't need a BER airport here. I agree that we need to proceed but I do not advocate to proceed into a dead end street. Especially your summary is revealing the flaw of the is-in-solution, may I cite: one property, simple … very generic but try to apply this on some English villages which can extend to up to four different counties and/or districts or to none (because they're within Unitary Authorites, in which counties and districts are united). That needs a orientation strictly according to administration levels, and it needs the possibility to include multiple entries (up to five at least, see Houston, Texas) on each level. --Matthiasb (talk) 20:10, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
    Addition: Note that f.ex. w:de:Vorlage:Infobox Ort in den Vereinigten Staaten or w:en:Infobox UK settlement (and the almost identical w:de:Vorlage:Infobox Ort in den Vereinigten Staaten) are implemented with multiple counties and/or constituencies, the latter the next problematic data sets. This issue is to resolve in several instances, some of them yet not foreseen by the bunch of the users having discussed above. --Matthiasb (talk) 20:18, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
    Oh, this is not my summary.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:49, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
    More seriously, I would myself probably support variant 3. It has issues but is still compatible with generic infoboxes without creating zillions of different properties. But the problem with it seems that it is too complicated: An average user just does not know what is the third level administrative division and certainly never heard about say cities of oblast significance in Kazakhstan.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:00, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
    This is a hierarchy for administrative divisions. For other places which overlap more than one administrative division each of those can have a statement or you can go to the next highest division if the place is entirely in that. All seem compatible with option 4. If getting inferences is a problem then for now we can add the Country property as well, leaving out all the intermediate administrative levels. Filceolaire (talk) 00:30, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

When your browser is crashing

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 45325

It seems like several people complains about their browser is crashing while accessing Wikidata, but it is very few in the dev-team that sees this. That makes me wonder if there are some gadget or additional tool that triggers this. If you see anything like this, please make a note about what you use of additional tools and add it to the bug report. Or even better, try to disable one by one of the tools and see if the problem goes away. Jeblad (talk) 10:34, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

To be honest, so far it's just me (and only on Chromium, Firefox is just slow). :) --Nemo 22:29, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

non-www issue solved?

Heya folks :)

It seems that everything now always redirects to www.wikidata.org. Therefore you should no longer see the issues where you can't save some things while being on wikidata.org. If you're still seeing the issue pop up anywhere please let me know. Otherwise I'll consider this issue finally fixed \o/ --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:37, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I still have saving problems without www. --Stryn (talk) 10:57, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Damn. You should not be able to get on any url with www without being redirected -.- Can you give me a url that you can still get to without www? --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:31, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
I came here from the Finnish Wikipedia {there was this link (goes to here}. So using :d:-code it does not redirect to www. --Stryn (talk) 12:00, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Aha! Thanks. Will look into that further. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 12:52, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
This also involves Wikidata-to-Wikidata links if they use the 'd:' prefix: Wikidata:List of properties leads to 'en.wikidata.org'. --Slomox (talk) 09:28, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

And :d is now changed to also lead to www.wikidata.org. One evil thing less \o/ --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 19:38, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

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