Wikidata

Wikidata:Project chat/Archive/2014/07

< Wikidata:Project chat‎ | Archive‎ | 2014
This page is an archive. Please do not modify it. Use the current page, even to continue an old discussion.

Remove "is a list of: person" from items with "instance of: Wikimedia disambiguation page"?

Hi,
I noticed a lot (actually ~42.000) items are tagged with both is a list of (P360)=person (Q215627) and instance of (P31)=Wikimedia disambiguation page (Q4167410). Now the property docu for P360 says about the domain:
"Domain: items with interwikis to (en) pages named "List of" etc."

So should is a list of (P360) be reserved for real lists only? Then a bot should probably delete all those is a list of (P360)=person (Q215627) from items with instance of (P31)=Wikimedia disambiguation page (Q4167410) (though to be sure the bot also needs to exclude items where the label contains "List" as there seem to be a few items with wrong tags). On the other hand it might be useful to know that a disambiguation page is about a person (not sure for what though). --Bthfan (talk) 18:35, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

  • This is further complicated by the fact that many of these items are appropriate to use as the target for properties 'family name (P734)' and 'given name (P735)'. In some cases articles in one language which are tagged as Disambiguation pages are sitelinked to pages in other languages which are not so tagged e.g. because the articles in the other language have an introductory paragraph about the name before the list of people with that name. These pages are probably better described as subclass of (P279):<Surname> or subclass of (P279):<Given name> rather than 'list of' or 'instance of'. Filceolaire (talk) 00:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

We have only one type of disambiguation page

When a Wikipedia does things differently, it does not follow that we have to follow. We are not lemmings. When a Wikipedia has a disambiguation page with only people, fine. When it has other things by that name fine as well. It makes no material difference to us. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 15:56, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata doesn't have disambiguation items at all. We can only mark an item as belonging to some type and we can support different types of disambigs from Wikipedia. --Infovarius (talk) 11:57, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

"is a list of" is used to build a query

As has been documented in the past, "is a list of" is used to build enough information to build a query in the Reasonator. The use of "is a list of" in combination with "person" is an artefact of how we thought things would be. Now we use "human" in stead of "person". GerardM (talk) 06:30, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Except that this only works where there is a 'list of Foo' article and a separate article about 'Foo' that the 'is a list of' property can link to. In many cases and many languages the 'list of Foo' article is the only article about 'Foo' so the 'is a list of' property has nothing to point at. Lists of the format 'List of Dukes of Hazzard'; 'List of Mayors of Bumblefuck'; 'List of members of Parliament from Mummerset'; 'Roger (disambiguation)'. It makes a lot more sense to rename the items linked to these articles as 'Duke of Hazzard'; 'Mayor of Bumblefuck'; 'Member of Parliament for Mummerset'; 'Roger' with statements defining these as 'subclass of:Hereditary title; elected official; given name; etc. and then use these as the target for other properties rather than creating duplicate items with no sitelinks for the properties to point at. If reasonator knows some thing is a subclass of:political office', for instance, then it can look for 'office held' statements pointing to this item, or reasonator can just list all the properties linking to the item. Filceolaire (talk) 20:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
You conflate two separate things.. When a list is a list in the Wikidata sense, we build queries using the "is a list of". It does not matter what Wikipedia calls something. The approved practice is to name the labels for the property and include what Wikipedia calls list articles. GerardM (talk) 08:20, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
GerardM: What is a "list in the Wikidata sense"? Wikidata has items. Because Wikidata includes everything which has a wikipedia page wikidata has some items called 'Lists' but the fact they are called 'lists' don't mean a lot. I understand your proposal that we turn these items into the basis for queries; I just don't agree with you. I think that in most cases these items make more sense if we think of them as a set of similar items which can be the target of statements using instance of (P31) and the subject of a statement using subclass of (P279) but 'list of' needs to be taken off the front of the item label first. That is my proposal for what to do with items linking to Wikipedia 'list' articles Filceolaire (talk) 10:22, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
A list in the Wikidata sense is an item with "instance of" "Wikimedia list article". We already use the "is a list of" property to build the basis for queries that function in Reasonator.
I do not understand your comments / proposal. GerardM (talk) 11:09, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Adding distance information...

Q1434642

This has a distance along entry, but I'd like to add a qualifier which is the actual numerical Km value.

What should I add this as?

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:05, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Wait for the numeric datatype with unit. This is not yet implemented. Snipre (talk) 12:13, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Good work!

Good work, everyone! We've had nine RFAs in the past month, all of them successful. Hopefully there will be as many new admins next month as well. --Jakob (talk) 14:53, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

What/ where are the criteria for eligibility? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:35, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia genealogy project

Wikidata has been mentioned a few times over at this request for comments regarding a Wikimedia genealogy project. This serves as both an FYI and an invitation to come contribute to the discussion. Thanks! --Another Believer (talk) 19:49, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Gallery/ museum accession numbers

Which of the two methods of showing the accession number, "1973.128.GR", at Sorrow (Q13107262) is preferred? Or is it better to use both? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I would propose the third one: Using inventory number (P217) qualified by the actual museum using location (P276). Rationale: There might be many catalogues, but the physical item is part of the inventory of at most one institution at a time. A certain collection as a context (e.g. by provenance) cannot be reverted, usually the collection is located within one institution which has a coherent set of accession numbers (cf. the ".GR" in your example). Transfer of the collection to another host institution might end up with a different accession number, thus I'd prefer not too closely associate the institution's accession/inventory number with the collection context. (Proper Catalogue numbers, e.g. from a comprehensive description of the collection which enumerates all items, might be very well associated to the collection and not the institution, but then should be qualified by a Q-item for the catalogue, not the one for the collection). -- Gymel (talk) 23:55, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
Addendum: I'm still uneasy with "Number" (located in) "Institution", but unfortunately inventory number (P217) gives no guidance what qualifiers should be used. But inventory numbers must be qualified by some property with the entity allocating the number as target. Otherwise one has to use the inventory number as a qualifier only - exactly paralleling the catalog code (P528) case. -- Gymel (talk) 00:03, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
It had been suggested in discussions at Wikidata:WikiProject Visual arts talk pages that we should provide that inventory number (P217) should be qualified by collection (P195) (not location (P276), as this is not directly related to the physical location. For instance, object X may be on a long term loan from institution A to institution B, be physically located in institution B but keep an accession number related to institution A). That said we may still have problematic cases. Objets at the British Museum often have several IDs. Worse, some inventory numbers of the Louvre are used by several unrelated objets.
I agree with Gymel for catalogues: catalog code (P528) should be qualified by catalog (P972). --Zolo (talk) 07:45, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
But in Andy's example above the painting belongs to the formerly private en:Garman Ryan Collection
The Garman Ryan Collection is a permanent collection of art works housed at The New Art Gallery Walsall and comprises 365 works of art, including prints, sketches, sculptures, drawings and paintings collected by Kathleen Garman [...] and lifelong friend Sally Ryan. [...] The collection was donated to the people of Walsall in 1973 and opened to the public in July 1974.
The inventory number 1973.128.GR however very strongly seems to reflect the acquisition of the collection by the curent host institution. To me this at least means that it is problematic to qualify collection (P195) with inventory number (P217). As Zolo pointed out, it is also problematic to qualify location (P276) with inventory number (P217) and vice versa. What seems to be missing is a property to qualify inventory number (P217) with some kind of institutional "ownership" in the sense of "having control" as manifested by the fact that an inventory number was shelled out. The technical term in english might be "holdings" (not sure about museum stock) but neither "in stock" or "held by" would be a good label. What about "administered by":
⟨ some item ⟩ inventory number (P217)   ⟨ number ⟩
administered by Search ⟨ some institution ⟩
is a narrow statement about the administration of the number, and
⟨ some item ⟩ administered by Search ⟨ some institution ⟩
inventory number (P217)   ⟨ some number ⟩
would be a statement with respect to administrative control backed by the inventory number - both would be legitimate. -- Gymel (talk) 06:48, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
We should probably have defined collection (P195) more carefully. I thought it meant the institution that was responsible for the artwork (in France, many paintings are considered part of the Louvre's collection even if they are on long term loan to other museums, and are officially owned by the State).
For structural consistency, I think we should completely separate places from institutions. location (P276) should use items about phyiscal places (like Louvre Palace (Q1075988)) rather than institutions (like Louvre Museum (Q19675)).
Perhaps we should use the same property for the institution in charge of the inventory number as for the institution in charge of a database ? I have just seen that IUCN Red List (Q32059) uses maintained by (P126). Would that be ok ? --Zolo (talk) 07:33, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Zolo, that is a good idea. There is also owned by (P127) but I do not know if that is relevant in this case.--Micru (talk) 07:50, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Use case for maintained by (P126) seems to be the technical maintenance of bridges and roads, and there also is operator (P137) (discussed for railway operations). The discussion page for owned by (P127) touches the German distinction between "Eigentümer" and "Besitzer" (papers and facts show it's my car and nobody may use it without my permission but legal ownership is held by the leasing company). It was unilaterally settled that owned by (P127) should denote "Eigentümer". For museum objects and/or collections this may be relevant in the case of "deposits" (several unmerged wikidata items seem to exist for "depositum"): An entity completely yields control of the item to an institution but keeps his property rights. As I claimed above administering inventory numbers (stockkeeping) is tightly bound to exercising control and operator (P137) would be the closest to that of the three properties. But I would not exactly call the relation between collection items or collections at a whole and the administering institution / controlling organization as "operating". -- Gymel (talk) 23:38, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
I realized too late that operator (P137) seemed indeed more appropriate than maintained by (P126). Or perhaps an authorship property like author (P50) or publisher (P123) ?There may be no 100% satisfying solution, and creating too many specific properties might be confusing as well. --Zolo (talk) 12:07, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
User:Zolo
Jane023 (talk) 08:50, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
User:Vincent Steenberg
User:Kippelboy
User:Shonagon
Marsupium (talk) 13:46, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
GautierPoupeau (talk) 16:55, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Multichill (talk) 19:13, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Susannaanas (talk) 11:32, 12 August 2014 (UTC) I want to synchronize the handling of maps with this initiative
Mushroom (talk) 00:10, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Jheald (talk) 17:09, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Spinster (talk) 15:16, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
PKM (talk) 21:16, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 17:12, 7 January 2015‎ (UTC)
Sic19 (talk) 21:12, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Wittylama (talk) 13:13, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
Armineaghayan (talk) 08:40, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
Musedata102 (talk) 20:27, 26 November 2019 (UTC) Hannolans (talk) 18:36, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
User:Martingggg
Zeroth (talk) 02:21, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
User:7samurais
User:mrtngrsbch
User:Buccalon
Infopetal (talk) 17:54, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
Karinanw (talk) 16:38, 24 March 2020‎ (UTC)
Ahc84 (talk) 17:38, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
User:BeatrixBelibaste
Valeriummaximum
Bitofdust (talk) 22:52, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Mathieu Kappler
Zblace (talk) 07:22, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
Oursana (talk) 13:16, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
Ham II (talk) 08:30, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
  Notified participants of WikiProject Visual arts.--Zolo (talk) 12:40, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo: The Louvre is not very distinctive: (At least in the english version of its home page) the talk about the collection, then they reveal that the collection is divided into departments, and the individual departments comment on their respective collection(s). Anyway: When an institution acquires individual items one at a time to build its own collection it may organize that as it suits the institutions needs. However if (part of) an ensemble is aquired which has been build by the collecting activity by some other party (private collectors, institutions) then collection becomes a more technical term and expresses the provenance. Sometimes there are contractual obligations (a donor demands to keep the donated works together forever) but generally beeing part of a (historical) collection is an important and notable property of items and should not be confused with the fact that it is currently part of the collection of the owning / holding institution. Over time this new collection context gains importance too, but this is additive, in a sense the items never loose the connection with their former collection contexts, whereas ownership may terminate and be transferred to some other entity. -- Gymel (talk) 20:06, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
It seems to make sense thanks. --Zolo (talk) 12:07, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
As Zolo pointed it and for my experience in french museum collections catalogues, the case of an object from a museum collection loaned for a long time to another museum is not rare, and frequent for some collections. In those cases, there are always two (or more) access numbers. So the using a qualifier for inventory number (P217) is a good idea but the systematization is not a not necessity ; when there is just one access number, this qualification is implicit with collection (P195) of the artwork.
> Zolo : For structural consistency, I think we should completely separate places from institutions.
Yes you are totally right, this distinction is very important. Many artworks from museums collections are disseminated in other institutions. The location (P276) could not be enough. Places can change and the collection (P195) is important to indicate an historical and editorial ensemble of objects and could be very usefull for accessing to scientific works about an object.
>Zolo : Perhaps we should use the same property for the institution in charge of the inventory number as for the institution in charge of a database ?
Maybe but collection (P195) should be enough. The inventory number is or was given by an institution always in the context of an identified collection.
In case of many access numbers (and sometimes in the same collection), we could use a "prefered rank" for the access number, if the institution in charge of the conservation has choosen one (an example in french for a collection of Cluny museum sculptures: http://www.sculpturesmedievales-cluny.fr ).

I agree that the accession number should only be listed as a number released by the database creator, in this case a museum, but it could be a show gallery, a state collection, a long-term travelling exhibition, or whatever. In the Netherlands, the most important painting at the Rijksmuseum (Rembrandt's Nightwatch) hangs on a wall that was built to hold it, but it actually belongs to the Amsterdam museum. Both museums have an accession number for the painting. Jane023 (talk) 13:57, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Using API for receiving certain properties of a given item

I want to know how I get the value of a certain property of a given item via the API. For instance I want to know the director (P57) of item Q104123 (Pulp Fiction). In the API documentation I only found stuff like "How old is the current revision?" or "How many edits have been made on that item?". So that are non wikidata specific questions since they can be answered in every wikimedia project. But here we have something special, namely properties. I want to work with them. --Jobu0101 (talk) 13:49, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I would say you're looking for "wbgetclaims", for your case: https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbgetclaims&entity=Q104123&property=P57 and after that use "wbgetentities" to get more information on Q3772 (label in this case). Disclaimer: I've not worked much with the API, so maybe there's a better solution. But my solution looks reasonable to me ;) --Bthfan (talk) 14:07, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. wbgetentities helps me to get the title of the article in the English Wikipedia by this request. There you can find the line
<sitelink site="enwiki" title="Pulp Fiction">
in the result. Unfortunately, there are lots of other lines in the result which I'm not interested in. Is it somehow possible to specify the query in such a way that I only get the information I want? --Jobu0101 (talk) 09:54, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Heh, I just wanted to suggest "sitefilter=enwiki" as parameter ("sitefilter - Filter sitelinks in entities to those with these siteids."), but this returns:
 <error code="internal_api_error_MWException" info="Exception Caught: Internal error in ApiFormatXml::recXmlPrint: (sitelinks, ...) has integer keys without _element value. Use ApiResult::setIndexedTagName()." xml:space="preserve" />

Example link: https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbgetentities&ids=Q104123&sitefilter=enwiki I think that's a bug, I need to follow-up on this (in bugzilla?). --Bthfan (talk) 10:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=67246 says FIXED...? Not sure what this means now. Workaround seems to be to append "format=json" as parameter. --Bthfan (talk) 10:40, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I checked out sitefilter=enwiki before and saw that it is throwing an error. Strange. Using JSON gives me again a lot too much information. I only want to know the English article name. --Jobu0101 (talk) 10:51, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

You need to append "props=sitelinks" to that link. --Bthfan (talk) 11:09, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Thx. --Jobu0101 (talk) 11:24, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Dead but date unknown

The person described in La Maddukelleng (Q12493286) is dead (their award is only ever issued posthumously), but we don't know their date of death. I wanted to enter it as "unknown value", but when I select that, nothing happens; and I can't save. What should I do? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:00, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I think it's a problem with adding "unknown value" in general; I tried it with other statements on other items and it didn't work. --Jakob (talk) 23:10, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
I've noticed that also, I guess this is different than the bug brought up earlier? --AmaryllisGardener talk 00:32, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Seems that will be fixed soon. --Jklamo (talk) 08:35, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

P31 for Companies

What P31 value should we use for companies: items describing their activity like architectural firm (Q4387609); their legal form like Societas Europaea (Q279014)

Both fits, I also use field of work (P101)   and I guess we should have a legal status property. TomT0m (talk) 15:32, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Gallery/ museum accession numbers

Which of the two methods of showing the accession number, "1973.128.GR", at Sorrow (Q13107262) is preferred? Or is it better to use both? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I would propose the third one: Using inventory number (P217) qualified by the actual museum using location (P276). Rationale: There might be many catalogues, but the physical item is part of the inventory of at most one institution at a time. A certain collection as a context (e.g. by provenance) cannot be reverted, usually the collection is located within one institution which has a coherent set of accession numbers (cf. the ".GR" in your example). Transfer of the collection to another host institution might end up with a different accession number, thus I'd prefer not too closely associate the institution's accession/inventory number with the collection context. (Proper Catalogue numbers, e.g. from a comprehensive description of the collection which enumerates all items, might be very well associated to the collection and not the institution, but then should be qualified by a Q-item for the catalogue, not the one for the collection). -- Gymel (talk) 23:55, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
Addendum: I'm still uneasy with "Number" (located in) "Institution", but unfortunately inventory number (P217) gives no guidance what qualifiers should be used. But inventory numbers must be qualified by some property with the entity allocating the number as target. Otherwise one has to use the inventory number as a qualifier only - exactly paralleling the catalog code (P528) case. -- Gymel (talk) 00:03, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
It had been suggested in discussions at Wikidata:WikiProject Visual arts talk pages that we should provide that inventory number (P217) should be qualified by collection (P195) (not location (P276), as this is not directly related to the physical location. For instance, object X may be on a long term loan from institution A to institution B, be physically located in institution B but keep an accession number related to institution A). That said we may still have problematic cases. Objets at the British Museum often have several IDs. Worse, some inventory numbers of the Louvre are used by several unrelated objets.
I agree with Gymel for catalogues: catalog code (P528) should be qualified by catalog (P972). --Zolo (talk) 07:45, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
But in Andy's example above the painting belongs to the formerly private en:Garman Ryan Collection
The Garman Ryan Collection is a permanent collection of art works housed at The New Art Gallery Walsall and comprises 365 works of art, including prints, sketches, sculptures, drawings and paintings collected by Kathleen Garman [...] and lifelong friend Sally Ryan. [...] The collection was donated to the people of Walsall in 1973 and opened to the public in July 1974.
The inventory number 1973.128.GR however very strongly seems to reflect the acquisition of the collection by the curent host institution. To me this at least means that it is problematic to qualify collection (P195) with inventory number (P217). As Zolo pointed out, it is also problematic to qualify location (P276) with inventory number (P217) and vice versa. What seems to be missing is a property to qualify inventory number (P217) with some kind of institutional "ownership" in the sense of "having control" as manifested by the fact that an inventory number was shelled out. The technical term in english might be "holdings" (not sure about museum stock) but neither "in stock" or "held by" would be a good label. What about "administered by":
⟨ some item ⟩ inventory number (P217)   ⟨ number ⟩
administered by Search ⟨ some institution ⟩
is a narrow statement about the administration of the number, and
⟨ some item ⟩ administered by Search ⟨ some institution ⟩
inventory number (P217)   ⟨ some number ⟩
would be a statement with respect to administrative control backed by the inventory number - both would be legitimate. -- Gymel (talk) 06:48, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
We should probably have defined collection (P195) more carefully. I thought it meant the institution that was responsible for the artwork (in France, many paintings are considered part of the Louvre's collection even if they are on long term loan to other museums, and are officially owned by the State).
For structural consistency, I think we should completely separate places from institutions. location (P276) should use items about phyiscal places (like Louvre Palace (Q1075988)) rather than institutions (like Louvre Museum (Q19675)).
Perhaps we should use the same property for the institution in charge of the inventory number as for the institution in charge of a database ? I have just seen that IUCN Red List (Q32059) uses maintained by (P126). Would that be ok ? --Zolo (talk) 07:33, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Zolo, that is a good idea. There is also owned by (P127) but I do not know if that is relevant in this case.--Micru (talk) 07:50, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Use case for maintained by (P126) seems to be the technical maintenance of bridges and roads, and there also is operator (P137) (discussed for railway operations). The discussion page for owned by (P127) touches the German distinction between "Eigentümer" and "Besitzer" (papers and facts show it's my car and nobody may use it without my permission but legal ownership is held by the leasing company). It was unilaterally settled that owned by (P127) should denote "Eigentümer". For museum objects and/or collections this may be relevant in the case of "deposits" (several unmerged wikidata items seem to exist for "depositum"): An entity completely yields control of the item to an institution but keeps his property rights. As I claimed above administering inventory numbers (stockkeeping) is tightly bound to exercising control and operator (P137) would be the closest to that of the three properties. But I would not exactly call the relation between collection items or collections at a whole and the administering institution / controlling organization as "operating". -- Gymel (talk) 23:38, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
I realized too late that operator (P137) seemed indeed more appropriate than maintained by (P126). Or perhaps an authorship property like author (P50) or publisher (P123) ?There may be no 100% satisfying solution, and creating too many specific properties might be confusing as well. --Zolo (talk) 12:07, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
User:Zolo
Jane023 (talk) 08:50, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
User:Vincent Steenberg
User:Kippelboy
User:Shonagon
Marsupium (talk) 13:46, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
GautierPoupeau (talk) 16:55, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Multichill (talk) 19:13, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Susannaanas (talk) 11:32, 12 August 2014 (UTC) I want to synchronize the handling of maps with this initiative
Mushroom (talk) 00:10, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Jheald (talk) 17:09, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Spinster (talk) 15:16, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
PKM (talk) 21:16, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 17:12, 7 January 2015‎ (UTC)
Sic19 (talk) 21:12, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Wittylama (talk) 13:13, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
Armineaghayan (talk) 08:40, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
Musedata102 (talk) 20:27, 26 November 2019 (UTC) Hannolans (talk) 18:36, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
User:Martingggg
Zeroth (talk) 02:21, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
User:7samurais
User:mrtngrsbch
User:Buccalon
Infopetal (talk) 17:54, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
Karinanw (talk) 16:38, 24 March 2020‎ (UTC)
Ahc84 (talk) 17:38, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
User:BeatrixBelibaste
Valeriummaximum
Bitofdust (talk) 22:52, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Mathieu Kappler
Zblace (talk) 07:22, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
Oursana (talk) 13:16, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
Ham II (talk) 08:30, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
  Notified participants of WikiProject Visual arts.--Zolo (talk) 12:40, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo: The Louvre is not very distinctive: (At least in the english version of its home page) the talk about the collection, then they reveal that the collection is divided into departments, and the individual departments comment on their respective collection(s). Anyway: When an institution acquires individual items one at a time to build its own collection it may organize that as it suits the institutions needs. However if (part of) an ensemble is aquired which has been build by the collecting activity by some other party (private collectors, institutions) then collection becomes a more technical term and expresses the provenance. Sometimes there are contractual obligations (a donor demands to keep the donated works together forever) but generally beeing part of a (historical) collection is an important and notable property of items and should not be confused with the fact that it is currently part of the collection of the owning / holding institution. Over time this new collection context gains importance too, but this is additive, in a sense the items never loose the connection with their former collection contexts, whereas ownership may terminate and be transferred to some other entity. -- Gymel (talk) 20:06, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
It seems to make sense thanks. --Zolo (talk) 12:07, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
As Zolo pointed it and for my experience in french museum collections catalogues, the case of an object from a museum collection loaned for a long time to another museum is not rare, and frequent for some collections. In those cases, there are always two (or more) access numbers. So the using a qualifier for inventory number (P217) is a good idea but the systematization is not a not necessity ; when there is just one access number, this qualification is implicit with collection (P195) of the artwork.
> Zolo : For structural consistency, I think we should completely separate places from institutions.
Yes you are totally right, this distinction is very important. Many artworks from museums collections are disseminated in other institutions. The location (P276) could not be enough. Places can change and the collection (P195) is important to indicate an historical and editorial ensemble of objects and could be very usefull for accessing to scientific works about an object.
>Zolo : Perhaps we should use the same property for the institution in charge of the inventory number as for the institution in charge of a database ?
Maybe but collection (P195) should be enough. The inventory number is or was given by an institution always in the context of an identified collection.
In case of many access numbers (and sometimes in the same collection), we could use a "prefered rank" for the access number, if the institution in charge of the conservation has choosen one (an example in french for a collection of Cluny museum sculptures: http://www.sculpturesmedievales-cluny.fr ).

I agree that the accession number should only be listed as a number released by the database creator, in this case a museum, but it could be a show gallery, a state collection, a long-term travelling exhibition, or whatever. In the Netherlands, the most important painting at the Rijksmuseum (Rembrandt's Nightwatch) hangs on a wall that was built to hold it, but it actually belongs to the Amsterdam museum. Both museums have an accession number for the painting. Jane023 (talk) 13:57, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Modifying language descriptions

Is there a way for me to display all language description data for a page on Wikidata, instead of just the last three languages that I've edited in the past? I want to edit multiple language descriptions, however it's very tedious and annoying that the page only displays a maximum of three languages. Benlisquare (talk) 05:17, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@Benlisquare: labelLister gadget. Matěj Suchánek (talk) 06:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Benlisquare (talk) 15:16, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
The #Babel extension helps add all the languages that you define. GerardM (talk) 17:27, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
@GerardM: - Great. I also was annoyed by the default system. Tamawashi (talk) 04:48, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Mass replacement of P107 (P107)=geographical feature (Q618123) with instance of (P31)=geographical feature (Q618123)...?

Hi,
I've noticed mass edits from this user Special:Contributions/Tamawashi, who seems to replace all P107 (P107)=geographical feature (Q618123) with instance of (P31)=geographical feature (Q618123). Is this really correct? I guess in some way yes, but now I see e.g. churches and districts (in a town) tagged as instance of (P31)=geographical feature (Q618123). Do we want that? --Bthfan (talk) 09:24, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I would guess it's correct, it's deprecated with a description of "** Do not use ** Due to be deleted. Please use instance of (P31)/subclass of (P279)". --AmaryllisGardener talk 12:29, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
I would have found it better if we do a manual replacement there. Then we could have set "instance of": "church", "river", "island", etc. But I guess we could always query for instance of (P31)=geographical feature (Q618123) and work on that list then instead. --Bthfan (talk) 13:06, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
Maybe replacing p107 statements could make a good Wikidata game (@Magnus Manske:). --Jakob (talk) 13:24, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
Nice idea! I could do the other P107 (P107) (that don't have a instance of (P31) already) as well, with some "usual suspects", depending on the Q value (person, fictional character etc.) --Magnus Manske (talk) 13:51, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@Bthfan: - maybe next time you have the courtesy of pinging a user about who's edits you start a thread. Tamawashi (talk) 02:36, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: I wanted to get others people opinion first on this as I was not sure myself what to think of this. --Bthfan (talk) 04:30, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
@Tamawashi: but you're right, should have pinged you anyway first. Will do next time. Happy Wikidata'ing! --Bthfan (talk) 04:34, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
@Bthfan: - ;-) - same to you. Tamawashi (talk) 04:41, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Using API for receiving certain properties of a given item

I want to know how I get the value of a certain property of a given item via the API. For instance I want to know the director (P57) of item Q104123 (Pulp Fiction). In the API documentation I only found stuff like "How old is the current revision?" or "How many edits have been made on that item?". So that are non wikidata specific questions since they can be answered in every wikimedia project. But here we have something special, namely properties. I want to work with them. --Jobu0101 (talk) 13:49, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I would say you're looking for "wbgetclaims", for your case: https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbgetclaims&entity=Q104123&property=P57 and after that use "wbgetentities" to get more information on Q3772 (label in this case). Disclaimer: I've not worked much with the API, so maybe there's a better solution. But my solution looks reasonable to me ;) --Bthfan (talk) 14:07, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. wbgetentities helps me to get the title of the article in the English Wikipedia by this request. There you can find the line
<sitelink site="enwiki" title="Pulp Fiction">
in the result. Unfortunately, there are lots of other lines in the result which I'm not interested in. Is it somehow possible to specify the query in such a way that I only get the information I want? --Jobu0101 (talk) 09:54, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Heh, I just wanted to suggest "sitefilter=enwiki" as parameter ("sitefilter - Filter sitelinks in entities to those with these siteids."), but this returns:
 <error code="internal_api_error_MWException" info="Exception Caught: Internal error in ApiFormatXml::recXmlPrint: (sitelinks, ...) has integer keys without _element value. Use ApiResult::setIndexedTagName()." xml:space="preserve" />

Example link: https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbgetentities&ids=Q104123&sitefilter=enwiki I think that's a bug, I need to follow-up on this (in bugzilla?). --Bthfan (talk) 10:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=67246 says FIXED...? Not sure what this means now. Workaround seems to be to append "format=json" as parameter. --Bthfan (talk) 10:40, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I checked out sitefilter=enwiki before and saw that it is throwing an error. Strange. Using JSON gives me again a lot too much information. I only want to know the English article name. --Jobu0101 (talk) 10:51, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

You need to append "props=sitelinks" to that link. --Bthfan (talk) 11:09, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Thx. --Jobu0101 (talk) 11:24, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Change domain of property dissolved, abolished or demolished date (P576)? also: What is an "object"?

Hi,
I posted a question/discussion request on the dissolved, abolished or demolished date (P576) property talk page (this section here will only be a pointer to that talk page). Mainly this is about the question: Should dissolved, abolished or demolished date (P576) apply to the same domain as inception (P571) as that one is the opposite of the other property? And second question is: What does "object" mean in that description from P571 ("when the organization/object was founded/created")? I mainly wonder about this as I may I want to use dissolved, abolished or demolished date (P576) and inception (P571) for indicating on what date a sports season started and ended. But a sports season is not a physical object, but it could be a concrete one nevertheless (not really sure how to call this in a higher abstraction level, also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type-token_distinction on this)? Add your opinion on this here --Bthfan (talk) 21:29, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Bthfan, those properties could probably be merged into start time (P580) and end time (P582).
My impression was that start time (P580) and end time (P582) should be used as qualifiers only. Usually I try to solve some "problem" without qualifiers first and if that does not work, then I'll use qualifiers (of course that's some totally personal opinion :). --Bthfan (talk) 05:01, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
To your ontological question: concrete things (tokens) are instances; abstract things (types) are classes. Enabling type-token distinction is a primary function of instance of (P31) and subclass of (P279). Sport season is a class; 2004 Red Sox season is an instance. In terms of the Basic Formal Ontology, sport season are a subclass of process.
The usage of "object" in the property description in question likely means any material entity not covered by an analogous property (e.g. date of birth, for those objects we call organism). Emw (talk) 22:33, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Better use significant event (P793) with sports season of a sports club (Q1539532) and start time (P580) and end time (P582). Snipre (talk) 22:51, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Ok, that looks like a possible solution, even though I have a small problem with calling a season an "event" (a season is rather a time frame for me). --Bthfan (talk) 05:01, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
In that case you can find 2 items describing the start and the end of a season and mention them using significant event (P793):
significant event (P793): season start or opening ceremony, qualifier start time (P580) = XX.XX.XXX
significant event (P793): season end or closing ceremony, qualifier start time (P580) = XX.XX.XXX
141.6.11.14 08:13, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
I think the qualifier to use would then be point in time (P585). But yeah, this looks better. --Bthfan (talk) 09:01, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Much simpler to just use start time (P580) and end time (P582) as properties for the item instead of using them as qualifiers. I think that would be appropriate in this particular case. Filceolaire (talk) 21:14, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Dead but date unknown

The person described in La Maddukelleng (Q12493286) is dead (their award is only ever issued posthumously), but we don't know their date of death. I wanted to enter it as "unknown value", but when I select that, nothing happens; and I can't save. What should I do? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:00, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I think it's a problem with adding "unknown value" in general; I tried it with other statements on other items and it didn't work. --Jakob (talk) 23:10, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
I've noticed that also, I guess this is different than the bug brought up earlier? --AmaryllisGardener talk 00:32, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Seems that will be fixed soon. --Jklamo (talk) 08:35, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

P31 for Companies

What P31 value should we use for companies: items describing their activity like architectural firm (Q4387609); their legal form like Societas Europaea (Q279014)

Both fits, I also use field of work (P101)   and I guess we should have a legal status property. TomT0m (talk) 15:32, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Time for some selfies!

Hey folks!

Wikimania is coming up and I need your help! I will be giving a keynote about Wikidata and would like to show the human side of our awesome project. Wikidata wouldn't be what it is without all of you and I see Wikimania not only as an opportunity to highlight all of the exciting software developments around Wikidata, but to also show off what an awesome, creative and diverse community we have here!

To do this, I would like as many of you as possible to send me a photo of yourself - a selfie (Q12068677) would be perfect. Bonus points if it either demonstrates a connection you have with Wikidata or includes the Wikidata logo somehow. You can be subtle and sneaky with the logo or go big and bold—the only limit is your creativity! All submissions should be licensed CC-BY and you must have the right to upload and use the image. Additionally it’d be awesome if you could send me a sentence or two about what Wikidata means to you. (Either use my user talk page or send me an email.) Submission deadline is July 20th. When you're ready, upload your file to Wikimedia Commons in the category “Wikidata selfies”. Need some inspiration? Check the category.

I’m sure we can be just as famous as the Oscar selfie :P


Cheers --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 15:44, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The category is starting to fill up \o/ But we still need quite a few more for this stunt to work. I just uploaded a picture for the dev team. Please consider joining. You can also send the image to me if you want. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 13:00, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Gender redundancy

Why do we have male (Q6581097)/female (Q6581072) and male organism (Q44148)/female organism (Q43445)? Surely the latter pair are redundant, and we can rely in instance of to tell us whether the subject is human, a horse, or whatever? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:28, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Andy, see Property_talk:P21#Values_not_making_sense. I agree with your position, though. The current redundancy conflates two properties: biological taxonomic classification and sex/gender. This is a bad separation of concerns. I'm aware of the awkwardness in some languages of having a property for only sex/gender, but given that Wikidata is more of an ontology than a linguistic datastore, I think applying male and female to non-human animals makes more sense. Emw (talk) 22:42, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Andy: At one stage we did use the same item for both these concepts. It was changed because various users said that, in their language, there was no word that covered both male humans and male animals and the same for females. After some discussion the current arrangement was agreed.
There was another big discussion about whether we should have separate properties for sex and gender (You didn't ask about this but I thought others new users might be interested in the history). I advocated against separate properties on the grounds that in pretty much every case we have no way of knowing what the biological sex of a person is. We can tell what gender they publicly express and from that we can guess at their biology. After a long discussion we agreed to change the label for P21 from 'sex' to 'sex or gender'. The en:intersex article lists five different factors that control or express a persons 'biological sex' and there are a number of other factors related to gender. In the cases where we have specific information on these we can have multiple values for sex or gender (P21)   with qualifiers to specify which factor each value refers to. Filceolaire (talk) 21:09, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Several in-depth threads of the discussion Filceolaire refers to have a jumping-off point at Property_talk:P21#Issues_list. An archived proposal for a separate 'gender' property is at Wikidata:Property_proposal/Archive/20#gender. Tying that discussion about sex/gender into this one about male/male animal, we see that there is little appetite in the Wikidata community, at least with this property, for a clear separation of concerns. Not only does P21 conflate sex and gender, it also conflates sex and biological classification. Emw (talk) 11:11, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Template

Maybe this template [1] must be replaced with human (Q5) instead person (Q215627) ? --Rippitippi (talk) 01:02, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Not in all cases we want to restrict ourselves to humans. There are several properties which can be used for humans and fictional characters. For properties that are only for humans we should probably create a new template Constraint:Human. However, what's more important is that User:KrBot (@Ivan A. Krestinin:) is supporting such templates. --Pasleim (talk) 03:48, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
@Pasleim: I say it should be called "constraint:domain" and extended to any classes. I did not find a matching constraint in Template:Constraint. TomT0m (talk) 11:05, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Linking identifiers

We recently added Art UK artist ID (P1367) (for instance, Reg Gammon (Q15381364)Art UK artist ID (P1367)reginald-gammon). This is a reference to the URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/reginald-gammon How may we indicate that relationship., in a machine-readable manner? Or, better still, make the string a link? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:54, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Links can be added via this script/gadget: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadget-AuthorityControl.js you can enable that gadget for your account via https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets for adding that property I would ask on the Talk page there. --Bthfan (talk) 19:20, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Actually @Zolo already did this now :) https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki%3AGadget-AuthorityControl.js&diff=139984166&oldid=139281519 so enable the gadget and it should work --Bthfan (talk) 19:23, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, however I don't mean for myself, but generally. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:04, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Anyone? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:40, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Andy, from what you wrote I don't understand what you want to know. Usually if you want an identifier to be converted into a link, you post a request on this talk page and then some admin updates MediaWiki:Gadget-AuthorityControl.js. To get a list of correspondences between any item and their external identifier, you can use this tool by Magnus. If that is not what you want to know, please provide more details.--Micru (talk) 07:35, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
When a person who is not logged on, or who is logged in but does not have the gadget enabled, views Reg Gammon (Q15381364), the Art UK artist ID (P1367) value "reginald-gammon" should be a blue hyperlink, to http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/reginald-gammon - how can we make that happen? In other words, how can we make the gadget behaviour the default for all users? I would further suggest that, rather than having MediaWiki:Gadget-AuthorityControl.js, the URL format should be part of the parameter definintion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:50, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
I would not object to making the authoritycontrol gadget opt-out instead of opt-in. --Jakob (talk) 22:08, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Time for some selfies!

Hey folks!

Wikimania is coming up and I need your help! I will be giving a keynote about Wikidata and would like to show the human side of our awesome project. Wikidata wouldn't be what it is without all of you and I see Wikimania not only as an opportunity to highlight all of the exciting software developments around Wikidata, but to also show off what an awesome, creative and diverse community we have here!

To do this, I would like as many of you as possible to send me a photo of yourself - a selfie (Q12068677) would be perfect. Bonus points if it either demonstrates a connection you have with Wikidata or includes the Wikidata logo somehow. You can be subtle and sneaky with the logo or go big and bold—the only limit is your creativity! All submissions should be licensed CC-BY and you must have the right to upload and use the image. Additionally it’d be awesome if you could send me a sentence or two about what Wikidata means to you. (Either use my user talk page or send me an email.) Submission deadline is July 20th. When you're ready, upload your file to Wikimedia Commons in the category “Wikidata selfies”. Need some inspiration? Check the category.

I’m sure we can be just as famous as the Oscar selfie :P


Cheers --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 15:44, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The category is starting to fill up \o/ But we still need quite a few more for this stunt to work. I just uploaded a picture for the dev team. Please consider joining. You can also send the image to me if you want. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 13:00, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Gender redundancy

Why do we have male (Q6581097)/female (Q6581072) and male organism (Q44148)/female organism (Q43445)? Surely the latter pair are redundant, and we can rely in instance of to tell us whether the subject is human, a horse, or whatever? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:28, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Andy, see Property_talk:P21#Values_not_making_sense. I agree with your position, though. The current redundancy conflates two properties: biological taxonomic classification and sex/gender. This is a bad separation of concerns. I'm aware of the awkwardness in some languages of having a property for only sex/gender, but given that Wikidata is more of an ontology than a linguistic datastore, I think applying male and female to non-human animals makes more sense. Emw (talk) 22:42, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Andy: At one stage we did use the same item for both these concepts. It was changed because various users said that, in their language, there was no word that covered both male humans and male animals and the same for females. After some discussion the current arrangement was agreed.
There was another big discussion about whether we should have separate properties for sex and gender (You didn't ask about this but I thought others new users might be interested in the history). I advocated against separate properties on the grounds that in pretty much every case we have no way of knowing what the biological sex of a person is. We can tell what gender they publicly express and from that we can guess at their biology. After a long discussion we agreed to change the label for P21 from 'sex' to 'sex or gender'. The en:intersex article lists five different factors that control or express a persons 'biological sex' and there are a number of other factors related to gender. In the cases where we have specific information on these we can have multiple values for sex or gender (P21)   with qualifiers to specify which factor each value refers to. Filceolaire (talk) 21:09, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Several in-depth threads of the discussion Filceolaire refers to have a jumping-off point at Property_talk:P21#Issues_list. An archived proposal for a separate 'gender' property is at Wikidata:Property_proposal/Archive/20#gender. Tying that discussion about sex/gender into this one about male/male animal, we see that there is little appetite in the Wikidata community, at least with this property, for a clear separation of concerns. Not only does P21 conflate sex and gender, it also conflates sex and biological classification. Emw (talk) 11:11, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Template

Maybe this template [2] must be replaced with human (Q5) instead person (Q215627) ? --Rippitippi (talk) 01:02, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Not in all cases we want to restrict ourselves to humans. There are several properties which can be used for humans and fictional characters. For properties that are only for humans we should probably create a new template Constraint:Human. However, what's more important is that User:KrBot (@Ivan A. Krestinin:) is supporting such templates. --Pasleim (talk) 03:48, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
@Pasleim: I say it should be called "constraint:domain" and extended to any classes. I did not find a matching constraint in Template:Constraint. TomT0m (talk) 11:05, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata just got 10 times easier to use

Hey folks :)

We have just deployed the entity suggester. This helps you with suggesting properties. So when you now add a new statement to an item it will suggest what should most likely be added to that item. One example: You are on an item about a person but it doesn't have a date of birth yet. Since a lot of other items about persons have a date of birth it will suggest you also add one to this item. This will make it a lot easier for you to figure out what the hell is missing on an item and which property to use.

Thank you so much to the student team who worked on this as part of their bachelor thesis over the last months as well as everyone who gave feedback and helped them along the way.

I'm really happy to see this huge improvement towards making Wikidata easier to use. I hope so are you.


Cheers --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 19:20, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

That's nice! --AmaryllisGardener talk 19:41, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
That's great :) Well done to the developers. Del♉sion23 (talk) 20:22, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Woooooooo! ·addshore· talk to me! 13:15, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Instances of something else than entity

Ca 1.8 million items, details: Talk:Q35120#Instances of something else than entity. Tamawashi (talk) 12:59, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

See my comments on that talk page re the wikidata High Level Ontology. TLDR = yes we have not yet completed the process of linking all the 'subclass of:class item' statements into one hierarchy connecting all class items to a single root item but your statistics show we have already some made progress towards this. Filceolaire (talk) 20:01, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Full list of properties

I extracted the full list of properties here. I can do it for other languages if the concept is accepted, but I will have to convert the unicode characters into ascii characters first. Put comment in the talk page. Snipre (talk) 22:55, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Snipre - For better loading time of Wikidata:List of properties, I moved the table to Wikidata:List of properties/all in one table. There is also Wikidata:List of properties/all. Tamawashi (talk) 22:20, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
For computing purposes, there is also Category:Properties, who is usable with software libraries like catlib in pywikibot to work on all properties in a really few lines of code (like 2 lines to iterate on all properties). TomT0m (talk) 14:49, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

categories that include info so that Reasonator shows its content

These categories include a statement of "is a list of" "human" with qualifiers that make it as precise as necessary. When you look at them with Reasonator you will be shown the result of a query defined by these qualifiers.

Adding statements based on categories using Autolist2 works fine when you restrict it by requiring "instance of" "human". Thanks, GerardM (talk) 07:48, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Shouldn't these use category's main topic (P301)   or category combines topics (P971)   instead of is a list of (P360)  ? Filceolaire (talk) 21:31, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
No, that is not how it works. The reason is that it also works on "Wikimedia list article". GerardM (talk) 07:18, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Widar warning

This may cause creation of many false claims via Widar. Tamawashi (talk) 13:47, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Here is my selfie

 

Sometimes things do not go without any hitches on Wikidata :) TomT0m (talk) 14:17, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

MEP information on Wikidata

I've been approched in Brussels by several organisation that spend considerable resrouces in compiling and udpating all relevant data of the Members of the European Praliament. They would all benefit from having all this information in a human and machine readable way to use in their respective projects. They would also help filling in the information. I would therefore like to create an EP MEP task force that puts all the relevant information about MEPs (including political group, committee participation and official contact information) as statements in their Wikidata item. As I am not experience with editing WD, I'd be grateful for some more experienced Wikidatian to join this effort! I guess we will need to add more statements and coordinate the effort somehow. Thanks in advance! --Dimi z (talk) 13:25, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I am interested in helping out. I have been involved in members of parliament for many countries.. including United Kingdom, India, South Africa.. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 13:53, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
Nice idea. I added some more constraints so that Wikidata:Database reports/Constraint violations/P1186 can be used to improve existing items. Quite a few existing items to improve! Could probably add even more constraints (country and language related) after we trimmed down this list.
If we would have a list of id's and names, User:Magnus Manske could probably add it to mix'n'match. That way we can find the MEPs who don't have an item here yet. Multichill (talk) 05:12, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
I have imported the current ~750 MEPs into mix'n'match. Since we have a dedicated property, I could auto-match >50% of them through that identifier. The rest is up for manual matching here. --Magnus Manske (talk) 09:55, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Update: Have also imported all people with a MEP directory ID (P1186) into mix'n'match. >2000 people in the MEP list there now, >80% have a Wikidata item. Many show up in the pre-filled Google search; we do have Wikipedia articles, and thus Wikidata items, for most of the remaining ~20%! --Magnus Manske (talk) 10:51, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Dimi z as you can see we already started editing quite a bit. Do you know if all new members already have an entry? Take for example Theodoros Zagorakis (Q296452), he seems to be missing.
Thanks Magnus for adding these! I'm matching them and fixing constraints, maybe you want to help too Gerard? Multichill (talk) 10:15, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
I had already added many MP's based on them being in a category.. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 11:36, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
Hi, everyone! Thanks for the awesome help. I admit I am sometimes somewhat confused when it comes to Wikidata. Still learning and - more importantly - learning the ropes. Taking this MEP as an example, I'd like to be able to add the following statements: which Parliaments's he's be sitting in (i.e. 7th, 8th legislative period), which committees he's been sitting on (as active/substitute member), official mailing addres, official phone number, official email (all public data) and political group within the EP (not same national political party). Are there such statments already and if not, where can I request them? I'd like to be able to explain and show to newcomers how to edit Wikidata. Sorry for the perhaps stupid questions, but I really appreciate all help! Thanks! --Dimi z (talk) 12:10, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
Dimi z, I tracked down/created the items for the different elections (election to the European Parliament (Q1128324)) and sessions ((legislative term (Q15238777)):
  1. 1979 European Parliament election (Q1376068) -> First European Parliament (Q17315702) - en:Category:MEPs 1979–84
  2. 1984 European Parliament election (Q1376075) -> Second European Parliament (Q17315703) - en:Category:MEPs 1984–89
  3. 1989 European Parliament election (Q1376076) -> Third European Parliament (Q17315704) - en:Category:MEPs 1989–94
  4. 1994 European Parliament election (Q1376071) -> Fourth European Parliament (Q17315706) - en:Category:MEPs 1994–99
  5. 1999 European Parliament election (Q1851815) -> Fifth European Parliament (Q16836722) - en:Category:MEPs 1999–2004
  6. 2004 European Parliament election (Q1331918) -> Sixth European Parliament (Q4642661) - en:Category:MEPs 2004–09
  7. 2009 European Parliament election (Q210152) -> Seventh European Parliament (Q4644021) - en:Category:MEPs 2009–14
  8. 2014 European Parliament election (Q1376095) -> Eighth European Parliament (Q17315694) - en:Category:MEPs 2014–19
You can use part of (P361) Eighth European Parliament (Q17315694) on the members to indicate what parliaments they are sitting in. The category can be used as input for autolist2 to add it to all the people (or maybe Gerard can help out here?)
I used member of (P463) for the committees, but I'm not 100% sure if that's the right way to go
mailing addres, official phone number, official email is probably a bit out of scope
For the political parties you can use member of political party (P102) and add the one or more parties he or she is member of (national or European)
You can see all of this in practice at Marietje Schaake (Q433561). Multichill (talk) 14:50, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
Personally I have an trouble using part of (P361) in this case (hard to draw the line,
⟨ some person ⟩ part of (P361)   ⟨ some musical group ⟩
is ok for me) and couldn't the individual parliaments be used as qualifiers for , e.g. with
⟨ ... ⟩ of (P642)   ⟨ Seventh European Parliament (Q4644021)      ⟩
? Start and end dates of the terms served then often could be derived as an additional benefit. -- Gymel (talk) 15:14, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
I like adding it directly. It seems to be common for parliaments, see for example Barack Obama (Q76).
Start and end date might be different, take for example Jens-Peter Bonde (Q1264754)
Magnus everything is matched. Can you flush it out? Multichill (talk) 16:50, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata is now updated with all mix'n'match data. I found ~800 MEPs not on marked Wikidata or listed in mix'n'match; the latter requires names (easy to get from Wikidata) and MEP IDs (could also get from Wikidata if entered there, but that would defeat the purpose of the tool...). --Magnus Manske (talk) 21:01, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Magnus, I'm a bit confused. Are you sure you imported everyone from the website? Take for example Abel Matutes (Q318474). It's not linked, it doesn't show up in mix'n'match, but he does have a page with id 1988. On the other hand we have people like Alain Savary (Q477121) who were in the European Parliament prior to it being elected. People like that don't seem to be documented on their website. Multichill (talk) 09:34, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
After a bit of clicking around I found the full list (xml). It contains 3593 items, mix'n'match only 2056 items so we still have to find about 1500 missing items. Multichill (talk) 11:13, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Magnus updated it, so about 1500 more items in mix'n'match to work on! Multichill (talk) 21:08, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

occupations and art media

Hi I was linking some painting images used as illustrations on Wikipedia to their associated Wikidata biography items and one of them wasn't a painting but an engraving after a painting. So I linked it as an "engraving" with creator=engraver. While doing this, I realized that in English the word for painting (and the enwiki article) is used for the art of painting and the physical object. Same for engraving, so my qualifier "instance of engraving" is actually an "instance of the art of engraving". Don't we need "medium" and then "art of creating medium" for each art form? Jane023 (talk) 12:14, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

There are distinct items between arts and their respective media, such as art of painting (Q11629)      vs. painting (Q3305213)      , and both get listed if you search for "painting"; I believe many others art similarly have distinct items. Items that are "art subclasses" should not be pointed to by instance of (P31) of any other items, thus all these items need to be fixed, for example. LaddΩ chat ;) 14:29, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, I was afraid of that. I will try to rename the titles of all the items that I see (so tapestry-making vs tapestry, art of engraving vs engraving, art of sculpting vs sculpture, etc). When I am in the middle of an "instance of" I can't see what I am selecting otherwise. Jane023 (talk) 15:27, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
We have field of work (P101)   which links to the 'art of' item. This is mostly used with occupation (P106)   so a person can have 'occupation:artist'; 'field of work:engraving' and we don't need to create a separate item for each specialised field. That works for Occupation but from what you say it looks like we will need to create separate items for each type of image so we can classify each image on Commons once Commonsdata is launched. When Commonsdata happens then the qualifiers you are creating can be moved there as properties of the image. Filceolaire (talk) 20:24, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

This is actually a bigger job than I expected. It turns out several other languages have combined their articles for "medium" and "art of creating medium", such as "stipple engraving", "steel engraving", and so forth. This means that the Wikidata items need to be separated out. When in doubt I will create new items for the object vs. the creative process (such as en:Painting (object). Jane023 (talk) 23:25, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we should have a property for 'medium' with properties such as 'oil painting', 'water colour', 'computer graphics', 'metalwork, 'whittling', etc. Filceolaire (talk) 21:24, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
No that won't solve the problem - at some point you need to split between the noun and the verb. If I am holding an engraving, then I don't want to say that I am holding an instance of the art of engraving. Perhaps we need another thing like "result", as in, I am holding an instance of the result of the art of engraving? Jane023 (talk) 21:32, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
This is a problem common to all kind of processes, also algorithms, computer programs and so on. I don't think we already got the properties, but I fell we need properties for input and output or product, or result of a process. TomT0m (talk) 05:14, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

What do you wish you had known when you first started using and/or contributing to Wikidata?

Hi all,

I recently made some edits to Help:FAQ as part of a larger sitewide documentation overhaul (more info on this here).

To compare my edits with the previous version of Help:FAQ please see the diffs at http://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Help%3AFAQ&diff=142538143&oldid=137443709

As you'll see, my changes mostly consist of deleting a few questions that were either duplicates of others or did not seem like they would be questions that were frequently asked, for example, "According to the history of an item I changed, the number of bytes went up or down significantly, even though I only made a minor change. Why did this happen?" I also added in more links to our other documentation.

I'd like to update the page a bit more and re-arrange the questions thematically but first would love your help with improving the content we have. Could people please have a look at the current FAQ and let me know what is missing? If you're not sure, maybe consider the following as jumping off points:

  • What questions did you first have when you started contributing to Wikidata?
  • What did you wish you had known from the start and what concepts or task took some time and perhaps trial n error to learn and understand?
  • If you often help newbies and/or hang out on IRC, what types of questions do you frequently hear from other users?

Please also let me know if you have any concerns about the changes I've made (for example, if I've removed a question that you think is absolutely essential to have on the page). If you see something wrong (like a typo) or something that could be easily improved upon (like an example), please just go ahead and fix it—no need to comment here first!

Thank everyone!. -Thepwnco (talk) 22:52, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Thepwnco, some things that should appear in the FAQ:
  • Babel templates
  • Reasonator, Autolists2, and other tools
  • Wikiprojects
--Micru (talk) 10:37, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
Thepwnco - great initiative!
  • Babel extension, mentioned somewhere above, so that at the item editing page one could see labels and descriptions in languages one is interested in.
  • Differences between WikiProjects and Task Forces, some seem to have been renamed from TF to WP
Tamawashi (talk) 13:21, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
List of properties, of course, and their respective Property documentations, and the method to search for a property ("P:" prefix to search keywords). LaddΩ chat ;) 14:07, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
I am normaly not at wikidata, but I saw this in the newsletter. If I saw in the history that the change in bytes differed more than the edit - I would require an explanation. Christian75 (talk) 21:53, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
@Thepwnco: I feel too old in Wikidata to answer this question. Is this project chat the right target ? I think a better place to ask would be a real newb place, like the newbies welcome and patronage projects on Wikipedia for example. Did you talk to Wikipedia people who helps newbies ? Maybe a cool thing to do for you would be to help a newb to its first steps into Wikidata :) TomT0m (talk) 14:42, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
@TomT0m: don't feel too old - your experience with the project is what makes you an expert on what's useful to know when working with Wikidata! There will be other efforts to include newbies and their perspectives (including looking at what materials are available on other Wikimedia projects and what questions are coming into the info e-mail account) so please feel free to add anything you can think of. -Thepwnco (talk) 17:27, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru, Tamawashi, Laddo, Filceolaire, Christian75, TomT0m: thanks for your comments! I have now updated Help:FAQ and will be making more changes over the next few weeks as the Help pages continue to evolve. I will also be reaching out to Wikidata folks on other WMF sites to see the common issues they are dealing with and supporting. Thanks again and feel free to provide more feedback as it occurs to you. -Thepwnco (talk) 21:32, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Another API question

How do I get the ID of the wikidata item if I only know the name of the corresponding article in the English Wikipedia using the Wikidata API? --Jobu0101 (talk) 15:20, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

You can't. Snipre (talk) 15:30, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
But you can get it from the article of WP:en. Snipre (talk) 15:32, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
Using the API there? How is that possbile? --Jobu0101 (talk) 15:36, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
This request somehow gives a strange result. Always $1 instead of the respective title. For example "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/$1". Is that a bug? --Jobu0101 (talk) 15:42, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbgetentities&sites=enwiki&titles=Berlin&props=info ; https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox#action=wbgetentities&format=json&sites=enwiki&titles=Berlin&props=info -- Vlsergey (talk) 15:47, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
Indeed, there is away and you have found it above Vlsergey! The only other way to do this is using the api of the site that you know the name of the article on, within the page info you will be given the item id. ·addshore· talk to me! 15:51, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
Or you just use a bot framework that solves this all for you. Multichill (talk) 16:11, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to all of you. --Jobu0101 (talk) 17:35, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't think to use the sitelinks. But definitively the labels can't be used. Snipre (talk) 08:20, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Linking to restricted access databases ?

Should we accept identifier-properties for linking to websites that are not fully accessible for free ? I was thinking of Artprice or Deezer, that have some great resources, but mostly behind a paywall. --Zolo (talk) 13:04, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Deletion warnings, deletion handling via user-subpages, professionalism

User:Delusion23 informed me that the following three items appear on a user-subpage of User:Pasleim and wrote "Please use them in items or provide sources or they are likely to be deleted." [3]:

  • canton of Gran Colombia (Q17305515) - a class for the cantons of Gran Colombia - if no canton has an item, how could I use that on other items?
  • Chuda State (Q17318475) - a princely state of the British Raj - I have no idea on which item I could use that, it's just one of hundreds of princely states.
  • island group of Kiribati (Q17305516) - first level administrative territorial entities as defined by FIPS and ISO - if the island groups have no item yet, I don't know where I could use that item.

Alternatively for all three - How do I add a source?

Instead of tracking via a user-subpage could that please happen in the Wikidata-namespace? Deletions are a serious point of controversy that did let many people leave individual Wikipedias. So there should be a high level of professionalism when handling these. Wikidata:Notability looks good. Maybe a subpage Wikidata:Notability/List of likely unnotable items could be created? And then a bot automatically informs users if an item that they had created appears on that list? Or, even easier, a link to the creator is added in the list and then the MediaWiki-software informs the user automatically. Tamawashi (talk) 07:58, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it would be good if a system like that described by Tamawashi were put in place. Automated messages to talk pages when a page is still showing signs of not being notable after, say, two days would be good. Then if the items are not improved to pass WD:N after a couple more days the items could be deleted. Unless of course the item is an obvious test page or vandalism in which case it can be deleted straight away. It would also be good if that particular page hosted by Pasleim could be at a more official page. This way more people would be aware of its existance, both item creators and admins.
The issue with sourcing is an ongoing Wikidata development problem. I'm still amazed the project has had to go on for almost 2 years without any simple method for adding refs and sources being initiated. Del♉sion23 (talk) 18:37, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Sorry but we have a system for sourcing since 1 year: Help:Sources. After if you want to have an automatic system able to manage books, scientific articles, websites and other medias, I can just encourage you to code one or to find someone to do it. Snipre (talk) 21:27, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
I can move User:Pasleim/notability to Wikidata namespace. But we have first to agree, which items should show up on the list. At the moment, all items with
  • no sitelinks
  • no backlinks
  • older than 20 hours
  • less than 3 statements
are listed. Especially the last two points have to be discussed. --Pasleim (talk) 02:47, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
@Pasleim: I suggest to use your setup. Any further changes can be done later. Tamawashi (talk) 08:56, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
BTW, canton of Gran Colombia (Q17305515) could be de-orphaned, there is at least one item on Wikipedia: Zulia Canton (Q8075149). For the administrative types it is not that difficult to add them without get warnings - as the actual units are notable as well, one can easily create items for them, and then link these with located in the administrative territorial entity (P131) and contains the administrative territorial entity (P150). Ahoerstemeier (talk) 05:57, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Great, thank you. Tamawashi (talk) 08:56, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

@Pasleim: It looks as if most reports are under "Wikidata:Database reports", so I suggest to place it there. Maybe Wikidata:Database reports/Notability. Tamawashi (talk) 16:32, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Accessing statements from Wikipedia

Hi, I am trying to figure out how to access Wikidata statements from the Wikipedias. I have read mw:Extension:Wikibase_Client/Lua. It describes how to get a list of properties and the property values. But nothing about qualifiers, sources or rank are mentioned. Does that mean that it is not possible to access qualifiers, sources and rank of statements from Wikipedia pages? If so, is it planned for the future? Thank you for any advice, 94.191.188.21 11:02, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

All the item content is returned by wikibase.getEntityObject(). The returned content is a Lua table that may be manipulated directly. So it's possible to access qualifiers, sources and ranks right now. Tpt (talk) 12:06, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Look at Module:Wikidata (Q12069631) on your WP. If it doesn't exists copy/paste the code from another wikipedia. Be careful there is no an unique version of that code, each WP uses a different one with different options. Snipre (talk) 12:41, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, Tpt and Snipre. I will look into that. Is the format of the table returned by mw.wikibase.getEntityObject documented anywhere? And, not least, is the current format stable, or could the format be changed, so any pages which relies on it could be broken? 94.191.187.39 15:36, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Not sure about the API, the Wikibase client extension is labeled as "beta version". I think they would make sure not to break existing Lua code at this stage (after all some Wikipedia already use Wikidata), but not really sure about this. Wikibase client documentation is not really good. For fetching qualifiers and other properties, I would take a look at the German Wikidata module at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modul:Wikidata it has more functionality than the one from the English Wikipedia. For getting the sources, take a look at the "getReferences" function. --Bthfan (talk) 08:05, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, Bthfan. I asked about the stableness of the table format because when doing computer programming it is often considered a bad thing to directly use internal structures in objects. Generally it is better only to use the documented interface methods in order to not restrict the possibilities for further development of the structure. However the problem here is that there are only documented interface methods to get labels, links, properties and property values. So I will have to make my own interface methods (or reuse from e.g. German Wikipedia). I think the Wikidata developers may have a future problem by not delivering their own access methods so direct access to table can be avoided. 94.191.187.134 10:48, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
It is, I don't know why we don't have a common library do do that yet to be a little more robust and make easier to code. We should maker this a guideline for lua coders who are for a lot of them not really software engeeniers or professional coders. I proposed to the Pywikibot dev team to align a Wikidata API to the one in python of pywikibot for example, but had unfortunately no answers. @Markus Kroëtch: is also supervising the coding a java API to work with Wikidata datas, maybe it would be cool to share experiences of all those coding teams. And of Lua and infoboxes coders on Wikipedia, but all of this world is a little bit too fragmented in my opinion. I guess the best answer is to code and communicate around that code, write Help pages in several languages. TomT0m (talk) 11:36, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Is Wikidata aiming to become ScienceDirect or PubMed?

This is a question of Wikidata notability and how we plan on referencing and sourcing information here. Will there be any future developments that allow for the easy linking to science papers, books, websites etc. Or do we start making items for every single reference in the world as I've seen here and then link to these items? We have to reference somehow, but what is the best way to do it? Cheers. Del♉sion23 (talk) 18:46, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

reference URL (P854) makes far more sense. --Jakob (talk) 19:28, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
True, it would make more sense if the items listed here instead used that property and linked directly to the ducument here. Del♉sion23 (talk) 19:44, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Creating items for individual articles, especially those cited in several items, is recommended in Help:Sources (written after a long discussion).
using just an url is not enough, for about the same reasons that we do not just provide an URL when citing a source in Wikipedia.
Of course gadget or any other thing that would make the whole process smoother would be more than welcome. --Zolo (talk) 19:52, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Delusion23: How can you source the imported data in WP with a link ? What happens when links are broken ? Weblinks are the worse idea in referencing because nobody can ensure the validity of the link in the future. Wikidata is not ScienceDirect or PubMed but just a normal database which provides the values and the references because values and references are two parts of an unique entity. Snipre (talk) 20:50, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
The sourcing system needs to be overhauled so that you can add multiple parameters to a source (url, author, title, etc.) That seems like a better solution than creating an item every time you want to cite something. --Jakob (talk)
I agree with Jakob. Creating an item every time you want to reference something is not the best way for Wikidata to work. It would be better if there was an inbuilt functionality for us to add sources and information about the sources like page numbers, journal names etc. Del♉sion23 (talk) 21:13, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
You can already do that. We need to make sourcing significantly easier and that is on my plan for 2015. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 21:59, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
I see that now. @Snipre, Zolo: Why not just do that then? In addition to a url, you can add an author, publisher, date, etc. into a single reference. --Jakob (talk) 22:09, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Lydia Pintscher (WMDE): This assumes url stability. Unfortunately there is a lot of dead urls on Wikipedia, and it's not so easy to change each occurences of them if the document is cited several times, sometimes even with a different URL. Metadata below just url are useful to be more robust on URL change, and creating an item makes easier to find if a document has already been cited. It seems a more practicable in the real world than having unfortunately url ids who have poor robustness guaranties in a lot of cases. Creating an item is not memory costfull compared to this and can be made really easy with a good UI. It seem more pragmatic to me. TomT0m (talk) 11:44, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
@Jakec: The current system is appropriate if you consider Wikisource and Wikiquote: they need items for most of the books and for their different editions. So if you want to do the job twice. The current system is the most appropriate if you consider that some references can be used hundred times: why do we need to enter even automatically hundred times the same references data ? To increase the memory of servers ? The solution you proposed was what I wanted to see in wikidata before we decided to use the current system. I was proposing that solution and after long discussions I was convinced by the current system because it is the most appropriate for multiple use of the same reference. Just open a reference book or article: the normal system is to define the reference data in one place and to use an ID in the rest of the document. Snipre (talk) 22:47, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Delusion23: Sorry to ask you that but did you already try to add reference data ? What you request is already available: you enter all the parameters of a reference in the section Reference present in each statement (see an example here). If you are doing that several times you will see why creating one item if simpler. And you can use the API to do that automatically. Snipre (talk) 22:47, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Zolo and Snipre on this. A source should ideally have its own Wikidata item. This fulfills a structural need and thus meets our notability threshold per WD:N criterion 3. For the impatient, referencing via reference URL (P854) is better than nothing.

Jakob says "The sourcing system needs to be overhauled so that you can add multiple parameters to a source (url, author, title, etc.) That seems like a better solution than creating an item every time you want to cite something." This need is already met by items: those "parameters" already exist properties as like reference URL (P854), author (P50), P357 (P357), and an ecosystem of other properties described in Help:Sources, as Zolo says. I agree with Jakob that it's inconvenient to do that, especially for one-time references, but I don't think it's significantly more work than finding and entering data on 'URL', 'title', 'author' etc. and entering them as qualifiers on a source. However, having that information centralized in an makes it easier to query in interesting ways, and reduces duplicate data entry (e.g. you don't need to list the author each time a paper is referenced).

If Lydia does allocate developer resources to this, I hope it will be for features like automatic extraction and population of author (P50), P357 (P357), publication date (P577), etc. given a URL or URN -- kind of like the game-changing Diberri template filler. Emphasizing precision in references, by providing input fields for properties like P387 (P387) and page(s) (P304) in such a tool, would also be great. Emw (talk) 01:31, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Historical note: minerals are natural substances with a chemical formula range. Nowadays, the definition of each mineral is done under the patronage of the International Mineralogical Association (IMA). The last accepted modification is summarized in the last IMA Master List, and on scientific papers about each case. The definition changes with improvements in technology and science. Mineral definitions are conventions, and changes in these conventions are small revolutions (Wikidata:WikiProject Mineralogy/IMA number references#List of IMA numbers of other special procedures, for instance). The professors and curators that decide these changes are country representatives at the IMA and are notable. These people published a pile of scientific publications and Wikimedia projects don't have enough scientific editors. Many professors and curators don't have an article on a Wikimedia project, and it doesn't prove that these people aren't notable enough. Their names will still be in a scientific encyclopedia in 300 hundred years time, many professional sportspersons/ gladiators will lose their notability in 300 years time. In my opinion, CC0-compatibility rule doesn't apply for conventions (agreed upon vocabulary and mineral definitions). No communication is possible without an agreed upon convention. We don't need all scientific references as items but we need the most important ones as items. We need to be able to express changes on Wikidata as 'start date' and 'end date'. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 05:40, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
That would be one thing we can do yeah and it makes a lot of sense to me. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 06:15, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
@Lydia Pintscher (WMDE): there is an OPW project to extract sources metadata for VE, I think it should be reused here too. Also Thepwnco proposed to have a special page (or a gadget) that selecting which kind of source the user wants to create it would display some property fields or others. I think both ideas combined with a "create and link new source" option in the references section would help greatly to reduce the effort when adding a source. It was also proposed that a list with used sources in the item with the option to drag&drop them, or copy&paste whole source, would also improve the efficiency. --Micru (talk) 07:55, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Commons category links in items

Is this the right way to link Wikipedia articles and Commons categories? I thought Commons categories are only linked to other Wikimedia categories? (See Wikidata:Notability part 1, bullet point 4) 130.88.141.34 09:18, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Also see https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Requests_for_deletions/Archive/2014/Properties/1#Commons_category+.28P373.29 on this, it looks like for article items Commons category (P373) should be used instead of a sitelink when linking to common categories. So yes, I think those edits are wrong. --Bthfan (talk) 10:26, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Though when I see the discussion at Wikidata:Requests_for_comment/Commons_links I'm no longer sure about right/wrong...I'm confused now :S --Bthfan (talk) 10:35, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
@Bthfan: There are basically two currents of thought: "mergists" and "splittists". The mergists would have to have together the sitelinks to categories and sitelinks to articles in one item, whereas the splittists prefer not to mix them, since they represent different concepts. Additionally, there is the problem that Commons has organized mostly around Categories and not around content pages (understandably so, given the limitations that content pages had to handle dynamic content), but some users don't think that is enough reason to create items for their categories. And yet additionally there is Bugzilla: 47930, which prevents us to access sitelinks from unconnected items. For now better to link to Commons galleries in the sitelinks, and link to Commons categories with Commons category (P373). Everyone is waiting to see what happens with the "Wikidata-for-Commons" and to see gz47930 solved, then some changes might be proposed.--Micru (talk) 11:10, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Catalog property

I have used catalog code (P528) (with qualifier catalog (P972), as stated on the property page) to add external catalog identifiers to Wikidata, where the catalog has no property of its own, e.g. to add Christoph von Scheurl (Q70425) to the Dictionary of Art Historians (Q17166797). Only later I discovered that "catalog code" apparently means "astronomic catalog code".

  • Should there be such a generic catalog property, with a qualifier to specify the catalog, for catalogs that do not have their own property? (I think: yes)
  • Should we use catalog code (P528) for this? (I think:yes)

As a side note, you can already get all items in a specific catalog annotated in this format, e.g. here for Dictionary of Art Historians (Q17166797). --Magnus Manske (talk) 10:56, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree, this is good flexibility. Just a detail though : I think it would be better to do it the other way around : just a catalog number by itself is not meaningful, it's not useful for example in the RDF export with just the main snak of statements as triples. It would make imho more sense to have a main snak meaningful by itself, this would give statements like
⟨ Mars ⟩ in catalog Search ⟨ astronomical catalog ⟩
identifier Search ⟨ XXZSF... ⟩
. But it's just a detail and make the migration a little bit less straightforward. TomT0m (talk) 11:09, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Magnus Manske: where do you see that catalog code (P528) is just for astronomical objects? That property was extended long ago to cover all catalogs, if there is any trace left from the former restriction it should be removed.--Micru (talk) 12:26, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: I noticed the alias "astronomical catalog", then on the talk page "the catalogue name of an astronomical object". If it's already all catalogs, then my question is solved :-) --Magnus Manske (talk) 14:12, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Magnus Manske: I don't see the need of a generic property. Creating a specific property "Dictionary of Art Historians ID" is easy and allow MediaWiki:Gadget-AuthorityControl.js to provide a direct link.
Another problem is that the word "catalog" doesn't seem appropriate to qualify a "dictionary" (at least in French but maybe also in English). — Ayack (talk) 13:43, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Ayack: The gadget could be altered; shouldn't be too hard. Creating properties for all possible catalogs seems ... inflationary. Oh, and "catalog" seems appropriate to me in this context; "authority control ID" might be more precise, but sounds somewhat bureaucratic. --Magnus Manske (talk) 14:15, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Magnus Manske: Both methods are OK for me, but only if we use one, including Freebase, VIAF, etc. ... — Ayack (talk) 14:53, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Magnus Manske: I corrected the description of catalog code, but TBH I think the property you need here is described by source (P1343), it fits perfectly with a dictionary, or an encyclopedia describing the item. If you want a direct link, then perhaps it is better to have a property so we can have some constraints in place.--Micru (talk) 15:05, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: OK, but how do I set the actual identifier in a source for described by source (P1343)? --Magnus Manske (talk) 15:35, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Magnus Manske: That's a very good question. I have seen that Vlsergey is using P357 (P357), but that is a poor solution because it disturbs the constraints of the property. I have proposed a generic label property for such cases.--Micru (talk) 17:17, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
I don't see why p1343 should be used here. catalog code (P528)/catalog (P972) seems to fit well and p1343 is not as precise: it just states that the value talks about the item, not that it is its main topic. --Zolo (talk) 17:20, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo: a catalog is just a list of elements with an identifier, it doesn't need to say anything about the item. P1343 describes the item in general terms (dictionaries, and encyclopedias).--Micru (talk) 17:48, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru:. I don't follow you. described by source (P1343): X. Just means that the item is mentionned in X. "catalogue code : X catalogue: Y" means: this item corresponds to entry X in reference Y. Sometimes the entry will be long sometimes very short, but it does not make much difference, and often an approximate length of the text can be guessed from the nature of Y. That said I would agree that the word catalogue may sound too restrictive for that and I would be fine with changing the labels to something like "identifier" and "scope of the ID" (though the second one is slightly freakish). --Zolo (talk) 17:57, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo: the description of p1343 says: "dictionary or encyclopaedia where this concept is described". Magnus wants to add a dictionary entry to each item, so that fits with the description of the property. Of course it is needed another property to narrow the scope. P972 as it is now refers exclusively to catalogs, and not to anything else. I am not sure it is a good idea to expand it further for all identifiers, since we can create more properties as suited.--Micru (talk) 18:12, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru:. I had misread p1343... But I do not think it is a good idea to have a separate property just because one reference is a catalogue and another a dictionary. In some contexts, it may help with displaying things nicely, but on the whole that seems unwieldy to have to manage several properties, that have the same structural meaning (item is entry X in reference Y). --Zolo (talk) 18:22, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo: I'm also ok merging both, since it is more or less the same. I also think that changing "catalog code" to a more generic "identifier" is also positive (in that case there won't be needed another "label" property).--Micru (talk) 11:49, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Hmm seeing this discussion I think my proposition above is not that really more complicated to implement. And it make more sense : if we know an item is catalogued somewhere but don't know the id we can just create a statement and a constraint report can list all the catalogued item missing an id. An id without knowing the catalog is pretty useless. If we are gonna make this change now is the time. I had no answer, which mean no concrete opposition ... TomT0m (talk) 11:28, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

So do you want to use "in catalog" (p:p972) as the main property and "identifier" (p:p528) as the qualifier? Yep, it makes sense to invert it and to put constraints in place.--Micru (talk) 11:49, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
I'm opposed to this. Infoboxes cannot easily access qualifiers so it make more sense to give them the specific info related to the item - especially as it is possible to tell the catalog from the context since infoboxes are used within a specific domain. E.g. station code for railway stations.Looking at a statement in isolation you need the catalog it comes from. In context however the code is more useful since you can usually tell very easily what network the station is part of. Filceolaire (talk) 07:40, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
@Filceolaire: Any infobox should use Lua method to include property value -- to correctly handle deprecated and preferred values, formats and other issues. Therefore, from infobox point of view it doesn't matter if it's property value or qualifier value, it will be just a small addition to method arguments. -- Vlsergey (talk) 08:04, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
@Filceolaire: It's not a problem in the software engeneering point of view, it will push Lua and infoboxes coders to solve the problem and make easy to access qualifiers. It would be a really bad idea to base a decision on a non circonstancial issue like this one. TomT0m (talk) 08:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
@Filceolaire:. It is pretty easy to access qualifiers from Lua (see fr:Module:Wikidata). And anyway, it will often be necessary to access the qualifier, otherwise to make sure that we are talking about the right catalogue
@TomT0m, Micru: I do not understand why it is better to have make the catalogue number a qualifier. A catalogue name without a catalogue number is about as uselesss as a catalogue numbe without a catalogue name. In specialized publications, catalogue numbers are sometimes given without the catalogue name, because it appears to be obious from the context or from the identifier format. I think we should always try to make the catalogue name explicit, but there are certainly cases where we can import the identifier now, and add the catalogue name later. At least that seems more plausible to me than knowing that an object is in a catalogue/database without knowing it ID there. --Zolo (talk) 08:47, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Label/description problem in "In other languages" section

Since earlier today, when typing a label or description in the "In other languages" section, there is no longer a "save | cancel" box as there is for your first language. What is causing this problem? Jared Preston (talk) 21:44, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I can reproduce it. I filed bugzilla:67696. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 22:04, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Danke Lydia. Jared Preston (talk) 22:06, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
It was fixed last night. Great! Jared Preston (talk) 10:38, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

P931place served (by airport)

The English label of place served by transport hub (P931) has just been changed from "place served" to "place served by airport". There has been a proposal on its talk page, since May, for it to serve a more general purpose (places are served by radio station, police forces, etc). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:52, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

P131, P172 for languages

Hi. Is it allowed to use these properties for language items? Also, may coordinates be added? Regards, πr2 (t • c) 20:23, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

In many cases languages are defined related to countries and administrative territorial entities for political reasons (Why are Galician (Q9307) and Portuguese (Q5146) considered to be different languages?) so I guess located in the administrative territorial entity (P131) could be used for languages.
'Ethnic group' very often refers to people with a common language. It may the principal thing distinguishing that group from others so I suppose ethnic group (P172)   is appropriate for some languages.
taxon range map image (P181) is meant for animals but I think it could be used for languages as well. Filceolaire (talk) 21:15, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Is P181 the same as P242? πr2 (t • c) 23:44, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
What you indicate about Galician and Portuguese (as being the same) indicates that it is best that you do not touch languages at all. The notion that you can identify languages as being spoken in a specific "administrative unit" gives often the notion that it is spoken exclusively which is often plain wrong. When you indicate that only a specific ethnic group speaks a language it is typically dead wrong as well. Please do not do this. GerardM (talk) 07:35, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
@GerardM: What are you talking about? As far as I know Galician and Portuguese are distinct, but closely related, and have been considered either separate languages or dialects (classification/relation). Are you saying we should not list the regions languages/dialects/language families are mainly spoken in for political regions? Obviously languages are not always spoken by a single ethnic group, but IMO there should be some way to indicate a link between e.g. Pitjantjatjara (Q3249806) and Pitjantjatjara (Q2982063). I don't know which property to use and whether it would be better to indicate this on the language item, the ethnic group item, or both. πr2 (t • c) 12:31, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
Making languages that are recognised as languages no more than dialects is highly political and ultimately pointless. You only get yourself into a territory where you / we should not want to go. WMF accepts ISO-639-3 for this reason; we are still suffering from the consequences of well intentioned but ultimately destructive opinions. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 12:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
I think you are confusing what I wrote with what Filceolaire wrote. I'm just wondering how to associate languages/dialects/etc. with locations. I don't care whether they are considered languages or dialects. You're the one who brought politics into this. πr2 (t • c) 13:01, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
For example, it would be useful to somehow connect Patagonian Welsh (Q3798706) to Chubut Province (Q45007) or Welsh Argentines (Q478236). This would be useful for languages and dialects, no? Ethnologue already lists locations where languages are mostly spoken, as do enwiki infoboxes. Could you please explain why you think adding this information would be destructive? πr2 (t • c) 13:17, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
DYK that some languages are spoken more in New York than in the area they originated ? GerardM (talk) 10:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
I don't see the problem. If there are significant communities of speakers in New York (or wherever), it can be indicated with the property. Perhaps which areas are the place(s) of origin of the language could be indicated using a qualifier. Already sources like MultiTree contain this kind of information, for example indicating that Garifuna is spoken in the United States. Ethnologue has information for each country a language is spoken in, example ("Also Spoken In"). Why would this be problematic? I think collecting this information would be useful. It could also help to make maps like this, if we allow coordinates for languages spoken only in one region (for example, many dialects are only used in one village/town). πr2 (t • c) 19:14, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Query all items that have coordinates but no image

Can somebody help me with a query for all items that have coordinate location (P625), but no image (P18)? I would like to create a map showing where images are missing. Possibly compile a few maps for the next Wiki loves [...] contest. A comma-separated values (Q935809)-file would be ideal for importing into QGIS.
On a related note we should lobby the Commons-app-people to get Wikidata-data into the Commons-app (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Commons). A mobile-app that leads people to the places where images are missing would be really cool. Gamification of the image-hunt (similar to the tools by @Magnus Manske:) would probably be a big boost to Commons. Too bad we don't have a global requested image database. Currently all the requests are spread across all Wikimedia-sites Wikipedia:Requested Pictures (Q6750881). -Tobias1984 (talk) 10:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

You can see the results for your query here, and download data here (add "&props=625" to the URL to also get coordinates for each item). But, I also have the tool you want! You can even specify an "administrative region"! Netherlands example. --Magnus Manske (talk) 10:33, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
@Magnus Manske: Thanks. Will look at it later. Seems like the server is down at the moment. -Tobias1984 (talk) 11:34, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
@Magnus Manske: - The interactive maps are really great. I am just having some trouble with the query syntax. How can I get the different language labels as columns? -Tobias1984 (talk) 16:54, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
You don't. You get the item IDs, which you can then use to get the labels, descriptions, Wikipedia pages etc. from Wikidata. No need to duplicate things. You can get one language here (under "download", after you ran the query). --Magnus Manske (talk) 19:30, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

N.B.: Your results might end up including broadcast stations in Canada and the USA. There could be 10000+ of them, but I don't know how many have coordinates. Coordinates on broadcast stations in North America are usually for the transmitter location: Often there is nothing to see there but an antenna in a field. --Closeapple (talk) 20:42, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Number of search results

It seems that the number of search results by default is brought back from 50 to 20. I prefer 50. Is it possible to set another default somewhere? I didn't find it. Kind regards, Lymantria (talk) 06:07, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Preceded by / Predecessor and Succeeded by / Successor

GZWDer, Tobias1984, Gymel, Wylve.

Micru has now created replaces (P1365) and replaced by (P1366) to work alongside follows (P155) and followed by (P156). The plan is that P155 and P156 are for books and albums and items in a series where new items don't replace previous items while P1365 and P 1366 are for political offices and states where the previous item is replaced.

I have done some work on the labels and descriptions in English to try and make this clear (including changing the labels from those in the subjectline above) but they could probably do with some more eyes to check what I have done and to modify the labels in other languages to reflect this change. Filceolaire (talk) 13:50, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

See discussion at Property_talk:P155#new_property_P1366. Filceolaire (talk) 14:13, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Filceolaire, I am not sure that the new labels of P155/P156 reflect well the meaning. The use of the past for "followed" implies temporal qualities that the sorting of current existing elements might not have. As an alternative, what about "previous in arrangement" and "next in arrangement"?--Micru (talk) 14:49, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
Maybe 'Follows' is a better label for this, especially where the previous item isn't replaced. Number 3 follows number 2 in the series of whole numbers.
I would strongly oppose 'next in arrangement'. Arrangement is too ill-defined a term. "next in series' works but I would still prefer it as an alias rather than a label - in English we don't use that term for the albums from a band but 'follows' works. Filceolaire (talk) 15:04, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
Ok. What about starting a deletion request for structure replaced by (P167).--Micru (talk) 15:40, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
Well, the replacement in structure replaced by (P167) necessarily goes along with complete destruction of the preceding object and well still might have another quality than replaces (P1365). So maybe it is too early to discuss deletion of structure replaced by (P167) and we should wait and see how the new properties flourish. -- Gymel (talk) 16:25, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
@Filceolaire:: I don't think that your clarification will be of any help: The normal(?) language knows about succession in office, not replacement. Even with pope Benedict you wouldn't usually say "he was so worn out that he had to be replaced". So I doubt that the new properties replaces (P1365) &c. will ever lead to a more consistent usage of follows (P155) in the sense of what might have been intended by the new properties. But my opposition has been recorded anyway and it is already documented that I don't grasp the distinction... -- Gymel (talk) 16:25, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

I am lost what the point of all this is. GerardM (talk) 20:51, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

@Filceolaire: please give a link to the formal proposal. --Succu (talk) 21:48, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Property proposal - 'succeeded by (replaced by this person)'.
GerardM: This change was proposed by GZWDer on the basis that, in the Chinese language (he didn't say which Chinese language) - 'followed by' and 'replaced by' are different concepts and there was no easy way to combine both concepts, in Chinese, in the same property. GZWDer eventually convinced me, and enough other editors, that there is a real difference which justifies having different properties and here we are - 'Follows' and 'Followed by' for series of books, TV shows, albums. 'Replaces' and 'Replaced by' for political and hereditary offices and administrative entities. Filceolaire (talk) 00:11, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
GZWDer: which property do you think we should use for yearly sports leagues? Olympic games? days of the year (May 4 and May 5)? Filceolaire (talk) 00:11, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
When Chinese needs different words to convey a concept than that is what needs to be done for that Chinese language. It does not mean that the words need to be changed for EVERY language. Properties are functional texts, not lexical. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 07:14, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
What it means is that we need separate properties to express the distinction between "follows the previous item in an ordered sequence of items" and "succeeds the previous item in a temporal sequence of singular items", as in "Fool Moon (Q3747536) follows Storm Front (Q3974534) in The Dresden Files (Q2307373)" as opposed to "Elizabeth II (Q9682) succeeded George VI (Q280856) as monarch of the United Kingdom (Q9134365)". Do you see the distinction, and why people might be confused if the same property were to be used for both? —Phil Boswell (talk) 07:49, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
When you say that a book "follows" another, you mean the order of publishing.. How is that not temporal? It is as clear to me as before. GerardM (talk) 09:01, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Don't play with words. Properties are concept and the concept of the property follows is "in a list of sequential elements, this element is followed by this one". The sequential order is not specified: it can be temporal, like for a position or a publication date, but it can be another sequence. Or like for book or movie where the prequel is published/performed after the main story. For me the problem of Chinese is just a problem of translating the concept and not as they try to do it now to translate English words. Snipre (talk) 09:45, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Now, @GerardM:, don't be silly: you know as well as I do that there is a distinction between the publishing order of a book series and the internal chronology of the overarching story. I could have used a different series: how about "Yendi (Q15032947) was published after Jhereg (Q6191037) but precedes it according to the internal chronology"? So Jhereg (Q6191037) follows Yendi (Q15032947) in the internal chronology, but Yendi (Q15032947) succeeded Jhereg (Q6191037) as the most-recently-published book in the series (and was then in turn succeeded by Teckla (Q7692712)). —Phil Boswell (talk) 10:04, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict)GerardM, the other day when proposing to split "part of" you said: "All this assumes that the languages the Wikidata is supporting are able to support all these "finer" points. This is very unlikely and consequently the result of implementing this will be that in many languages the labels used will be exactly the same. This is very bad and to be avoided."
But as you can see, the opposite happens. The more ambiguous a label is, the more problems it causes for other languages to translate it. The reason is that each definition might translate into different words, and we cannot assume that these words are as close together as in the source language. For that reason I would like to ask you to reconsider your position regarding finer properties. As long as broad-meaning properties don't cause distress we should prefer them, otherwise we should seek precision.
In this case there are clearly two concepts, one where all the elements in a set exist in the present, and the other one where they passed the token of existence from one to the next (only one of them was valid at a given time).--Micru (talk) 09:18, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
I agree there are two concepts involved, but the important thing seems to be the value of the property. For example Beatles for Sale (Q207336) was the 4th album of The Beatles and thus succeeded (followed) the third one A Hard Day's Night (Q182518). However Beatles for Sale (Q207336) succeeded (replaced) A Hard Day's Night (Q182518) with respect to being "Number One of the British album charts". And probably we would use neither of the concepts to formulate the relation between numbers (slots) 4 and 5 of album charts. So what property of the target value really is responsible for the distinction between the several "succession" properties? -- Gymel (talk) 12:44, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Gymel I think in those cases it is better to use the properties followed/replaced as qualifiers to the statement "part of". In the first case you can say, "part of:beatles discography" with qualifier "followed:whatever". In the second case you can say either "part of:List of Number One of..." or "award:Number One of...", in this case with qualifier "replaced:whatever".--Micru (talk) 14:36, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
That is another freedom but not at discussion here: We can say
  • Item (followed/replaced by) another item |qualifier: (position held) item X, eg. "Pope" or "No. 1 hit")
  • Item (position held) item X |qualifier: (followed/replaced by) another item
  • Item (part of) List of items for a position |qualifier: (followed/replaced by) another item within that list
These are purely technical shuffles of the statement (given a number data type one could also play with "position in list" or "position in succession" and could defer the succession and predecession statements) and they are completely independent of the question followd vs. replaced. -- Gymel (talk) 15:32, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

First of all, it would be great if someone can define for me the terms 'replace' and 'follow'. I can't comment on the use of these properties without knowing what kind of relational concepts we are talking about here. To me, the word 'follow' implies that the preceding entity no longer exists in the status it had, as the succeeding entity obtained the aforesaid status; this status can only be occupied by one entity at one time. The word 'replace' implies that the preceding entity ceases to exist entirely and is replaced by the succeeding entity, as the succeeding entity is considered to have some characteristics pertaining to the preceding entity (e.g. building A was demolished and was replaced by building B because building B is built at the location where building A was). Please tell me if I am getting the correct idea about the two terms. Using the term 'replace' in the descriptions of replaces (P1365) and replaced by (P1366) does not exactly help. —Wylve (talk) 16:01, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not a native speaker, but "follow" seems to imply some common direction. Thus "prince X" can follow his father "king Y" on the throne, however "duke Z", after having slaughtered king Y and all his kin cannot follow on the throne but only replace him (but may - after having been bitten by a rabid dog - soon follow king Y to the grave: common direction again...). The intended distinction of the properties is as follows: If some office or position can be taken only by one item at one time, the next holder of that position replaces the previous (demolition of the preceeding item is not necessarily implied, see structure replaced by (P167) for that). George H. W. Bush is still alive, but he was president of the U.S.A. and as such was replaced (succeeded) by Barak Obama. Following on the other hand is intended for positions you cannot loose, like being the 41th novel in a series: This will be eternally followed by the item constituting the 42th novel, at least from the time on when the 42th item in that series is published. However George H. W. Bush was the 41th president of the U.S.A. and in a sense still is, because noone ever can take that exact position. And in that sense Barak Obama followed him in office, occupying presidency number 42. The different properties IMHO try to reflect different attitudes of simultanity or exclusivity we have towards novels-in-series and presidents-in-offices (number 41 Bush was the president and now is a former president, whereas number 41 Book always was a novel and still is: it never turns into a "former novel"). Regarding a series "book of the month" might carry both aspects, thus perhaps the difference is not at all in the relation itself but only a nuance in emphasis. Much seems to depend on the actual wording of the list involved: Given a "series" (of whatever, e.g. all U.S. presidencies from past to present) we take a more distant point of view allowing to regard several items at once thus they "follow" each other in the order of the given series. Specializing our view to the generic item in that series (e.g. The President) it turns into something more exclusive: The item of our focus has to be "removed" from the slot before the next item can take its place and become the object of our observation. -- Gymel (talk) 21:27, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Gymel: My understanding is that when Prince X becomes King X then King Y has to stop being King first so King X replaces King Y - there is only one king at a time.
On that basis 'Replaced by' is the appropriate property for hereditary offices, political offices, states, buildings. One has to end before the next can begin. By this logic 'sports league seasons' should use this property since each season is separate. Even if there were some odd case where the end of one season overlapped the start of the next they would still be separate items, one replacing the other.
'Follows' is the property for TV shows, books, albums, integers and other members of series where there is an order but later items do not replace earlier items. Where the publication order is different from the internal chronology e.g. the Star Wars movies, then the item can be described as 'part of:Star wars chronology' and as 'part of:star wars publication order' and each of these statements can have 'follows' and 'followed by' as qualifiers. Filceolaire (talk) 00:40, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
@Filceolaire: This seems to add more problems than it solves. Plus it seems to be tight by cultural meaning of words. Do you have an example of actual statements where the type of the items in the sequence is not enough to affect the meaning of a statement ? For example :
⟨ X ⟩ followed by (P156)   ⟨ Y ⟩
AND
⟨ X ⟩ replaced by (P1366)   ⟨ Y ⟩
could be both correct with X and Y have the same value and the relation is needed to guess what the statement means ? Otherwise it seems useless and just make harder to use Wikidata. TomT0m (talk) 16:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
User:TomT0m. No I don't have a case where the meaning cannot be guessed from the domain. Nevertheless I disagree that the properties are tightly linked to the meaning of the words. 'Follows (but does not replace)' and 'Replaces' are slightly different concepts. The confusion arises because these concepts can both be represented, in English and related languages, by the phrase 'preceded by'. Having two separate properties seems to me to unlink the concepts from the language. Your mileage may vary.
I agree with you that, because these concepts are so closely related in English, there may well be a lot of confusion between these properties among English speaking editors. My rewrite of the labels and descriptions for these properties was aimed at trying to reduce this confusion. I would ask anyone who is still confused to look again at those labels and descriptions and make suggestions as to how they might be improved. Filceolaire (talk) 18:27, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
@Filceolaire: It's way easier to add aliases to only one property if it is not ambiguous and adopt a more generic definition. It makes the whole thing simpler and reduce the risk of bad uses. I think we can type the whole sequences : a building can replace another building in the sequence of building that came in the exact place, there cannot be both. An album can follow another album of some author on its all time work sequence, or in the subsequence of work he played with a guitar or whatever. I think we're fine an parcimonious with a sequence concept, and two properties defining the places of items on this sequence expressing precedence and followance, or the rank, in this sequence. Then the type of the sequence gives the other properties : there is only one King of Britain at a given moment in time, there is only one building, a work do not usually replace another, except in the sequence of films that are played in a given room in a cinema. TomT0m (talk) 18:45, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
If you want to play with definition, in the case of a king position, if the previous is dead, you can't use "replaced by". You can use "replaced by" if you have something and you change it. But if the previous king is dead, you can't take him out of its place to put another person. The place is available. In that case the correct term is succession. Then if we want to go further, if a king gives up and choose its successor, you can't use *replace by* because a replacement implies an external cause (no body can say I replace myself). So if you start to distinguish between the different cases, you open the door to a lot of detailed new properties like one property for the change of a person at a position when the previous left or died (typically a king), another one for the change of a person at a position when the previous one is still alive like in election.
By the way a good example. Can we say that the movie Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (Q42051) is followed by Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (Q17738) ? If we take the story or the title of the movies, yes, but if we take the "movie release", no. That's a very good example. Do we need a new property to be able to do the link between Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (Q42051) and Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (Q17738) ?
We need a property defined not by a word but by a concept: "in a list of sequential elements this element is followed by this one". In that concept we do not define the link between the elements, the nature of the elements defined the relation between them: in the case of a king, this is a succession, in the case of political or professional position this is a replacement, in the case of books this is a story evolution, in the case of musician's albums this is the released date,... Again a property should be a concept and not a word. If a language can't translate the concept by an unique word, we can use a sentence or to put something like "replaced by (building)/succeed by (person)/..." for the label. The problem of the Chinese translation is not a real problem because it is a language problem and languages defines words acording to a context. The question is it is a real difference in the concept ? Then do we need to distinguish in term of data structure meaning do we need to do the difference with help of several properties to perform queries ? I speak here about logical concepts and not about words because if the concept is the same but according to context you can use different words, the concept can be described by a list of words and you don't need several properties.
So in the case of interest, we have to stop to use words but to use concepts. If I understand well we need two properties for the next concepts:
*B takes the place of A in the sequence, but A still exists
*B takes the place of A in the sequence and A doesn't exist anymore.
Is it correct ? Snipre (talk) 02:57, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
That's the most precise definition we got at this time, we just lack a usecase where using only one property would lead to an ambiguity on the nature on the relation. This is imho the principle who should guide our choices on whether or not make precise property when a generic concept actually fits. Otherwise it will add complexity and make the choice of property harder without any clear benefit. TomT0m (talk) 08:57, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
That would associate most persons in offices with the "followed by" property, contrary to what was intended ("followed" mostly for works, "replaced" for persons). With the exception of course of people who actually died while still holding that office (assassinated presidents, most but not all kings). -- Gymel (talk) 10:43, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
The major confusion here is that we are seeing "A" and "B" as "entities" as opposed to "entities in a certain state". "Entities in a certain state" does not only concern the entity itself, but its condition. In the king example, "King B" does not replace "King A", as that's a logically incomplete statement. What we should be saying is that "Person B as the King" replaces "Person A as the King", hence rendering the former statement false and the latter true. In the example of creative works, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Q47209) does not replace Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Q43361); "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Q47209) as the newest novel in the Harry Potter book series" replaces "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Q43361) as the newest novel in the Harry Potter book series". The notion of "existence" should be about the existence of the condition that the entity in question is in, not the existence of the entity itself. This means that both types of concepts suggested by Snipre could be seen as one. —Wylve (talk) 12:08, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I think the propert(y|ies) we should have should allow to answer the questions: followed by what sequence, sorted according to which criterion ? There can be many submeanings to "followed by" (superseded by, replaced at the same location by, functionnally replaced by, merged into...), and I do not think it can all be solved by using more specific properties. It seems to me that we should rather try to have a consistent use of qualifiers here (I'd probably say: always use a qualifier for defining the sequence, and add one for the ordering criterion when it is not chronological). --Zolo (talk) 13:34, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Zolo, that could be a good solution. We could just assume that for an element to be sorted it has to belong to a group (part of list/set, with qualifier previous/next), and specify in the list or set what kind of sorting the set has (sorting:chronological, non-destructive). Then we could just use one qualifier for all kind of sorting because the sorting type (if we need it) would be defined in the item that represents the set/group.--Micru (talk) 14:13, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo: I'm OK with statements like
⟨ King II ⟩ follows (P155)   ⟨ King I ⟩
in sequence Search ⟨ Kings of Country X ⟩
, but I think the ordering criteria belongs to the <Kings of Country X> item, otherwise we would duplicate the criteria in all the statements. TomT0m (talk)
Sorry, we have a massive amount of office held.. on persons.. your notion has little bearing on what you find in Wikidata. Lists are largely reduced to indicate the office. GerardM (talk) 18:03, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
@GerardM: I'm sorry, what ? I can't understand where you are going. We've got a massive definitions problem here, it's like we do not speak the same language. TomT0m (talk) 18:55, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
@TomT0m: Have a look at Ronald Reagan.. he has predecessors and successors on the different positions he held. The notion that it should all be on the position itself flies in the face of established practice. It is therefore not a workable notion. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 19:15, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
@GerardM: Oh, OK I think I understood the problem. For me, an ordering criteria is "alphabetical order of the name", for example. But what is called "ordering criteria" here is more "the value of the name that is used to make the sort", right ? So when I say "the ordering criteria belongs to the sequence item", I mean we should have a claim
⟨ King of Britain sequence ⟩ ordered by (P8004)   ⟨ date of reign ⟩
type of sorting Search ⟨ chronological ⟩
for example. TomT0m (talk) 20:47, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
@TomT0m: Sorry... you speak goobledegook.. Do you REALLY think that templates make clear what you mean.. You are right, we speak a different language. Having sort order at the Wikipedia end is .... not obvious, not really sensible. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 21:20, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
To sort you must choose a way to sort. There is plenty : chronological, reverse chronological for dates, alphabetical order for strings and so on. If you want to sort a set of item, you have to chose an order and a property, property I call ordering criteria. I would think a non ambiguous terminology would be to call the property a "ordering property", and to call the value of this property in each item a "ordering value". You referred to "ordering value", I was thinking of storing the type of ordering + the sorting property. Hence the misunderstanding. TomT0m (talk) 07:07, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Maybe as example to clarify (the way I understand it): Chapter 2 of a book follows/comes after chapter 1 (The two items belong together in an ordered fashion but coexist and the second item does not take the place of the first one, nor daoes it render the first one obsolete); edition 2 of a book replaces/succeds/takes the place of edition 1 of the same book (the second item in the sequence renders the first one deprecated/ takes the position previously held by the first item).--2A01:2A8:8401:D701:C85D:1A86:C432:F0E 21:13, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Please sort out the mess you made

President of Venezuela and many similar instances.. GerardM (talk) 19:52, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

When you use the phrase "replaced by" for people who occupy an office, it is really disrespectful. It also has a meaning that is not the same at all as "succeeded by". Thanks, GerardM (talk) 08:37, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
User:GerardM What mess is that? Who are you talking to? If you are talking about the label for P1365 and P1366 then that is easy to fix. Please make sure the new label is chosen to minimise confusion with P155 and P156. Filceolaire (talk) 21:22, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
I have been quite clear that I am opposed to this split. So why do you expect me to fix the mess "you" insisted on. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 21:35, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

On the usage of part of (P361)

I'm still not convinced. It took a long discussion to sort out correct uses of part of, with Micru and Markus Krostch amongst others. In the context of any kind of sequences, I think a new property like in sequence would be better and less confusing than using a property used for whole/part relationship : the nature of the items is not the nature of the list. part of (P361) fits for physical objects composing a bigger physical object, I don't think it fits of a king sequence is composed of kings.

TomT0m: I agree with you, actually I wanted to write "part of set", but by mistake I put a colon where there should be none (corrected now). Regardless of how we call the property ("part of set" or "in sequence"), I would do it the other way around
⟨ King II ⟩ in sequence Search ⟨ Kings of Country X ⟩
follows (P155)   ⟨ King I ⟩
. The reason is that it is more clear to have that grouping in the cases where an item belongs to more than one set.--Micru (talk) 14:45, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
User:Micru I can see the case for a new <in sequence> or <part of ordered set> property for TV shows, books, integers, elements, football league seasons, etc. I would even use it for days of the year (common year or leap year) and state that January 1 follows December 31. I would NOT, however, use this for hereditary or elected or appointed offices. We have position held (P39) for those and it is working very well. Filceolaire (talk) 21:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
Filceolaire, position held (P39) is clearly a subproperty of "in sequence". For creative works we already have part of the series (P179) which also can be qualified with the series order. So if I understood right, the proposed solution would be:
Any objection or concern? --Micru (talk) 07:49, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
Position held has NOTHING to do with "in sequence". For instance Ronald Reagan "position held" "President of the United States... WHAT? What you probably mean is that the usage of "preceded by" is in the sense of a qualifier. Arguably, this property should only be used in qualifiers. Given the class of the main property, a specific text is to be preferred. In this case "preceded by". GerardM (talk) 06:28, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
GerardM, how many people there are at any given time that are "President of the United States"? One or many? Do they happen to be "President of the United States" all at once or in sequence? That you think that a given label might be more suitable doesn't mean that the underlying concept is different... I mean, I would keep both for clarity, but let's look at things how they are and not how we would like them to be.--Micru (talk) 07:01, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
The text "replaced by" is often offensive. That is how it is. GerardM (talk) 07:14, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
GerardM, I totally understand. Above I suggested to delete the 'replace' properties, and use a more neutral label that can represent both cases in p:p155, p:p156. "previous" and "next" seem quite inoffensive to me.--Micru (talk) 08:14, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Question on sports (I'm working on sports topics a lot lately in Wikidata, so this interests me the most :): So an item like 2013–14 NBA season (Q11144228) would then be <in sequence> NBA seasons? Probably need to create a new "NBA seasons" item then or rename list of National Basketball Association seasons (Q2622507) to that as Wikidata:Project_chat#.22is_a_list_of.22_is_used_to_build_a_query suggests in some way. I guess other sports tournaments like 2009 Dubai Tennis Championships (Q807962) could/should then also be retagged? Currently that one is instance of (P31)=Dubai Tennis Championships (Q299409), with the new property we would tag this like <in sequence>=Dubai Tennis Championships (Q299409) and change instance of (P31) to point to tennis tournament (Q13219666)? Anyway, a property to properly connects sports seasons to a "main topic" is certainly a good idea, currently there is no good way to do that as far as I see this. --Bthfan (talk) 13:09, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
I guess you could use the existing item: 2013–14 NBA season (Q11144228) <in sequence> list of National Basketball Association seasons (Q2622507). The other use in the Dubai example also seems rational. "List of" looks like a top-down approach, nothing wrong with it either, but perhaps it is harder to maintain both approaches.--Micru (talk) 13:41, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
Is there no chance to fix the problem in the lines of the current approach? I mean, stating feels rather straightforward and when trying to express only indirectly by
⟨ X ⟩ in sequence Search ⟨ Q35073 ⟩
plus we can note predecessors, successors and sequence numbers more consistently, but this leaves us with the question where to put
⟨ subject ⟩ start time (P580)   ⟨ 2001-01-20 ⟩
and the other qualifiers of position held (P39): We cannot qualify the "in-sequence" property with start and end-dates, since this could be interpreted as some error: "At some time in the past, George W. Bush (Q207) was considered to be an U.S. president, now we know better..." Having to double-specify the presidency by using
⟨ X ⟩ in sequence Search ⟨ Q35073 ⟩
and not getting rid of at the same time seems rather awkward. Also we have to give some "flesh" to list of presidents of the United States (Q35073) and therefore we must associate the individual presidents to the list anyway. What if we do not state
⟨ George W. Bush (Q207)      ⟩ in sequence Search ⟨ Q35073 ⟩
in the George W. Bush (Q207) item but rather in the list item list of presidents of the United States (Q35073)? This would imply creation of the inverse property to "in sequence", namely "has member in a (partially) ordered set" and we would be able to formulate
⟨ list of presidents of the United States (Q35073)      ⟩ has member ... Search ⟨ Q207 ⟩
followed by (P156)   ⟨ Barack Obama (Q76)      ⟩
. -- Gymel (talk) 15:53, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
Gymel, I would keep both approaches. I wouldn't recommend building a list on the item, sometimes there are just too many elements in a sequence to put them in a single item. You could add the position in the sequence as a qualifier, the dates can be extracted them from other statements. --Micru (talk) 07:05, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Proposed conventions

For sorted sets:

  • in sequence: A and B belong to a sorted set. B(in a certain state) takes the place of A(in the same state) in the sequence, but A no longer exists in the same state (but it may exist in another state). Main use: sorted lists of only one element valid at any time (e.g. buildings in one location). Use narrower properties where appropriate (e.g. position held (P39)).
  • in series (p179): A and B belong to a sorted set. B(in a certain state) takes the place of A(in the same state) in the sequence, but A still exists (in the same state). Main use: sorted lists with all elements valid at any time (e.g. creative works and abstract concepts)

For unsorted sets (related to this RFC), no change to the labels is proposed, but I changed them just now for the sake of making easier to understand what they mean:

  • in set (p361): A and B belong to an unsorted set of their same domain (physical, event, abstract), but they are not similar to the set
  • in similar set (p279): A and B belong to an unsorted set of their same domain (physical, event, abstract), and they are similar to the set
  • in strongly similar set (p31): by their strong similarity (mostly grounded in their real life existence), A and B form an unsorted set defined by all their shared characteristics.

Shall we go ahead with this? It would need a new property "in sequence" plus two additional ones:

  • sorted according to property: which property is to be considered when sorting (start date, birth name, etc)
  • sorting criteria: according to which criteria the set is sorted (ascendent, descendent)

--Micru (talk) 10:07, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

You lost me completely. First of all, you refer to properties that have names. It helps understanding. Secondly why prescribe sorting? When something CAN be dated, it does not follow that they are dated. Look at how Reasonator does things.. It works well enough at no cost of extra overhead.. Really, you think to much but are not obvious nor clear in what you want. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 11:06, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
No. We don't need to specify the sorting criteria because even if there are several creteria, there is only one per type of sequence. You don't sort sequence of king per alphabetic order. So instead of creating a bunch of new qualifiers which won't be used in 50% of cases, just define the differrent sorting criteria in the talk page of properties followed/precessed. Stop creating complexity where good sense is enough. Snipre (talk) 11:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
GerardM, thanks for your feedback. I would like to see better control mechanisms (similar to "constraints" used in properties) so we don't have to worry much about human errors (or vandals), and for that we need first to have some clear definitions and then some redundant information. Yes, Reasonator does great things, but it doesn't matter to it if the information is consistent or not, because it has no control mechanisms and no intelligence. OTOH, it must not be a "prescription", just a recommendation for cases when we need (or want) to use it. An item can be in several lists, and each one has different sorting needs, sometimes it is clear, sometimes it isn't.
There were users that felt the need to make several distinctions in the meaning of each property, others that didn't feel that need, so what I am trying to do is build consensus and summarize points of view. It is an asset that we must cultivate, and it takes effort, discussions, and thinking. I remind you that much progress done here didn't come only from software features, but also from us reaching common points, whenever possible. --Micru (talk) 11:47, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
And I want to conclude that the properties followed/precessed can be a choice and not as simple to define. For me this kind of information shouldn't be put in the items as qualifiers. If I have to define the predecessor of a person to a possition, I extract the whole list of persons which held the position and then I used the start/end qualifiers to define who is the predecessor plus other criteria I want to include. An example are the popes and the antipopes. By using successor and predecessor I choose implicitly the official list of popes but if this is not what I want ? We have to let the data user selecting its own list and then its own predecessor/sucessor according to its criteria. Wikidat shouldn't propose preprocessed data but raw data and users should then work and analyze data according to their preference. Snipre (talk) 12:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: If you should specify the sorting criteria this means this is not the result of a common knowledge but the result of a choice then this is not the work of Wikidata to order data according to specific criteria. So the conclusion is simple: followed/precessed should be explicit or if not, the use of properties followed/precessed is not possible because this is a choice which can be non consensual. Snipre (talk) 12:10, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
@Snipre:, while I agree with you about those properties being a result of a choice, "followed/preceded by" are useful for navigation when editing. They could be bot maintained when there are many elements because in those cases there is for sure an item representing the sequence. We also have to consider that there are sequences of just two or three elements, and in those cases it is just practical to link them (ex. Q373096 <=> Q10298666).--Micru (talk) 12:33, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: your description of part of (P361), instance of (P31), and subclass of (P279) does not seem to make any sense to me. More precisely : I don't understand how they are related to the subset, set membership or physical composition (a car is composed of wheel and other elements). I'm not sure about your definitions of sequences and series either. As we discussed, the nature of the elements gives a lot of information about the nature of the sequence. And we can use items to type and defines the sequence. I'm not really sure we need that distinction, and we have no real usecase where this adds information. TomT0m (talk) 16:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
@TomT0m:, I just posted a comment on the RFC explaining my reasoning about membership properties on the RFC. About sequences and series, are you suggesting that we use only one property for both? If so, which one?--Micru (talk) 18:35, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The terminology used is insulting

At the end of his term Ronald Reagan was succeeded by Mr Bush. He was not replaced. Replacement indicated an involuntary action and consequently is insulting. All the words used are hardly intelligible but what is unclear about us using terminology that has not even the same meaning as the old "succeeded by" ? Why persist in this ?

@GerardM: from your comment it is hard to understand to who you are addressing your comment to, or what you are replying to. --Micru (talk) 11:59, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
I address the terminology used, and this not for the first time. It concerns everyone. I changed the word and was reverted.. The use of "replaced by" is as said insulting, it means something different from what it is supposed to mean. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 12:13, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Which word did you change? And who is supporting to use "replaced by" as you say?--Micru (talk) 12:18, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Replaced by is the label used. I changed it back to "preceded by" this is the right and only obvious phrase in English. GerardM (talk) 13:14, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
I changed the main labels of the properties p1365/p1366 to "succeeds"/"succeeded by". IIRC, the properties structure replaced by (P167)/structure replaces (P1398) are almost the same but just restricted to buildings. I don't know if it is useful to keep them.--Micru (talk) 11:54, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Extension of the property "series"

Just wondering, will the property proposal for "in series" happen soon? Or is this currently part of the RFC discussion at Wikidata:Requests_for_comment/Refining_"part_of"? At least for sports seasons/events (there are a lot of items like that) "in series" would be useful to connect those to an "upper" topic. This would a good alternative to using "instance of" with an generic season/event item for this series and/or using "part of" on every season/event item. We could also think about changing the meaning/definition of part of the series (P179) though, currently that one is for creative works only. --Bthfan (talk) 08:22, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

@Bthfan: I just started the discussion in Property_talk:P179.--Micru (talk) 12:19, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
The notion that this makes an "instance of" unncessary is something I disagree with, GerardM (talk) 13:12, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
@GerardM: you meant what I said about "instance of"? Sure, but then I could set it to instance of=sports season (or whatever seems right) instead of creating generic items like e.g. "NBA season" to use as value for "instance of". --Bthfan (talk) 15:16, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
I agree. instance of (P31) is still useful in those cases. For example in a TV series there is some episodes of different kind sometimes, like musical episode in a series in which other episode are not. TomT0m (talk) 14:14, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Missing Oscar nominated movies: User:Jobu0101/Oscars

I've created a list with all movies which received a nomination for an Academy Award but aren't linked here in Wikidata. Maybe you want to help me to get that list smaller. --Jobu0101 (talk) 23:31, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I checked someone, but already exist, A lot of movie are created on de.wiki, maybe is necessary to correct the list..Not so real I'm working on it. --ValterVB (talk) 09:35, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

I have checked 1978 to 2014 and removed ones that had items after I added the IMDb code. The ones that are left from those years did not appear to have items. New items will be needed. 130.88.141.34 09:39, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Checked 1943, 1970, 1971 and 1972. 130.88.141.34 10:04, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for your help. --Jobu0101 (talk) 11:24, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

From 306 we are now down to 154 :) 130.88.141.34 12:51, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

New property created that can be useful to users working on this task nominated for (P1411).--Micru (talk) 13:04, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
When I created the page I listed 245 items, not 306. Where does your number come from? --Jobu0101 (talk) 15:13, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Is there a way to tell Wikidata that en:Short Peace covers item Q17339243? It would be wrong to enter the English Wikipedia article as article which is linked to that item since the Wikipedia article covers more than only the Possessions film. --Jobu0101 (talk) 15:38, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata already has it in there. Possessions (Q17339243) is listed as part of (P361) Short Peace (Q11243303). Cbrown1023 talk 18:51, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

API: simplest way to obtain most used values for property

Hi. I'm in progress of creating new gadget for person infobox edit, and there is a non-urgent question. I have a field related to occupation (P106). By default such field allow to enter reference to any wikidata item. But it will be much better to provide user the list of most used values here, so he can quickly select of them (or enter his own, if he don't like the TOP 10 one). So the question is: how to obtain the most used values for any specific property? It is not need to be direct API access -- i can ask bot to query some other page (from toolserver) and update gadget JavaScript "dictionary" once per day. -- Vlsergey (talk) 08:26, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

The team of students that did the entity suggester are working on making it also suggest values at the moment. That should be accessible via the API then. That should cover it :) --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 09:01, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

"Subclass of" and "instance of" with the same value

Is there any way to query all items that contain both "subclass of" and "instance of" with the same value? I have seen some Widar edits lately that add "subclass of:value" without checking if there is already an "instance of:same value" present in the same item.--Micru (talk) 08:32, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Autolist2 is your friend :) Thanks, GerardM (talk) 10:46, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, I corrected the linked query (it should be p279, not p278) unfortunately that query returns 9200 items, but it doesn't really show the items that have the same value of "instance of" and "subclass of".--Micru (talk) 11:01, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru, Magnus Manske, GerardM: - I would like to know such a query too - (question raised 2014-07-11 [4]). The one mentioned by GerardM and some related are listed at Wikidata:Item classification#Wikidata queries. Micru's and my question are now included in the list of queries, but only showing an English language description. Tamawashi (talk) 14:35, 11 July 2014 (UTC) (updated Tamawashi (talk) 14:42, 11 July 2014 (UTC))

Instance of by (music) albums

I couldn't find any discussions on what claim items about albums should use, but I found two ways how it has been done so far.

What is better? To use the simple claim or to use more specific claims with instance of (P31)? If the former is better, shouldn't we create a new property to store data about type of album? user:Marek Koudelka Matěj Suchánek (talk) 13:09, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

If you add the specific claim (studio album), then it can be inferred that the item is an album. Domain specific "type of"-properties have been deleted and rejected, see Wikidata:Item classification. Tamawashi (talk) 14:45, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Understood, thanks for the answer. Matěj Suchánek (talk) 15:18, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

P279 on Wikimedia Category pages

Constraint violations and tree duplication, see Talk:Q4167836#P279 on Wikimedia Category pages. Tamawashi (talk) 18:15, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata:Subclasses and instances

As a result of Talk:Q35120#Instances of something else than entity, I created Wikidata:Subclasses and instances. Tamawashi (talk) 09:06, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: I created Help:Classification which seem to have the same purposes. I renamed the page to reflect it's a statistical page Wikidata:Statistics:Subclasses and instances TomT0m (talk) 11:55, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
@TomT0m: Your edits gave me some inspiration. I expanded the page but moved it back. I created a link to a future "Wikidata:Database reports/..." page. I think that is the place where most of the reports are. Tamawashi (talk) 16:22, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism at Wikidata:Subclasses and instances

I asked User:Succu to provide evidence for his previous claim so that everyone using Wikidata:Subclasses and instances could see it. Instead he now is vandalizing one the page, e.g. removing a sourced statement about the output of a WikiData-Query. Tamawashi (talk) 17:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Tamawashi refused to discuss. See his/her discussion page. Vandalism is a realy strong accusation! --Succu (talk) 17:50, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
User:Succu - Yes, I reverted some of your contributions to my talk page. The talk page shows that I thanked you for your preceding preceding edit and that I asked you to back up your claims at the relevant page. That could benefit more users than only me. See a similar initiative of mine further above, related to notability reports [5]. You still have not backed up your claims. Tamawashi (talk) 11:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

@Succu, Tamawashi: Hi guys, I don't want to enter this troll, but I'll just say I'm preparing a variation of {{Superclass tree}} who will show something like that, I'll take a taxon example, based on the instance of (P31) informations. It will generate, using just instance of (P31) and subclass of (P279) claims, tables like this for an item :

class type of class
... ...
animal reign
... ...
xerus genera
xerus xinauris species

The advantage of this is that this will demonstrate how powerful we can be with keeping genericity : this will not only work for taxas themselves, but also for any class of items for which the superclasses have instance of (P31) statements. The table will be ordered by class inclusion, naturally.

I'll post updates as soon as I have something to show on test.wikidata.org TomT0m (talk) 08:13, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

@TomT0m: A documentation for superclasses that have a claim "instance of" would be great! Please link from Wikidata:Subclasses and instances when ready. Tamawashi (talk) 11:13, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism 2 at Wikidata:Subclasses and instances

User:Succu continues [6]. Tamawashi (talk) 21:10, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I moved Wikidata talk:Subclasses and instances to the users userspace, because I see no justification being in the main space. I think, it reflects a only his/her personal point of view. --Succu (talk) 21:14, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I have to agree with Succu. This page should be either in userspace or part of a WikiProject. The same applies for Wikidata:Administrative_territorial_entity. --Pasleim (talk) 21:59, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
Wikidata:Subclasses and instances is not a page stating containing personal point of views. If a page should be moved to the user space than a better candidate is Wikidata:Project chat which you both contribute too write "I think" and "I have to agree" statements, without any reference to a policy. Is this an "I like" game here, or do people work based on rules and reasoning? Tamawashi (talk) 22:42, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
The content was created by a single user (point of view). It includes the invention of new terms like Unrooted items. I see no consensus for this page at this place. The correct way of installing this is an rfc. --Succu (talk) 16:12, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Marking this as a draft was promptly reverted. --Succu (talk) 20:18, 11 July 2014 (UTC) PS: [7] [8]
Is this a trolling behavior? --Succu (talk) 21:23, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
If the concept of a root item in classification is new to you, then maybe use an Encyclopedia like English Wikipedia : [9]. Tamawashi (talk) 23:15, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: Please read en:WP:NOTVANDALISM.--Jasper Deng (talk) 04:31, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Groningen in Groningen and Groningen

On the page Groningen (Q749) for located in the administrative territorial entity (P131) (alias "is located in") it says 1) Groningen 2) Groningen. So it comes down to Groningen is located in Groningen and Groningen. I have seen things like this on items of non-English-speaking countries several times. I am not aware of examples from English-speaking countries, but would welcome to hear. Also it would be nice if some disambiguaiton information would be shown, e.g. the description or at least the Q-number. Tamawashi (talk) 12:41, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

You mean to show the description when looking at the claims on a Wikidata page? --Bthfan (talk) 12:51, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
Do you have another solution to make the page human readable? If identification of the linked item is not important, then why show it labels of linked items at all? Tamawashi (talk) 13:13, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
To me it was not clear what you meant with your post, so I asked... --Bthfan (talk) 13:18, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
I am sorry. After posting I already saw I read more into it than what was written. And I made a new reply, which ended in an edit conflict with you: "Yes, either that or show at least the Q-number as is done when using Template:Q, e.g. Groningen (Q892526). Then one could at least see that two different items are linked and that none is a self-reference. There are hundreds of items that are located in the area of an item with the same English label. This will increase if editors reduce names to base names, e.g. Foo Region to Foo, containing Foo Province (reduced to Foo) and the capital Foo." Tamawashi (talk) 13:24, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
Not sure where something like that would go to. Maybe bugzilla as feature suggestion? https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org --Bthfan (talk) 17:09, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
@Lydia Pintscher (WMDE): - could you look into this? Tamawashi (talk) 23:47, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
I intend to fix this with hover cards at the moment. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 06:31, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
What? Forum shopping again? Come on Tamawashi I already asked you at Talk:Q749 to please stop doing that! Multichill (talk) 12:52, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
What? Claim of forum shopping again? I already asked you to stop making false claims Talk:Q749. Tamawashi (talk) 13:13, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata:Properties

The new page Wikidata:Properties lists pages that are related to properties but not to specific ones. Additions welcome.

I manually expanded the outdated list at Wikidata:List of properties/Geographical feature#Administrative territorial entity identifier. Very helpful for expansion was Wikidata:List of properties/all in one table created by User:Snipre. I would suggest a bot creates such a complete list of existing properties, maybe even including one column showing the number of items that use the property. The suggested place would be Wikidata:Database reports/Properties/All, similar to Wikidata:Database reports/Popular properties. Tamawashi (talk) 21:17, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: Your new page is useless: you just create a new layer for naviguation. If you took the time to read a little the discussion pages you would see that the current classification of pages is completely outdated. My table is the replacement of all these subpages because it will be possible in a few time to add automatically to the table the different fields in which each property can be used. The best thing is to create a redirection from Wikidata:List of properties to Wikidata:Properties where the table I created is saved and to empty and delete all other subpages of Wikidata:List of properties. We don't need to create new pages, we need to concentrate the information to avoid between the different pages and to use tools and not pages to perform data selection. Snipre (talk) 20:50, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Your table has not all functionality of the other tables, so I would vote against deletion of the other ones. Regarding "Your new page is useless: you just create a new layer for naviguation" - I find this new layer helpful. The page tries to link all the dispersed information about properties and has a short name. Tamawashi (talk) 20:55, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
My table is not complete because we are waiting of some new functionalities about properties. But if you take the time to see the current pages you will that they are not updated, they don't reflect the current classification of properties (look at the properties proposal pages to see that the property classes are more than the subpages of list of properties) and the current subpages can't be extended due to a technical problem. Snipre (talk) 06:43, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

new GuidedTours at Wikidata:Tours

Hi all,

I am pleased to announce the release of two new GuidedTours—we now have interactive tutorials for editing items and for editing statements! Both tours are available from the Wikidata:Tours portal. Go ahead and try them out, and please share with others who may be interested. Feedback can be left on the portal talk page at Wikidata_talk:Tours —I'm also planning on conducting some user testing with people who are not already familiar with Wikidata.

I'm very excited to see these live and would like to extend a large *thank you* to Bene* who worked with me to implement the tours! We have a few more tours planned and I really hope they'll be helpful for getting new users comfortable and confident with editing.

Cheers. -Thepwnco (talk) 18:53, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you so much Helen and Bene*! I am so happy to see another piece fall into place of the plan to make Wikidata easier to use and understand. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 20:09, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Script error on page: Wikidata:List of properties/Summary table/en

Could someone please check out that "Script error" message and fix it? Thanks, --Emeritus (talk) 22:26, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

This has been brought countless times (if I could be bothered to look; I could probably hyperlink every word in this sentence). It is because of the limitation on Lua calls, there are simply too many. John F. Lewis (talk) 22:28, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
RfC started Wikidata:Requests for comment/List of properties. Tamawashi (talk) 23:39, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Pages do not load properly when using Firefox

I am mainly using Firefox 30, and I find out that data item pages do not load properly when using Firefox, including:

  • Not showing "(xx entries)" which should be next to "Wikipedia pages linked to this item"
  • When clicking [edit], instead of showing a field for inputing new link and the options [remove] [cancel] on the smae page, it links to another page in Special:SetSiteLink

However, such problems do not happen when using Google Chrome.--Itkit (talk) 08:06, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

I experienced similar problem for English language version. I also use Firefox 30. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:05, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
I can't reproduce your problems at the moment. If the problems persist, can you please give us more details about them? Do these problems also appear if you append ?debug=true to the item url? And can you look into Firefox's web console (Ctrl + Shift + K) and tell us what errors (if any) appear there? - Hoo man (talk) 14:59, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Somehow Q17305033 with ?debug=true works. Error messages from web console for plain Q17305033 are:

"JQMIGRATE: Logging is active" load.php:150 "Exception thrown by jquery.wikibase.listview" load.php:161 "TypeError: base._childConstructors is undefined" TypeError: base._childConstructors is undefined Stack trace: $.widget@https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%2CSpinner%7Cjquery.triggerQueueCallback%2CloadingSpinner%2CmwEmbedUtil%7Cmw.MwEmbedSupport&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z line 4 > eval:3:652 @https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery.wikibase.claimgrouplistview%2Cclaimlistview%2Cclaimview%2Centityview%2Clistview%2Creferenceview%2Csnaklistview%2Csnakview%2Cstatementview%7Cwikibase.ui.entityViewInit&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z&*:43:1 @https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery.wikibase.claimgrouplistview%2Cclaimlistview%2Cclaimview%2Centityview%2Clistview%2Creferenceview%2Csnaklistview%2Csnakview%2Cstatementview%7Cwikibase.ui.entityViewInit&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z&*:43:1 runScript@https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%2CSpinner%7Cjquery.triggerQueueCallback%2CloadingSpinner%2CmwEmbedUtil%7Cmw.MwEmbedSupport&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z:171:201 execute@https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%2CSpinner%7Cjquery.triggerQueueCallback%2CloadingSpinner%2CmwEmbedUtil%7Cmw.MwEmbedSupport&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z:172:384 mw.loader</<.implement@https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%2CSpinner%7Cjquery.triggerQueueCallback%2CloadingSpinner%2CmwEmbedUtil%7Cmw.MwEmbedSupport&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z:178:208 @https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery.wikibase.claimgrouplistview%2Cclaimlistview%2Cclaimview%2Centityview%2Clistview%2Creferenceview%2Csnaklistview%2Csnakview%2Cstatementview%7Cwikibase.ui.entityViewInit&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z&*:45:1 

load.php:161

"Exception thrown by jquery.wikibase.snakview" load.php:161 "TypeError: base._childConstructors is undefined" TypeError: base._childConstructors is undefined Stack trace: $.widget@https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%2CSpinner%7Cjquery.triggerQueueCallback%2CloadingSpinner%2CmwEmbedUtil%7Cmw.MwEmbedSupport&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z line 4 > eval:3:652 @https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery.wikibase.claimgrouplistview%2Cclaimlistview%2Cclaimview%2Centityview%2Clistview%2Creferenceview%2Csnaklistview%2Csnakview%2Cstatementview%7Cwikibase.ui.entityViewInit&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z&*:78:1 @https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery.wikibase.claimgrouplistview%2Cclaimlistview%2Cclaimview%2Centityview%2Clistview%2Creferenceview%2Csnaklistview%2Csnakview%2Cstatementview%7Cwikibase.ui.entityViewInit&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z&*:78:1 runScript@https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%2CSpinner%7Cjquery.triggerQueueCallback%2CloadingSpinner%2CmwEmbedUtil%7Cmw.MwEmbedSupport&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z:171:201 execute@https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%2CSpinner%7Cjquery.triggerQueueCallback%2CloadingSpinner%2CmwEmbedUtil%7Cmw.MwEmbedSupport&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z:172:384 mw.loader</<.implement@https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%2CSpinner%7Cjquery.triggerQueueCallback%2CloadingSpinner%2CmwEmbedUtil%7Cmw.MwEmbedSupport&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z:178:208 @https://bits.wikimedia.org/www.wikidata.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery.wikibase.claimgrouplistview%2Cclaimlistview%2Cclaimview%2Centityview%2Clistview%2Creferenceview%2Csnaklistview%2Csnakview%2Cstatementview%7Cwikibase.ui.entityViewInit&skin=vector&version=20140703T033303Z&*:92:1 

load.php:161

EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:20, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
This sounds like a caching problem to me... is it still an issue? Sadly the above errors aren't useful much, but I can look into this more, if needed. - Hoo man (talk) 15:35, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Looks like problem gone. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:00, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

10,000,000

instance of (P31) is our first property which is used more than 10,000,000 times! Congratulations, P31 :) --Pasleim (talk) 04:28, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

\o/ Second good news : it's instance of (P31) who is the first, as it could be expected. TomT0m (talk) 16:20, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

One can watch progress in item classification at Wikidata:Database reports/Item classification. User:Pasleim - could you make a bot update that list from time to time? Tamawashi (talk) 19:48, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: In the next few days I won't do bot update of this list, because I have already now a lot of pending tasks. --Pasleim (talk) 03:50, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

What's the best way to state the region for "regional" food?

'nuff said. --Magnus Manske (talk) 15:09, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

@Magnus Manske: I would say , but maybe there are more opinions. The property applies to part (P518) is in the process of being generalized to "applies to", and so far there was no opposition.--Micru (talk) 15:55, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Paella is a subclass not an instance of regional food. The paella that a person would eat is an instance of paella, but that would probably not pass WD:N. Tamawashi (talk) 16:07, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Tamawashi, that depends. A "regional food" has the same status as a "book", which has an abstract part (the receipe, the creative work), and the material realization of it (the cooked meal, the physical support). If you look purely at the material part, the realization of a receipe, then yes, of course it is a "class", but if you look at the abstract part, the receipe itself, then it can also be considered an instance of the "information needed to prepare this meal". See here for more details. Of course we could find some agreement for such cases, but it is not always clear.--Micru (talk) 17:56, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru:. Paella may be an instance of recipe, but it is certainly a subclass, not an instance of food. I do not think food and book have a concrete and an abstract part. Instances of books should also be concrete objets, and I really think the recommendation to use "instance of book" in Help:Sources is technically incorrect and should be replaced by something like "~text that can be made into a book~".
@Magnus Manske:. I would use "sublcass of food (Q2095)" (or any subclass thereof) and location of creation (P1071) for the place. --Zolo (talk) 18:40, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo, Micru: not using "subclass of" but only a subclass thereof can lead to Wikidata:Database reports/Constraint violations/P31 if at anytime an instance of that class is created. Instance vs class: If paella would be an instance of recipe, that would mean there could not be Paella-Variant-A and Paella-Variant-B subclasses, since instances cannot have subclasses. So, I would say it is just a subclass of recipe, one without child elements at the moment. That would be in accordance with "an instance has a unique location in space and time, while a class does not" stated at Wikidata talk:Item classification#Statements on difference between instance and class. Tamawashi (talk) 19:21, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo, Tamawashi: I agree with you both, but it is not how we are doing it now. If you check, there are many "instance of:album", or "instance of:movie". Instances should be only real, unique objects, like a "this one dvd", or "this one collection of bytes in my computer", everything else should be classes.
Zolo, the description of p1071 ("place where the item was made") doesn't match with your use suggestion ("place where a class is more commonly instanced"), but I guess it could be extended if there is no opposition.--Micru (talk) 19:51, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo, Micru: usefulness for items that use place made how it is now, is reduced then. For some classes it might be that all instances are made in one place, e.g. cars, coins, DOC vine. Tamawashi (talk) 20:23, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
@Tamawashi: : you're assuming your constraint has any sense and is something good for Wikidata. I don't agree. Do we need a community decision ?

Three separate items for drafters?

I noticed we have three very closely related items: drawer (Q15296811), drafter (Q683754), and architectural draftsperson (Q14623005). Are they all needed? Can we merge any of them together? If not, we need to make their distinction clearer. Cbrown1023 talk 17:35, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

The French Wikipedia has a page on each, so ... - Brya (talk) 20:19, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
The French link at Q14623005 appears to be a redirect. Del♉sion23 (talk) 23:06, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Yes, sorry (I should not edit so late). The German Wikipedia is the exception, but they appear very firm about it. Anyway, the english label "draughtsperson" for Q15296811 seems ill-fitting and misleading. - Brya (talk) 05:23, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

problem linking articles (Yeşilova, Aksaray)

Dear friends,

I'm trying to link the en.wikipedia article 'Yeşilova, Aksaray' to the de.wikipedia article 'Acemhöyük' (this is the same place). But I'm running into some technical glitch that already happened before (I brought it up here before). I keep getting error messages. I'm using Ubuntu/Linux.

When I try to link Yeşilova, Aksaray to Acemhöyük, this is the error message that I get:

″The link dewiki:Acemhöyük is already used by item Q8438175. You may remove it from Q8438175 if it does not belong there or merge the items if they are about the exact same topic.″

When, from the German side, I try to link Acemhöyük to Yeşilova, Aksaray, this is the error message that I get:

"The link enwiki:Yeşilova, Aksaray is already used by item Q8003207. You may remove it from Q8003207 if it does not belong there or merge the items if they are about the exact same topic."

People using some other computer systems apparently don't run into this problem.

Maybe someone can look into this (and link these pages, please)?

All the best. Y-barton (talk) 14:16, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

They indeed need to be merged, but I have doubts since the English article is about an existing town whereas the German one is about an archaeological site.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:54, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
"'Yeşilova, Aksaray' to the de.wikipedia article 'Acemhöyük' (this is the same place)" - it is not. In Turkish Wikipedia two articles exist, each linked to one of the items you want to merge. That would make two links for Turkish on one page -> error message. Tamawashi (talk) 16:03, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Thank you Ymblanter and Tamawashi. Now I understand why the merge didn't work. Nevertheless, I'm still wondering what action is appropriate to take in this case. Would it be a good idea to place a redirect in enwiki from ″Acemhöyük″ to enwiki:Yeşilova, Aksaray, and then link these two groups of pages through a redirect? Will this work?
Also, I have another related question. When I go to the Turkish page https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye%C5%9Filova,_Aksaray I see no interwiki links there at all. Is this some sort of a problem? All the best, Y-barton (talk) 02:43, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Y-barton: [10] - now they are there, I merged two items. Tamawashi (talk) 10:50, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons page before all other projects

@Lydia Pintscher (WMDE): Since Wikimedia Commons is relevant for users of all languages, as well as for users of different projects (Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikivoyage), and it will at most contain one line, could that be listed before all the other links? Tamawashi (talk) 15:56, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

The section will be renamed in the future and also contain meta, wikispecies, mediawiki and so on. I'd rather keep it at the bottom to be honest. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 16:08, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
@Lydia Pintscher (WMDE): - MediaWiki - a software website. Wikispecies a biology website, Meta - an internal project website. And Commons - the central media repository of the WMF, like wikidata is for Data. At Earth (Q2) there are already now 241 links before commons. Would you reveal the reasoning for wanting to keep it so far down? Tamawashi (talk) 19:42, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
With the new layout these sections will be collapsible, moved into a sidebar and can be re-aranged. So this will be much less of an issue. I intend to keep Wikipedia at the top though by default. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:16, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Calendar model: only display attribute or storage model?

Hi. According to this page, calendarmodel of time type is part of storage data, i.e. defines the value of stored time (i.e. we need to know both calendarmodel and time to convert to Gregorian calendar). But according to this page, calendarmodel "should be used to display this time value". So, which page is correct? Also, this page mentioned that "after" and "before" are not used. Is this correct or not? -- Vlsergey (talk) 23:21, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

@Lydia Pintscher (WMDE):, could you forward this question to developers, please? I need correct formal answer to update documentation, JavaScript gadgets and LUA modules according to it. -- Vlsergey (talk) 09:48, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
We always store it as Gregorian and the calendar model indicates what it should be displayed as. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:42, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Wrong merges

I had worried that this will happen, and it did happen - I just discovered 10 items on administrative units in Thailand, which were wrongly merged into same-named items on different units. The damage done by the merge itself is relatively easy undone, asking for undeletion and doing two reversion. But much more work were the linked items - instead of questioning a merge of two items which had links from other items (not to talk of a different description, statements with different values), all of the links were simply changed to point to the new target. I hope I could find and revert all. Really hope the real redirect will come soon, that will make it much easier to revert wrong merges... Please, when reviewing merges be more careful, I know it is a stupid routine job and in 95% of the cases the merge is justified, but with the 5% quite some damage could done. The worst of the 10 - the Wikivoyage articles on a village on the island Ko Samui (Bang Rak (Q14203501)) was merged with a district of Bangkok (Bang Rak (Q302711)). Ahoerstemeier (talk) 15:33, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

@콩가루:. Pinged so that they are aware. Indeed people should be careful when merging. Del♉sion23 (talk) 15:49, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
@Ahoerstemeier: At least one Wikipedia with at least a stub for each could prevent such things. I looked at the items, for the class item "district of Bangkok" there is only one article in the Russian Wikipedia. So, not even the classes are covered well. Another way to reduce chance for wrong merges between different types of administrative entities would be to include the class name in the label, the village would be "Bang Rak" and the khet would be "Bang Rak District". So, any of the "Washington County" would less likely be merged with "Washington". Tamawashi (talk) 10:36, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
As far as I know, things like "County" don't belong into the item label. The description was filled correctly, and if the one who did the merge would have read it, he/she should have noticed that the two are different things. And even if adding the type to the name - for example there are about 30 subdistricts named Nong Bua in Thailand, so you want to have a full disambiguated name as item label? Having robot created articles in one Wikipedia isn't a good idea either, we have enough problems with robot articles already, see the tenthousands of dupes with the robot created taxons. And which Vietnamese will ever edit an article on a village in Turkey - but they have all those as robot created articles (and many of them have items which must be merged with the item linking the article on the Turkish WP). Having a junk Wikipedia to have articles only there to prevent wrong merges it a very queer solution to this problem. And not sure if the Thai Wikipedia would be happy to have all those articles automatically created, so far there are no robot articles there. The merge game is a risky thing, it makes things easy which take quite some work to clean up, on the other hand there are still lots of duplicate items still to be found and done. The problem would be smaller once we have the redirects here, then a wrong merge could be undone easily - no undeletetion, no need to fix the incoming links, just two edit to revert. Ahoerstemeier (talk) 11:20, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Ahoerstemeier: As far as I know, things like "County" don't belong into the item label. - where does that knowledge come from? Yes, the description for the Thai entities look very good, congratulations. Maybe the merge game does not show description? Tamawashi (talk) 11:57, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for my wrong merges...--Konggaru (talk) 17:10, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Desert Island Discs; other BBC programmes

Hundreds of notable people have appeared (a few, twice) on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs. These are listed in subpages of List of Desert Island Discs episodes. For example, Brian Eno (Q569003) was on (and was thus the subject of) the programme with URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0093zkh (which includes the permanent, unique BBC programme identifier ("PID"), "p0093zkh"). How should this be shown? Should we have a specific Desert Island Discs parameter, or a generic "was subject of BBC programme", which take a PID or URL as a value? (Note that we already have BBC programme ID (P827), and that PIDs are also used for BBC TV programmes) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:00, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Another such programme would be The Life Scientific (Q15642834). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:39, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Adding "Q" parameter to Property documentation template

We need to add a parameter to {{Property documentation}}, to note the associated "Q" item. Please can someone help? See Template talk:Property documentation#Adding "Q" parameter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:56, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

New complete easy PHP lib for accessing and manipulating Wikibase sites

Hello all!

This is just a quick note to say that I have finished implementing my wikibase api library which can be found here called wikibase-api. The new release is 0.2 which covers all aspects of the wikibase api, getting entities, merging items, creating claims etc.

The library uses a few other custom libraries for interacting with the mediawiki api but then uses many of the same libraries as using in Wikibase itself, such as the data model, datavalue and serialization components. I have already seen some use of the library and if anyone has any comments / needs help just ask!

Enjoy! ·addshore· talk to me! 15:47, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Duplicate information with occupation and subclasses

Hello there,

I've noticed that over the last few days/weeks some of the items on my watchlist have gotten new claims with property occupation and value musician although they already have a claim that they're a composer which is a subclass of musician. Examples of this include Michael Giacchino and Jerry Goldsmith. I do think this is just duplicate information and the musician claim should be removed. I did try to find earlier discussions about this but failed and I'm a bit reluctant to remove this information without knowing it's the right thing to do. So should I go ahead and remove the musician claim again or is this valid information? --Mineo (talk) 17:08, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

@Mineo: This is not a problem. A class regroup individuals who have same characteristics. Musicians are people who plays music. Perhaps even musicians might not have music as a main occupation. In languages such as OWL2, classes can be defined with a so called Class expression, for example the class Musician can be defined as Human or animal who has music as an occupation or hobby. In those languages, and OWL is an inspiration and a precedent for us all to build Wikidata. Classes are also useful for defining guidelines for properties. For example if we have a property plays instrument, we can define the constraint that usually item who will have this property are instances of the class <musician>.
Of course then there might be an abuse and we could define a lot of classes. As Emw likes to state, in OWL classes might not be explicitely stated, and can be inferred by a program who understans class expressions. Wikibase itself can not atm and it's not in the roadmap atm.
In the case of Musician though, I don't think it's a problem to use this class as it's obviously a class we use all the times. When we say Musicians make life happier for example. We refer implicitely to people who plays music.
We should add words about this in Help:Classification. TomT0m (talk) 19:38, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Mineo, good point, I agree that claims like "Michael Giacchino occupation musician" can be removed given that the claims "Michael Giacchino occupation composer" and "composer subclass of musician" exist. TomT0m's explanation of class expressions in OWL is interesting but seems unrelated to your particular question. Emw (talk) 19:57, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
    Oh, you're right, I've been confused. Actually maybe this highlight something : there is a possible confusion beetween occupations as a class of occupations and classes of all people who have this occupation. As they are both classes, there is no way we use the same item here. TomT0m (talk) 20:38, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Arguably, a musician is not restricted in the same manner as a more defined "occupation". Was Frederick the great a musician or both a flautist and a composer?? Or is it best to indicate that he was a musician and dabbled in composition and playing the flute?? Given that we use occupation it is clearly wrong in either case.
An other argument to use musician is that many of our sources do not differentiate between the many roles. As at this stage the lack of information is out biggest problem, it is to be preferred to harvest such information now and once we have decided what is the best approach we can easily modify in any which way. We need data first. That should be our game plan for now. GerardM (talk) 07:42, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
  • You are right, using the occupation property for Frederick would be wrong, but that's an entirely different problem :-) I'm also not sure how the vagueness of sources relates to my question because I was specifically asking about cases where the sources are *not* vague (= we know what kind of musician the person is).--Mineo (talk) 08:49, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Many Wikipedia do not make that distinction and consequently you will have both "occupation"s. GerardM (talk) 10:52, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

@Emw: any tool or query that could detect instances that have a "instance of A" and "instance of B" where "A" is a subclass of "B"? Tamawashi (talk) 11:26, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Example for subclasses of musician (Q639669): in AutoList2. At the moment there are 1037 items with redundant claims. Infovarius (talk) 21:42, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Software skipping top result in drop-down suggestion

For some reason the software is not including the top result (e.g., the country for Brazil, Q33999 for actor) in the drop down suggestions in the search bar or when adding a new statement. Cbrown1023 talk 19:07, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

We're looking into it right now. Hopefully fixed soon. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:06, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Fixed now. Cheers, Hoo man (talk) 15:31, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
@Lydia Pintscher (WMDE), Hoo man: It seems to be happening again. I noticed it with actor (Q33999) and Poland (Q36). Cbrown1023 talk 20:54, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Yeah I was also just told on IRC -.- My gut feeling is that the patch we had was somehow wrongfully reverted. Investigating. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 21:01, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Fixed again. Sorry. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 21:30, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick action, Lydia! Cbrown1023 talk 23:59, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

How to handle currency amounts, and other unit amounts

A normal way to store monetary amounts in a database would be to use two properties, a currency amount property and a currency property (qualifier). This is how I always used to go about this when designing and coding database software for financial companies.

Reasons for this:

  • the currency amount data would be numeric data only (no $ symbols, etc), this allows for mathematical operations to be carried out on the data
  • if a new currency is introduced, there is no need for any new coding. Just a case of setting up a new item for that currency, and use it straight away.

This method could probably be used for other types of unit, such as kilometers, kilograms, and so on, for the same reasons as above.

Should we adopt this approach? If so, we can go ahead and propose new properties on this basis. Danrok (talk) 14:51, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

You already know https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Property_proposal/Pending/2 or better said https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Property_proposal/Pending/2#Currency ? The current approach depends on a Number datatype with a dimension (so unit), but this data type has not been implemented yet as far as I see this. --Bthfan (talk) 21:15, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Actually by looking at your user page you're probably already aware of this pending data type. Not really sure what is blocking this data type at the moment (development resources?). --Bthfan (talk) 21:20, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Era

How do I show that Aymestrey burial (Q17351670) belongs to the Early Bronze Age? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:15, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I also miss a property for dating that is not year based. How do I state that Siljan Ring (Q4993174) was created during Devonian (Q65955)? /ℇsquilo 13:11, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
@Pigsonthewing, Esquilo: There is valid in period (P1264). Is that what you are looking for?--Micru (talk) 13:17, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Not really. Anything about Siljan Ring (Q4993174) that was valid 100 million years ago is still valid. It is still an impact structure, it is still in Sweden etc. /ℇsquilo 17:46, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

GSoC '14- Wikidata Web Annotator : Final Testing Phase, Bug and Improvements

This is an update report for Wikidata Web Annotator under GSoC'14 I have almost made everything ready for testing. I have setup the test site here. First login using OpenID to authenticate with the Pundit software. Try selecting some text, then use annotate text option, futher use Pundit's triple composer to compose triples using selectors and vocabularies retrieved from Wikidata. Subject and Object are to filled with Wikidata Items, while Predicates with properties. Check for notebooks(in Pundit notebooks are the containers for annotations) in right most corner of the plugin by clicking on your name > selecting manage notebooks. Notebooks must be public for push to work. Now after annotating use Push to Wikidata button as shown in the figure below

 
Push to Wikidata Button

This will open a new window where you can select which annotations are to be pushed. You must authenticate with Wikimedia before doing that as Wikidata is fed by using your Wikimedia username. After this select the annotations you want to push and the click on the 'Push annotations' button, status column will show you about the progress of the push.

I have tested it but not completely. I have checked for most of the cases like: 1. If claim exists-> then try to push references only. 2. If not create claim -> then push references. These are just example of cases I have checked upon, there is much more. You all are welcome to test the Annotator so we can further move on to package it as plugin. Discuss the issues, bugs etc. Also test page may take time to load.

 
Workflow

Example page which has been fed with this annotator is https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2336535. In this item, claim for P277 has been wholly added with references via Annotator. While claim for P106 was already existing and I have added references to it via Annotator.

Here is flowchart showing the workflow:

For closer look check here http://www.gliffy.com/go/publish/5918718

Repository for all these can be found here 1. Main source including modified Pundit : https://github.com/apsdehal/WikidataAnnotationFeeder 2. Login and API handler: https://github.com/apsdehal/WAL 3. Middleware App: https://github.com/apsdehal/Bajo

Please feel free to add issues or Pull requests there. --Apsdehal (talk) 14:14, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Maybe I have missing something but pundit (Q2336535) is "indigenous surveyors who explored regions to the north of India for the British..." and you have added programmed in (P277). Why? --ValterVB (talk) 18:24, 15 July 2014 (UTC) ps URL is breack.
@ValterVB: I think it is because Apsdehal was using Q2336535 as a sandbox (see item talk page).--Micru (talk) 08:48, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Multiple claims when a person has received an award multiple times?

When a person has received an award multiple times (for example in different years), should one then tag this with multiple claims like this:
award received (P166)="some award", qualifier: point in time=2002
award received (P166)="some award", qualifier: point in time=2010

or use multiple qualifiers for one single claim?
award received (P166)="some award", qualifiers:point in time=2002, point in time=2010

Personally I think the first approach would be correct, but then I also saw the second one already on Wikidata. --Bthfan (talk) 21:31, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I have used the second (ex. Farciot Edouart (Q11284)) for the OSCAR, but maybe the first is better for the source. --ValterVB (talk) 21:43, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
I tend to use the first format when dealing with things like position held (P39) or member of sports team (P54), because those tend to be more complicated with both start dates/end dates and other qualifiers. Awards are pretty straight-forward right now, so we might be able to get away with using multiple qualifiers on one claim, but I think generally it'd be better if we stuck to separate claims for each to allow for the possibility of more qualifiers in the future. Cbrown1023 talk 23:57, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Second is better, because additional qualifiers may be used (per Cbrown1023) -- Vlsergey (talk) 05:50, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
The award is awarded twice and consequently it should show up twice. This does not happen with the second option in Reasonator for instance. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 09:26, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
The first one is better because it allows for more qualifiers for each award. /ℇsquilo 13:00, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Proposing item merge and merging

Hoi,

I've nominated/proposed two Wikipedia articles which describes the same person for merging. I know Wikidata Game can be used for merging. But how do I nominate items for merging? Also merging without the game. Items involved Q17323735 and Q17320640. --Enock4seth (talk) 12:05, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I would enable the "Merge" gadget at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets in your settings. Then you get a "Merge with..." link/button at the top of the Wikidata website under the "More..." menu. With that one you can easily merge two items. The problem in your case though is that those items have interwiki links that conflict with each other. Both have a link to the English Wikipedia, a Wikidata item can only store one link per Wikipedia (language). So this one also needs to be resolved at the English Wikipedia, those two articles probably should be merged into one single article. BTW: Did you manually insert the time stamp in your signature? Somehow looks wrong ;) --Bthfan (talk) 07:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Bthfan, the problem is the merge on Wikipedia, Wikidata behaves fine.

−

I was wondering the same thing, and since I do tend to merge items now and then on English Wikipedia after noticing this with two Italian articels I went ahead and merged them (gasp!) the Italian Wikipedia. So far I received no backlash, but the guy was very dead and the info looked 100% covered. This one is going to take some time, because it's a recent death and they are both new articles. The same rules hold as for here: oldest article trumps newer one, so I would say "Castro de Destroyer" is where the item should point to, but it's best to just wait it out a week or two - I see a merge template is already in place. Jane023 (talk) 07:54, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
@Ebraminio: ideally, I think that when the two items to be merged have sitelinks to the same language, MediaWiki:Gadget-Merge.js should display a message asking if the two articles are really about the same topic, and if we click yes, it should send a message or add a Template:Merge (Q6919004) to the articles. --Zolo (talk) 09:54, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
What a really great and creative idea but it would be subject of another gadget IMO. I wrote merge.js when there were no merge API and anyone was doing merge (moving each of claims and sitelinks) manually. IMO it should just do things that would be easy review and revert-able by other users and a cross-wiki request Template:Merge adding is outside of its goal however I will not stop anyone else to implement such ability on merge.js itself. Just IMHO requesting content merge is a prestep of an actual item merge, you see a lot of specially lengthy articles on enwiki that is not merged after years of requesting merge and this essentially could be related on activity of that wiki community so it is not an action that after a request and just a short time would be possible. This can be subject of a bot that automatically request merge for Wikipedia communities and check if community done the content merge then do the Wikidata items merge –ebraminiotalk 15:07, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
@Ebraminio: Maybe we should start by marking the item as a duplicate here on Wikidata. Something like Wikimedia duplicated page (Q17362920) (perhaps using a "duplicate of" property rather than an "of" qualifier, but you see the idea). Would that be difficult to adapt the tool so that it can automatically add it ? --Zolo (talk) 17:24, 15 July 2014 (UTC) + copy-edited: Zolo (talk) 17:54, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo: You mean property ? this is a detail, but it's a claim about the item, not about its type. TomT0m (talk) 17:48, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@tomT0m: Yes, I meant property sorry (fixed above for clarity). -Zolo (talk) 17:54, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo: Sorry I didn't get any notification. Hmm, and a bot can track the item actually, I like the idea. –ebraminiotalk 16:20, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

I have encountered duplicate articles in the same language in the past. If I feel like trying, I look for the templates in that language, to propose mergers:

I assume it's the same in most languages as on English Wikipedia:

  • On the article with the better name: {{mergefrom|Some worse name}}
  • On the article with the worse name: {{mergeto|Some better name}}

or if you don't know which is better:

  • {{merge|The other name}} on each article

The help page for each project is Wikipedia:Proposed article mergers (Q11773605). --Closeapple (talk) 21:08, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

ttwiki duplicate Barack Obama

The Tatar Wikipedia (ttwiki, татарча/tatarça) has two articles for Barack Obama. First, for Barack Obama (Q76), there is tt:Барак Обама, which I guess is language tt-Cyrl. Then for Q13202704 there is tt:Barak Obama, which I guess is tt or tt-Latn; it has a template that says "Bu mäqälä Tatar (Latin) Wikipediäseneñ saylangan mäqälälär rätenä kerä." I don't understand that language. Is that allowed on ttwiki? What does that template mean? (@Dobroknig: because that's the only active user with Wikidata:Babel en + tt.) --Closeapple (talk) 20:28, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

For Estonia (Q191) too... I've created duplicate Q17363906 as a temporary solution. --Infovarius (talk) 21:53, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
I've left a message at User talk:Dobroknig#2 articles on ttwiki? that points here. I hope that user sees it: I think that is the only user that knows both English and Tatar. It looks like the user appeared here every week or so for the last month. --Closeapple (talk) 15:36, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

New editor removing sitelinks

I don't know who they are but they are still there. And their vandalism often remains unreverted [11]. Please join the fight against them ! And it should be done regulary. From what I understand only the last 500 of them can be found easily, after that they disappear from recent changes and from the visible World alltogether. --Zolo (talk) 09:19, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Or you can watch this page: User:KrBot/Lost links. — Ayack (talk) 09:33, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo: and it's something easily detectable (sight). TomT0m (talk) 10:41, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
@Ayack: I did not know the report page, it is actually much better. --Zolo (talk) 12:00, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
I am working on it every day but more help is certainly welcome.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:15, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
@Ymblanter:, yes actually the situation seems better than I thought. It sometimes takes one or two days before being reverted, but at the end most of them get done. The most problematic cases seem to be with languages that are inintelligible to most contributors, like Japanese. --Zolo (talk) 07:14, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
There are some cases when an editor replaces a link and the old one is not attached to Wikidata. In these cases I usually do not act, except if I know the language AND the subject.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:25, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
I didn't know about that helpful page until today. Thanks KrBot, nicely done! I have looked at the Japanese items. Two needed new items, one was probably a confused IP user (two areas in Scotland with the same name), and the other was probably just random vandalism. FWIW, I have been watching RecentChanges for some time now, and it is exceedingly rare to find vandalism or mistaken edits for Japanese, there is not so much need to worry about Japanese at least. --Haplology (talk) 14:05, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Monuments UK

This year's Wiki Loves Monuments UK would like to try something new: Instead of managing objects in large tables on Wikipedia (shudder), they should be proper Wikidata items! We are talking about English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland grade I and II* buildings; a first estimate is 50,000 objects. Quite a few of them are already on Wikidata, and all of them should be automatically notable due to their grade status. I will soon get the "official" lists of objects, write a tool to find the ones we already have, and to create the ones we are missing. At the very least, objects created through this tool will have name, coordinates, grade status, and possibly short descriptions and "administrative unit". Through the previous and upcoming WLM, most of them should also get an image or two. I just wanted to get everyone here up-to-date, and prepare you for a potentially large influx of building items without Wikipedia articles. I think this will be a major win for both Wikidata and WLM! --Magnus Manske (talk) 10:42, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikidata:Cultural heritage task force--Ymblanter (talk) 12:17, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
I see you're lacking UK data there ;-) --Magnus Manske (talk) 12:27, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
I took the liberty to fix your title. This year Wiki Loves Monuments won't be an international event although some countries are running local events. Not sure about the UK.
Over the last weeks I've been importing Rijksmonument (Q916333). I'm now at about 20.000 out of 65.000. I'm using the data from the Monuments database. Shouldn't be too hard to do this for other countries too, the UK is in the database. Multichill (talk) 16:54, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the welcome here! As part of the process we will be updating the UK data using the most recent information from the official listing authorities. --62.7.191.176 07:21, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Main page redesign

Hey folks,

As part of my internship and continuing efforts to improve outreach for Wikidata, I'm now working on updating the Main page. I've put together a summary of areas for improvement and recommendations for a redesign at Wikidata:Portal_Redesign; please review and comment when you can. You can leave feedback or other suggestions at Wikidata:Portal_Redesign#Feedback—ideas and brainstorming on possible visuals to include and ways of featuring fresh and dynamic content (without the need for constant maintenance by users) are very welcome!

FYI, I am also now working on a redesign mock-up of the Main page and will be sharing this in the upcoming days so there will be another opportunity to give feedback before any changes are implemented. Looking forward to your comments! -Thepwnco (talk) 17:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

How to handle native language names?

What's the best way to handle native language names and labels? For example, we usually wouldn't use a Chinese, Cyrillic, or Greek script for an English label, so we'll transliterate it into Latin/English and use that (e.g., 李卓鑫 → Q6539344, Велимир Милошевић → Velimir Milošević (Q12749668), Αλέκος Λουμπαρδέας → Alekos Loumpardeas (Q16909134)). However, what should we do with the name in the original script? That's probably information we want to keep in Wikidata. I've been adding it in as an alias, because my transliteration might be wrong or someone might search for it that way, but do we have a better way to handle this or a property for it? This might be waiting for the multilingual datatype, but I figured I'd ask. Cbrown1023 talk 03:15, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

For one thing, the name in Russian should be used for the label in Russian. I would also support adding more string-type "name" properties, but that is a tricky and disputed issue. We currently only have P513 (P513). There is also family name (P734) and given name (P735), but they are of item-typed.--Zolo (talk) 07:19, 15 July 2014 (UTC)ced: Zolo (talk) 07:49, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
I use P513 (P513) for handling this. — Ayack (talk) 07:33, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, typo, this is the onle I meant to cite. The description states "only if different from current name" which seems a bit strange. This property is monolingual while there is one label per language, so there has to be languages where the label is different from the birth name (we currently only have item-type properties for that and that seems a bit fragile). Beside I would split between name and surname. On the whole the name-properties ecosystem seems to remain incomplete. --Zolo (talk) 07:49, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
For Chinese names, I would use the Pinyin romanisation for people who are generally associated with or live primarily in the People's Republic of China (e.g. Hu Jintao (Q15029)). For people who are associated with or live primarily in the Republic of China (Taiwan), then I would use the Wade-Giles romanisation system, which is more popular there (e.g. Tsai Ing-wen (Q233984)). For people who lived in ancient China (i.e. pre-Republic era), I would use pinyin for their label and put Wade-Giles as their alias. If a person is better known under a certain scheme of romanisation, the practices prescribed above should be ignored, which is the case in Sun Yat-sen (Q8573). —Wylve (talk) 10:59, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Wylve: After reading your comment it seems that a qualifier "transliteration system" could be used to modify p513 (or a future monolingual property). Would it be useful?--Micru (talk) 11:17, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Indeed that would be useful. However, we also need to account for "home-grown" transliteration systems or unofficial, yet somehow prominent, transliterations that don't follow any established system. —Wylve (talk) 11:24, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
That's not a problem, there can be an item for "custom transliteration" or just use the property and set it to "unknown value".--Micru (talk) 12:16, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

@Wylve, Cbrown1023, Micru: Maybe you start Wikidata:Romanization to document what is happening and then link this with Help:Label. ROC changed to Pinyin, so I would use Pinyin as a default for both. (en:pinyin: Pinyin, or Hanyu Pinyin, is the official phonetic system for transcribing the Mandarin pronunciations of Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet in the People's Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan),[1] and Singapore.) Tamawashi (talk) 11:48, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: I would prefer to have a generic Wikidata:Names and have a section about transliteration there. Btw, the property proposal is here: Wikidata:Property_proposal/Generic#transliteration_type.--Micru (talk) 12:16, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Tamawashi: I would argue against using pinyin for ROC. Although it was made official, it is not used by that many people. As a rule, I would follow however a person spells their romanised name. —Wylve (talk) 12:19, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Wylve: We can have them all, but yes, I also would set the one that the own person has chosen as "preferred rank".--Micru (talk) 12:27, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Wylve: "Although it was made official, it is not used by that many people." - Could that please be documented and sourced somewhere, be it Wikidata:Names, Wikidata:Proper names, Wikidata:Romanization or Wikidata:Transliteraton? So that maybe less people do what they think is right? Tamawashi (talk) 12:54, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
I am not clear about how this transliteration property would be used. It seems to work best as a qualifier of some string-type name property. But currently, the name is mostly expressed through two item-type properties family name (P734) and given name (P735).
reminder: previous related discussion at Wikidata:Requests for comment/Personal names. --Zolo (talk) 13:29, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo: The transliteration property would work as a qualifier of any property with string or monolingual datatype. Nominative properties that use the item property, can also make use of this property by using a generic label property and qualifying it with "transliteration type".
Ideally the label system of item pages should be refurbished to link somehow the properties that contain labels and the item labels themselves. But since, as per Lydia, that is not going to happen any time soon, maybe someone can figure out a bot that copies the strings into the aliases (if needed). --Micru (talk) 14:02, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru:. Digging a bit the Tsai Ing-wen example. How do we say that here wade-giles name is Tsai Ing-wen and here pinyin name Cai Yingwen ? For the surname we could have
We could have to do the same with the given name (even though there may not be much to say about it. It is not like a traditional European given name that may have Wikipedia article because it is shared by many individuals, points to calendar-level saints etc. Essentially, it is just the string that was made up by the parents of Cai Yingwen so that it can be used as a name by their daughters)
So, with current name-properties the only solution I see to get from Tsai Ing-wen (Q233984) to pinyin = Cai Yingwen would be creating items about every name and surname and fetch the transliteration from them. --Zolo (talk) 16:36, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that could work to some extent, perhaps using family name (P734) and given name (P735) as qualifiers of P513 (P513). I'm also thinking that a "name type" qualifier could be useful, because it would convey what to expect from the name (structure, order, etc). It is not the same to have a Spanish name (given name + (optional names) + 1st surname + (optional particles) + 2nd surname), than a w:Chinese name (surame + name).--Micru (talk) 18:05, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
family name (P734) is to link to articles about the surname which may have a number of different spellings. I would expect these to be in the various language labels and aliases.
The Official Name Proposed Property is awaiting the monolingual datatype. We felt string was not appropriate. This is for the exact name of the person or item in their own script. If the item has official names in more than one language or the name has changed over time then this property can have multiple values. I agree that unofficial (or official) transliterations of these names would also be useful and proposed a couple of properties for this but the proposal was not approved. One problem is that a transliteration property works best as a qualifier but you can't have a qualifier to a qualifier to tell you which transliteration system was used. Filceolaire (talk) 22:14, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Date format for years<100

Please, see comment on en:Module talk:Wikidata#Date error for years of 1st century. It seems an inconsistent date format for dates of the 1st century. --Vriullop (talk) 19:42, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Hungarian honoured artist

Hoi, The Hungarian and Russian honoured artist categories were intertwined. I have created a new item for the hungarian category and artist. I have added statements for all humans in that category and I removed them from the Russian category.. There may be more stuff in the Russian category that is wrong I can not tell.

I can do either of two things. I can clear the current data and add data based on the category or I can do nothing further. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 16:56, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Gerard, would you please post the links.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:31, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Q17370480 and Q4187990 GerardM (talk) 19:37, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
There are not so many links. You can drop the matter, I will take care of them. Thanks for noticing.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:15, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
<grin> what did you do, it is also a question for future reference ... ? GerardM (talk) 20:59, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
I went through the list of articles which refer to Q4187990 (this is an article not a category btw) and checked that all of them are honoured artists of Russia, not Hungary.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:37, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
There is a category as well ... GerardM (talk) 23:27, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Unreliable English Wikipedia

@Ladsgroup: I checked ca. 10 claims P313 that had Svilengrad - they were all wrong. Correct is Svilengrad Municipality, example: [12]. Most or all are based on edits by Dexbot. The algorithm that made these may have caused hundreds of wrong claims. Tamawashi (talk) 00:42, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

when the bot is importing wrong data from Wikipedia, please at first fix it in that Wikipedia (specially when the wiki is the biggest) and please inform me exactly where the issue happened. I use lots of checks to catch the errors but if people don't tell me when bad data have been imported I can't fix it. By the way 10 errors in more than 200K data is acceptable for me. Amir (talk) 01:57, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
@Ladsgroup: it was 10 errors in 10 items checked for that set. I wrote "The algorithm that made these may have caused hundreds of wrong claims." - I don't know which algorithm you used here, the bot edits don't reveal that. I don't even know what item(s) in English WP you used as source(s) for your claims, so even if someone would like to "fix it in that Wikipedia" he may be unable to know where. And, no, I will not fix errors in that Wikipedia. For geography of Bulgaria it is unreliable. Tamawashi (talk) 10:35, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
It's error in places that their P131 is a municipality and they are in Hungary, I can say it won't be more than 500. Can you check some of places like this and list them to me? (somehow, e.g. using Autolist) and after that I will fix them Amir (talk) 00:33, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
@Ladsgroup: Maybe next time you ping, I just came back here because Kameno Municipality has the same issue. It is Bulgaria, not Hungary. The villages are not in Foo, but in Foo Municipality. How can you say it won't be more than 500? BG Wikipedia lists ~250 templates for municipalities. So, if there are more than two items per template I would assume it could be more than 500. The templates also indicate the type, Село=village, Град=town. Could the bot add an algorithm number to each edit and the algorithm be published with that number somewhere? So users could see how many items might have been affected. Or at least put a description, e.g. importing from municipality templates from BG Wikipedia. Tamawashi (talk) 04:33, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Linked Data Interface

According to the Linked Data Interface data about an item or property can be obtained from its URI, where the file format of the data can be selected through content negotiation by extending the URI with a postfix to indicate the file type, such as .json, .rdf, or .nt. For example http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q42.rdf.

However, the information contained in http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q42.rdf basically contains only label-related data in all languages. What is missing now, are statements that relate this item to other items like "place_of_birth Cambridge". The corresponding wiki URI, i.e.https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q42, contains more informations - in particular the section about Statements.

Linking only to labels shouldn't be called "Linked Data" since the labels are dead ends or sinks, i.e. literals do not have properties that would point to other items. In other words, the network work of this "Linked Data Interace" consists of isolated islands, because the connecting properties are not rendered.

Either I am missing something here or the "Linked Data interface" should be supplemented with all the missing properties. Pingking (talk) 23:25, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah it is simply not finished :) Help welcome. Tracking happens at bugzilla:48143 --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 07:08, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata for non-WMF wikis

Hi from Czech Republic! I would like to ask wikidata devs, if it will be possible (or already is) to use wikidata on non-WMF projects. The outsider wiki I come from uses already medua from commons and cooperates happily with wikipedia in other matters and would like to extend this collaboration with WMF projects by including information stored at wikidata in our infoboxes. Thank you for your answer and a have nice weekend. --Wesalius (talk) 05:41, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

It is not possible for a 3rd-party wiki to access the data here in the same way Wikipedia does yet. It is a long-term goal to enable this. What is possible is for you to hack something up that uses the API and gets the data. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 07:06, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

removal of persondata

On enwiki, every few months somebody ask a question about persondata's existence. The answer I usually give is that it probably will go away with Wikidata now here. I see one bot, User:SamoaBot, grabs data from the persondata's "short description" parameter. On SomaoBot's page, it states it still acquires this parameter.

Long story short, from a Wikidata prospective, is persondata still useful or can it be dropped? Bgwhite (talk) 18:29, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

It can be dropped. -- Vlsergey (talk) 18:57, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
'running intermittently' means there are no currently known obstacles to that task, and that I could run it at my discretion, but I do not recall having run that task in these months. However, tons of data have already been imported, and now it is up to the English Wikipedia community to decide whether they still want those data within articles. My RFBot in 2013 was not accepted. --Ricordisamoa 21:53, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Before ripping the persondata out of all the enwiki articles, would it be possible to convert the persondata to a lua template that grabs it back from Wikidata? That would be very useful to have, especially for new stubs and articles where the places and day/month of birth or death have yet to be added to the article. Jane023 (talk) 08:58, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
That's something that should be done in infoboxes, not the persondata template. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:17, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
This may be true for English Wikipedia (I don't know), but e.g. the German Wikipedia does use persondata templtes, but generally no infoboxes for biographical articles. So any effort put into generating benefit from the connection of persondata templates and Wikidata might at least help the German Wikipedia, even if the English Wikipedia has other ways to produce the same results. --YMS (talk) 12:04, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Concerning the persondata template in de.wikipedia: For those capable of reading German, please read the last two sections at Hilfe Diskussion:Personendaten/Archiv/5 (Wikidata and Organisation eines reibungslosen Umstiegs). The gist of the argument: Please no wikidata values for that template. --HHill (talk) 12:41, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Speaking as someone who uses Persondata on their own personal project, I worry that my useful source of data is going to disappear. Whilst I agree Wikidata is the better solution, I have yet to see an explanation on how Wikidata keeps the data accurate. For example, when someone dies, Persondata is updated within minutes! What process is in place to update Wikidata? Periglio (talk) 01:21, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
There are currently 3177 people categorized in en:Category:2014 deaths (11 articles in the category are not about people nor animals). There are currently 3174 people and 6 animals in Wikidata with a 2014 death date + a link to en.wikipedia, so the difference seems negligible. Wikidata relies a lot on Wikipedia to add these dates, but I do not think it uses persondata anymore, so removing them would not hurt. But I may be wrong on that.
What process is in place to keep en.wikipedia persondata accurate ? If there is a good one, it can probably be transferred to Wikidata. -Zolo (talk) 07:28, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
Do WikiData accept "death date" without a reference? 2.110.98.101 23:37, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I've noticed (and corrected) two cases just recently (highlighted as bugs in the revision history statistics display) where date of birth was present in Persondata but not in wikidata, even though date of death was in both. We should probably deal with such cases before removing information from the affected articles. --Mirokado (talk) 04:30, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

An RfC on en.WP has now been opened. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:17, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Class vs instance - Languoid

I made:

subclasses of languoid (Q17376908). Current links to that item: Special:WhatLinksHere/Q17376908.

Now using languoid for data testing:

  • Subclasses in autolist2: 159 [13]
  • Instances in autolist2: 8028 [14]

Since a language has no location at a given point in time, the instances are probably all false. Tamawashi (talk) 14:05, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Correct. Spoken/read language is an active process and written language is an unexecuted process, and as such they cannot be instances (unless we refer to a particular word written or spoken). The funny thing is that the label of Property:P31 in German is "ist ein(e)" ("is a"), label that is normally reserved for Property:P279. It would make more sense to have more user-friendly labels, but I'm not sure if we have enough social capital to find consensus.--Micru (talk) 14:20, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
What about e.g. dialect continuum (Q215844)     ? Until now I've been using instance of: language (Q315)      (also known as "dialect") for dialects too, is this incorrect? It has "dialect" as an alias, so I thought that's what you were supposed to use... πr2 (t • c) 19:27, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
Dialect continuum is one type of Languoid. There are a number of dialect continuums which are 'instances of' 'dialect continuum'. This means 'dialect continuum' is a class, not an instance and should have the 'subclass of (P279)' property, not instance of (P31). Filceolaire (talk) 20:35, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
I edited 'Languoid' to add a description, from Wiktionary, and make it a subclass of 'abstract object'. Filceolaire (talk) 20:35, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
I think we are safe with the class/token relationship using the following definition : a language is a set of conventions used by humans to communicate. Then languages are localized in time and space : at a given moment a set of people can communicate because they share these conventions. Then <modern french> is the set of conventions in use right now for french speaking people. <québécois> is very close, so those two languages belongs in a tight language family (a class of languages). TomT0m (talk) 14:03, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Class vs instance - programming language

Hi there,
I see that you are actually removing instance of (P31) and add subclass of (P279) instead on items about software or programming languages. I would ask you for stopping that, because its wrong. Your edits would be reverted like I did already ([15]). There is a consent that instance of (P31) would be used for this. Greetings, --#Reaper (talk) 00:00, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
PS: During writing this may already got obsolete. (See here.) Posting just for information.

@Reaper35: - please show where I added "subclass of a software" recently. Tamawashi (talk) 00:07, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
I'm sorry, looked to fast at the item labels. I must correct myself, I only mean programming languages. --#Reaper (talk) 00:17, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@Reaper35: - Thank you. At least one editor here, that corrects himself. Tamawashi (talk) 00:21, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@Zolo, Micru, Filceolaire, Emw: - see above, another instance of use of "instance of" instead of "subclass of". Sadly some abusive admin blocked me, so I cannot talk about that in the project chat, but it would belong to Wikidata:Project chat#Class vs instance - Languoid. Tamawashi (talk) 00:07, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
The topic in the project chat is a bit different in my understanding. At least to say: subclass is rather to understand as "(sub)type of", so subclass won't fit for these topics and its items. I'll take another look at the long discussion at WD:AN tomorrow. Good night, --#Reaper (talk) 00:17, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@Reaper35: Why? It is about languages, abstract objects. Apart from that, many have different versions, e.g. there is no single PHP language. Tamawashi (talk) 00:21, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
There was already an discussion about abstract objects (or/like virtual things) and "instance of" at the beginning of both properties a bit more than a year ago. The consent is, that also these object could be an instance. (Otherwise there could never be an instance of an (programming) language (or software too, btw.)) At least there is only one actual definition of (as example) the PHP language. Older Versions aren't part of / would be "ignored" by this project (Wikidata), as long there no special item or other need for them. (Btw: The definition and its official implementation is here placed into one item, too. Unlike C++ or C. But thats would be ok.)
So this would also fit for the "real" languages (ok, at least I'm not familiar with this science) and would also fit with websites and similar you edited recently.
Greetings, --#Reaper (talk) 00:37, 20 July 2014 (UTC) (PS: No need to ping me (twice too) on this page, I'm watching it now.)

User:Reaper35 claims Java is an instance of a programming language:

I see that you are blocked but replying quickly before I forget. I am not a computer scientist, but from the definitions I find on Wikipedia. Java is an instance of programming language. Java SE8 is an instance of computer language version. Generic Java is an instance of programming language dialect and the bits of memory that allow my computer to run Java is an instance of machine implementation of a programming language (or whatever it is called, it is not an instance of programming language, as a programming language is an abstract object). --Zolo (talk) 08:08, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

@Zolo, Micru, Emw: Wikipedia is not reliable source for how classification is done in Wikidata. Zolo, is Java SE8 a subclass of Java? If yes, then Java is a class, right? Tamawashi (talk) 01:17, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Subclass of two different things

How to we account for items which are a subclass of two distinct things? Example biocide which can be a chemical substance or a micro-organism. But with the way the data is structured it will look like all items below it in the tree will be both a chemical substance and a micro-organism, rather than one of either. Is there a way of fixing this that I'm not aware of? Thanks. Del♉sion23 (talk) 21:17, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Split the item? --ValterVB (talk) 21:22, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
I've learned from discussions with Emw to be open minded: Belonging to subclass of (P279) means all and nothing.--Succu (talk) 21:38, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
Jabs aside, the statement "x subclass of (P279) y" means "all instances of x are also instances of y", per rdfs:subClassOf.
The question Delusion23 asks is more interesting. What do the statements below mean?
subclass of microorganism
subclass of chemical substance
It means that any instance of biocide is an instance of microorganism and chemical substance. In other words, it means that any biocide is both a microorganism and a chemical substance. Having multiple subclass of statements means that the subject is a Boolean AND of the object of each subclass of claim. It is the intersection, not the union -- see page 14 here. Thus those subclass of statements lead to the unintuitive and incorrect statement that something can be both a chemical substance and a microorganism. Chemical substance and microorganism are disjoint; anything that is an instance of both classes implies an inconsistency (a falsehood) among our statements.
This example from Delusion23 indicates that we need a way to express union -- i.e. Boolean OR. We should do this in a way that is easily compliant with W3C standards and the fact that subclass of (P279) has the semantics of rdfs:subClassOf. Emw (talk) 01:23, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Indeed, handling of and/or claims is something that often seems lacking. Also, the ability to indicate weather something is mandatory or not, i.e. a bottle can be made of glass, plastic, but neither are mandatory. But, it is mandatory for a gold watch to be made in part from gold. Danrok (talk) 02:06, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Mandatory and optional property restrictions can be achieved with expressions like "all gold watches has part(s) (P527) gold" and "some bottles has part glass". This requires universal quantification (∀) and existential quantification (∃), which are supported in OWL as owl:allValuesFrom and owl:someValuesFrom, respectively.
These complex statements would be awkward to capture in the current UI. They require class expressions. The human-readable, W3C-standard way to make such statements is with Manchester Syntax -- a good overview and comparison is here. We would likely need some UI innovation to suitably enable class expressions, which would allow us to make these more complex -- but very interesting and important -- statements. Emw (talk) 02:35, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
What about something like volleyball (Q1734)? It's listed as a subclass of both team sport (Q216048) and ball game (Q877517). We should probably only have one, but which? Both of those are in turn listed as a subclass of sport (Q349), so we'd be losing out on some information if we only put one. Cbrown1023 talk 03:19, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Those statements are technically correct: volleyball is both a ball sport and (i.e. Boolean AND) a team sport. There is a separate aspect here about information architecture worth considering. Most properties could have captured with multiple instance of or subclass of statements, e.g. "volleyball subclass of ball sport", "volleyball subclass of team sport", "volleyball subclass of ball-over-net sport", "volleyball subclass of non-contact sport", etc. This is a bad smell. Instead of cramming everything into instance of or subclass of, domain-specific properties like "equipment used", "setting", "team or individual", "contact allowed" would allow for more precise and expressive modeling. In general, items should have 1 or perhaps a few subclass of or instance of to avoid treating them as catch-all properties. This is a loose corollary of the software design principle to "favor composition over inheritance". Emw (talk) 03:59, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Emw: Not as flexible as Manchester notation, but we could do something like:
--Micru (talk) 07:50, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Micru, unsurprisingly, I think something closer to Semantic Web standards would be best. The limited UI makes that difficult, but the closer we can align to W3C standards like OWL and Manchester syntax the better.
For example, the "type of statement" qualifier prototyped in the links above casts ∀ as "mandatory statement" and ∃ as "one of these". I would prefer to use "only" for ∀ and "some" for ∃, as Manchester syntax does. The Manchester OWL Syntax has a great overview, including design considerations and implementations in popular ontology editors like Protege. The Protege UIs shown there would be a good thing to work towards, but, of course, developing a suitable UI for complex statements would likely take over a year. Qualifiers are probably the best option we have.
I was originally inclined to suggest using the generic applies to qualifier for this. However, section 1.2 of the paper linked above describes a common misreading of quantifiers that we should be careful to avoid (and not facilitate):
Coupled with the problem of containing cryptic symbols, the syntax for restrictions is a prefix syntax. That is, the restriction quantifier precedes the role/property name and optional filler. It has has been observed that this can lead users to initially read restrictions incorrectly. For example, many users initially read, ∃ hasTopping MozzarellaTopping as, "some pizzas have toppings that are mozzarella topping", compared with the correct reading, “all pizzas have toppings that are some mozzarella topping”.
—The Manchester OWL Syntax, Horridge et al., page 2
Design patterns like ONLYSOME and an XOR operator (which, in hindsight, would the correct thing to use for the biocide example above, not OR) are described on page 7. We might be able to capture very simple universal and existential quantifications with qualifiers, but more complex and informative statements will likely take Wikidata development resources. Emw (talk) 12:38, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Emw: In the same way that perfect is the enemy of good, technicalities are the enemy of usability. Whenever there is the choice between a "perfect OWL compatible solution" and a "usable solution in Wikidata", we should be biased towards the second, because there is no point in having something perfect if our colleagues cannot figure out how to use it.
Anyhow, since more elaborate solutions are not possible at the moment, let's focus in the qualifier needed first, and later on we can discuss which items and which labels can capture the possible cases in an easy way.--Micru (talk) 13:06, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

@Delusion23, Emw, ValterVB, Micru: It's a subclass of none of them if both classes are disjoint. Following ValterVB, there could be

  • "biocide (c)" subclass of chemical substance and subclass of biocide
  • "biocide (m)" subclass of microorganism and subclass of biocide

if there is an intersection

  • "biocide (cm)" subclass of chemical substance, subclass of microorganism and subclass of biocide

The other solution is to tag items as biocide and of the other two.

I just change isotope [16]. Tamawashi (talk) 11:14, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: It's unrelated and you change does not make any sense to me. What are the instances of <isotope> if isotope is a class ? Just name one.
⟨ isotope ⟩ subclass of (P279)   ⟨ atom ⟩
would mean "the first oxygen atom ever is an isotope instance". But an isotope ... of what ??? TomT0m (talk) 11:29, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@TomT0m: "What are the instances of <isotope> if isotope is a class ? Just name one." - This makes no sense. 1) Instances don't necessarily have a name. 2) Classes don't necessarily have instances. Tamawashi (talk) 11:36, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
The statement "isotope subclass of atom" is correct. I agree with Tamawashi on that. Also in agreement is ChEBI, the reference ontology for chemicals: see e.g. oxygen-18 in ChEBI, which is marked as a subclass of ("is a") oxygen atom. Emw (talk) 12:45, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Emw: Absolutely not ! he modified the general isotope concept, not any isotope class ! You don't understand the difference ? TomT0m (talk) 15:33, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
TomT0m, Tamawashi, all instances of isotope are also instances of atom, thus "isotope subclass atom" is indeed correct. However, all instances of atom are also instances of isotope, so "atom subclass of isotope" also holds. Thus atom and isotope are equivalent classes. (For those unfamiliar with OWL, "A subclass of B" and "B subclass of A" entails "A = B". See the note at the bottom of the section on owl:equivalentClass for reference.) Similarly, oxygen and isotope of oxygen would be equivalent classes. If you disagree, then please suggest an example of a subclass or instance of atom that is not also one of isotope, or vice versa, or a subclass or instance of oxygen that is not also one of isotope of oxygen, or vice versa.
Thus, a better way to model isotopes is as the ChEBI ontology does, for example "oxygen-18 subclass of oxygen". ChEBI notably does not state "oxygen-18 subclass of isotope", but I think would could reasonably diverge from ChEBI here, which would enable retrieving the result set "isotope of oxygen" by querying "x rdfs:subClassOf oxygen AND x rdfs:subClassOf isotope". Emw (talk) 02:03, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
@Tamawashi: If a class has no instances, then it's equivalent to the bottom concept, whose only interest in a model is to be the bottom concept. The empty class, nothing, said differently. <Isotope> is not the bottom concept, it is a class of concept whose <Oxygen-18> is an instance of. But I'm REALLY tired to repeat that without having a convincing anwer. TomT0m (talk) 15:33, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
That is not correct, TomT0m. The most widely-cited ontology in the world, Gene Ontology (GO), has no explicitly-declared instances, but none of its classes are nothing. See for yourself: download Protege, open the GO ontology from the URL http://www.geneontology.org/ontology/go.owl, go into the 'Entities' tab, and then the 'Individuals by Type' tab. You will see no instances; there are no instances defined for any classes in Gene Ontology.
In fact, none of the ontologies in the OBO Foundry -- which GO is an example of, and which together are probably the main driver of OWL development -- have any instances. This derives from observation that:
The ontologies in OBO are designed to serve as controlled vocabularies for expressing the results of biological science. Sentences of the form 'A relation B' (where 'A' and 'B' are terms in a biological ontology and 'relation' stands in for 'part_of' or some similar expression) can thus be conceived as expressing general statements about the corresponding biological classes or types. Assertions about corresponding instances or tokens (for example about the mass of this particular specimen in this particular Petri dish), while indispensable to biological research, do not belong to the general statements of biological science and thus they fall outside the scope of OBO and similar ontologies as these are presented to the user as finished products.
— Relations in Biomedical Ontologies, Barry Smith et al., 2005
This is likely what Tamawashi meant in saying "Classes don't necessarily have instances." Subclasses of an isotope like oxygen-18 obviously have instances -- e.g. an atom of oxygen-18 floating in your room -- but those instances fall outside the scope of Wikidata. Like any of those OBO ontologies used throughout biomedical research, the fact that Wikidata does not have any items about instances of oxygen-18 does not mean that oxygen-18, being a leaf node in a concept hierarchy, needs an instance of statement to avoid being inferred as nothing, i.e.  , the 'bottom concept' from description logic, i.e. owl:Nothing from the Web Ontology Language.
Claims like "oxygen-18 instance of isotope" are incorrect, per Semantic Web conventions as defined in OBO and other ontologies and the philosophical definitions of class (type) and instance (token) discussed in papers like Relations in Biomedical Ontologies and The Role of Foundational Relations in the Alignment of Biomedical Ontologies. Instead, we should correctly state "oxygen-18 subclass of isotope". Emw (talk) 03:39, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
@Emw: I still think you are dead wrong on this, and just one analysis of your query "x rdfs:subClassOf oxygen AND x rdfs:subClassOf isotope" to prove this : let's say isotope is an equivalent class of atom Then a reasoner could substitute the query to "x rdfs:subClassOf oxygen AND x rdfs:subClassOf atom". Then as any instance of oxygen is also an instance of atom, then the second member of your query is redundant, and your query is x rdfs:subClassOf oxygen. Which by the way can get any subclass of oxygen, not just isotopes.
On the classes with no instances : I was talking of instances in the real world, not of instances in this database.
Claims like "oxygen-18 instance of isotope" are incorrect They are useful, and I think saying CheBi does not do this but I think we can makes you out of the line to say this. Your source does not do this for a reason, you can't make them say something they do not do, and then because of something they did not do make me say something incorrect.
The discussion with pure substance of the other day were more interesting :) TomT0m (talk) 06:49, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

TomT0m, the claim "oxygen-18 instance of isotope" is incorrect not because ChEBI doesn't make it, but because it would contradict ChEBI and the usage of instance of and subclass of throughout all of the most widely used biomedical ontologies. The particular statement "oxygen-18 subclass of isotope" is not in ChEBI, but it would not contradict anything there.
Given statements like "oxygen-18 subclass of oxygen, isotope", the queries to do what we'd want are straightforward:
  • Get only classes like oxygen-17, oxygen-18 and oxygen-19:
SELECT ?subject WHERE { ?subject rdfs:subClassOf oxygen . ?subject rdfs:subClassOf isotope . }
  • Get all subclasses of oxygen and isotope:
SELECT ?subject WHERE { ?subject rdfs:subClassOf* oxygen . ?subject rdfs:subClassOf* isotope . }
Note that the only difference between those queries is the asterisk (*) that appears after rdfs:subClassOf. The asterisk enables computing transitive closure in SPARQL. As we see, it is very straightforward to disable inference to get the desired result set. Of course, many users presumably won't be directly writing SPARQL queries, but exposing some control in a user-friendly query UI like "Enable inferencing" would get the same result.
So we see that we can maintain compatibility with existing major ontologies and preserve a consistent meaning for subclass of while also enabling easy retrieval of things like oxygen-18. Emw (talk) 19:16, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@Emw: You claim that we break compatibility with other ontologies, that's absolutely wrong. I don't add any inconsistency. I claim this way of doing, relying on non transitive queries is incorrect and non robust because it is non robust to inferences : the query does not work at all if we actually make the logical inferences. So a reasoner, who will make the inferences, with the same query, can not retrieve the actual isotope classes. And the whole point of beeing logically sound is to make inferences : our models have to be inference robust : you give us a query who works from your criteria without using inference as well, I ask you to provide a query that works with inferences turn, ie. with a real reasoner who will, him, make the inferences. This is a keypoint to good modeling : not rely on a set of conventions on how we built the model, but rely on the actual axioms : to a reasoner, there is no difference beetween a subclass of we actually put in Wikidata database and a subclass of relations he inferences, obviously : he can just logically safely add it to the set of facts. And if to classes are equivalent, then the set of facts he can infer grows a lot, or became smaller : he can safely forget one of the classes. Which totally breaks the query. Your query does not meet the inference robustness model criteria. And there is no point in using really strongly defined languages like OWL and carefully written ontologies if the whole point is not to use logics on them, this would be a really big contradiction in the way we build things. Your subclass of usage here does not make sense : it's so obvious isotope classes forms a metaclass : that is logically sounds, does not break any major ontology as the don't model the <isotope> concept itself ... Your Template:Oxygen-18 is not backed by an ontology, that's a fact, whereas a class of classes is no precedent, is logically sound and achieves inference robustness. It's therefore useful and a natural way to model things. 09:10, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

@Emw: With "Classes don't necessarily have instances." in my reply to User:TomT0m's "What are the instances of <isotope> if isotope is a class ? Just name one." - I meant exactly what I wrote, this had nothing to do with the scope of Wikidata, specifically all classes in the "abstract object"-tree have no instances and all instances should belong to some specific tree, probably physical object. User:TomT0m's statement seemed to imply if something is a class it must have an instance, and his later comments at least for me, had more indications of thinking that I find no proof for, e.g. ("If a class has no instances, then it's equivalent to the bottom concept, whose only interest in a model is to be the bottom concept." - philosphy is a bottom concept?). There are more funny statements: Q9121 - atom 1) instance of molecular entity 2) subclass of matter 3) part of matter, molecule. I changed [17]. What the relation to matter is (part or subclass), I have no time to decide right now. Tamawashi (talk) 10:26, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

I align with Emw's statement that Claims like "oxygen-18 instance of isotope" are incorrect. Correct would be: "oxygen-18 (one atom) instance of oxygen-18 (representation of all oxygen-18 atoms)".
I also align with TomT0m statement that isotope is NOT an equivalent class of atom. They are different generalizations of atomic occurrants.
And also Tamawashi is right, we should start from the very bottom and then build up, NOT the other way round.
FIRST we have something, then we decide what it is, and depending one its characteristics it can belong to several categories. The problem here is that we don't have an item that represents "instance of one atom that it is also the instance of one isotope of oxygen-18 that is also instance of matter". Instances are the joining point between all category trees, and not the other way around.--Micru (talk) 11:47, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Difference

What is the difference between female organism (Q43445) and Weibchen (Q1304841), and male organism (Q44148) and Männchen (Q1957296)? Del♉sion23 (talk) 17:54, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Hmm... no idea why the English label was changed from female to female animal... --Stryn (talk) 20:09, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
I think I have worked it out. The latter are about the diminutive word. I have changed the en labels and descriptions to reflect this. Del♉sion23 (talk) 20:57, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
No. It's not a diminutive. In English Male and Female are used to refer to both animals and to people. In some other languages there is a distinction, with different words used. See the description of sex or gender (P21) for how these items are used with that property. Filceolaire (talk) 23:12, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
See Wikidata:Project chat/Archive/2013/03#Statement p21 (sex) should not use q43445 (female) as value. LaddΩ chat ;) 19:19, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@Filceolaire: I thought we use female (Q6581072) for female human, not Weibchen (Q1304841)? Q6581072 is the one linked to through P21. 130.88.141.34 08:55, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Selecting male is no longer easy and obvious

Hoi, the "male" option for "sex/gender" is no longer part of the options on the first list. It is an additional value.. This makes it rather tedious to make humans male.. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 09:59, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

@Lydia Pintscher (WMDE): I think that there is a group working on this in the development team. They are the same people that made it so that common properties appear based on popularity (a great improvement for finding and entering missing statements). I think the same thing will eventually be true for items for each property e.g. the two most common items "male" and "female" will appear at the top for sex/gender. This makes it easier for users to find, and less likely for newbies to select the wrong ones. Del♉sion23 (talk) 10:09, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Correct :) --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:13, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@Lydia Pintscher (WMDE): Eventually is of little use, now; especially for such a high-usage parameter/ value pair. This needs a fix, ASAP, please. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:28, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@GerardM: A work-around is to tag them as "male animal" (the two should be merged anyway; comments passim) and a script can later convert them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:37, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@GerardM, Pigsonthewing, Delusion23, Filceolaire, Stryn: Please ensure you read read Wikidata:Project chat/Archive/2013/03#Statement p21 (sex) should not use q43445 (female) as value before merging these sex items. LaddΩ chat ;) 19:14, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@Laddo: I've read it a long time ago, and I'm well aware of it. Thanks anyway for reminding. --Stryn (talk) 19:17, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
I am also aware of it and have no desire to merge the items. Cheers. Del♉sion23 (talk) 19:53, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Fair, just wanted to be sure you guys knew about these older discussions. LaddΩ chat ;) 22:26, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
The reason seems to be that male was added as an alias to male animal. I suggest to remove that again. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 10:09, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Two dates of death

Yashiki Takajin (Q3545819) has two dates of death, Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:14, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I resolved that and added a source for the correct date of death --Bthfan (talk) 07:26, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Rugby identifiers

Can we create in bulk some rugby-related properties? All of them would be String datatype:

  • Barbarians
  • All Blacks
  • British Lions
  • French Barbarians
  • Pro12
  • ErcRugby
  • ItsRugby

Were they already proposed by someone else? When and how to make such a proposal? AuthorityControl/People? --Ricordisamoa 22:28, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean with rugby-related properties here? Those names look like rugby teams to me, so you could just create new items for them...? Or do you mean certain properties are missing to describe those teams? --Bthfan (talk) 06:43, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
@Bthfan: those are also names of identifiers for rugby players, as used by it:Template:Link statistiche rugbisti a 15.   proposed as "person". --Ricordisamoa 15:22, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Property proposals are at WD:Property proposal. There are Property:P861 and Property:P858 already, these kind of things can be done. 130.88.141.34 09:24, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Item needs splitting?

Does the item Jeanna Giese (Q261564) need splitting? Some link are about a person, the others are about a protocol. 130.88.141.34 10:08, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

  Done into Milwaukee protocol (Q17394776) --Ricordisamoa 15:56, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks :) 130.88.141.34 16:05, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

ResearchGate

Does anybody know if Reasearch Gate has some identifiers we can extract? The have a lot of pages about institutions: https://www.researchgate.net/institution/Universitaet_Potsdam (University of Potsdam (Q153012)), and also about people https://www.researchgate.net/researcher/21718598_R_P_Feynman (Richard Feynman (Q39246)). The number that appears before the name, doesn't seem to be an identifier, because it is missing from many pages, but the number alone will also link to the correct page (https://www.researchgate.net/researcher/21718598). They also seem to have some machine created pages that have misspellings: https://www.researchgate.net/researcher/2033091646_R_P_Frynman. -Tobias1984 (talk) 12:29, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Gadget-DraggableSitelinks.js

It is an improved and working version of User:Inductiveload/scripts/draggableSitelinks.js by Inductiveload. If you agree, I'd make it a real gadget. --Ricordisamoa 16:49, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Many wrong coordinates

I've created a list with items, which have either wrong coordinate location (P625) or wrong country (P17) values: User:Pasleim/Implausible/coordinate.
Feel free to fix some of them. There might be some false positives, if I got the country borders wrong or if the item is spreading over several countries.--Pasleim (talk) 22:31, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Nicely done! I've struck the ones I've fixed. A couple were confusing so I skipped them. --Haplology (talk) 06:03, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Guess any bot should be programmed not to import the coordinate 0°0'0" N 0°0'0" E. All the Thailand articles I fixed had that nonsense coordinate, because the article had an empty coordinate template. Ahoerstemeier (talk) 07:37, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Q1469808 is an Antarctic research base owned by Ukraine, so that the coordinates are obviously outside the Ukrainian borders. I would welcome all ideas how to solve this.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:02, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Heritage sites shared by two countries are also difficult: Q3370031. Plus rivers which flow through multiple countries: Q14383 :( 130.88.141.34 15:12, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
There are also changes of country like Q46475 which depending on the start/end date belong to a country or another. Antarctic bases like Q403043 are also hard, can it be said that they are in a country?--Micru (talk) 15:32, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

One issue appears to be confusion over what "Country" means in each context. Does it mean "Located in", "Belongs to", "From here", "Made in", all the above? 130.88.141.34 07:56, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

So the best would be to delete country (P17). For "located in" there is located in the administrative territorial entity (P131). There is also applies to jurisdiction (P1001). Tamawashi (talk) 23:49, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

I updated the list and removed for now all items with multiple P17 claims. --Pasleim (talk) 19:35, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages mixed with normal pages

This autolist page contains items that claim "instance of = Wikimedia disambiguation page" but also have other common properties not usually in items that are disambiguation pages. There are over 1,800 that need working on. Most will be because normal articles and disambiguation pages have been mixed together and so need separating. Any help in tackling this would be appreciated. Cheers. Del♉sion23 (talk) 00:22, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

This list appears to overlap with this list of Kazakh articles on places, which are contained in disambiguation items. Over 1100 of them :( Del♉sion23 (talk) 13:28, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
BTW: The autolist list there is already down to 1650 items. --Bthfan (talk) 10:05, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Down to 1603 now :) 250 down in less than 2 days, great progress everyone! Cheers. Del♉sion23 (talk) 18:30, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
The mostly easy ones are probably done now ;) (though there are still quite a few left). Most items I fixed were items where multiple Wikipedia links about different places were within the same item. Easy items to fix were disambiguation pages about places in USA or at least having an English article (or German as well in my case). There you could compare census data or various geodata IDs from the Wikipedia articles to sort this out which Wikipedia article belongs to which item. Places/location infoboxen were also useful to compare the various Wikipedia pages in a structured way. I also noticed a few geodata errors in the Wikipedia articles and notified the Wikipedia editors of this. --Bthfan (talk) 19:01, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Good idea. If the mistake is in the Wikipedia article, it will only creep its way back into Wikidata over time. I've found that the tt and ce.wikipedia ones have been the most challenging due to neither language being translated by Google translate. Down to 1,553 now :) Del♉sion23 (talk) 22:33, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
htwiki seems to have quite a few bad articles regaring location/places in the USA. Looks like they did some mass-import of places a while ago, those articles lack almost any details (you sometimes don't even know what location an article is now about, those roughly say "[foo] is a town in California, USA" ;). These articles I just kept on the disambiguation page item. --Bthfan (talk) 22:50, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Finding Twitter users

How may find (in a human readable form) all the people (not organisations/ brands) who have a Twitter account listed in Wikidata? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:53, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Here is a list on autolist that includes everyone with "instance of = human" and "website account on = Twitter". Hope this helps. Del♉sion23 (talk) 16:31, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
That's very helpful, thank you. I wonder if it's possible to go one step further, and get a list of their Twitter IDs? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:38, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
In AutoList you can specify values that you want to see.. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 17:55, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
How? πr2 (t • c) 04:42, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Use of Wikidata content in Wikipedia so far

Hello, since I just started using Wikidata, for me the question arises, how widely is content from Wikidata used in Wikipedia pages yet?  – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Alepfu (talk • contribs).

Have a look at the templates in the category Category:Templates using data from Wikidata (Q11985372). It might not be complete, but you get a good impression. --Pasleim (talk) 15:20, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
@Alepfu: (edit conflict) From the looks of the results of this RfC on enwiki, it's appropriate to modify existing infoboxes to permit Wikidata inclusion when there is no existing English Wikipedia data for a specific field in the infobox, but it's inappropriate to use Wikidata in article text on English Wikipedia. So, Wikidata's not widely used on WP yet. --AmaryllisGardener talk 15:23, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
The situation in French Wikipedia but I think it is similar in others: Wikidata is not much used in infoboxes yet. But it is relatively widely used for external links like VIAF ID (P214) and for geographical coordinates --Zolo (talk) 20:27, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Again mobbing by a user

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.

This is being discussed at WD:AN#Ongoing harassment. Please use that venue for further discussion.--Jasper Deng (talk) 21:06, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

At [18] I made pretty clear rules for that page. But now Succu came to that page again, with a nonsense statement. He says he is sure that I can explain something. Yeah, super. Me too. But how can I stop this nasty user from coming to my talk page? Tamawashi (talk) 20:33, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

You could try responding normally instead of reverting users. This is a community project. You can't just put a message on your talk page and ignore the rest of the community. This is exactly the kind of behavior that got you blocked in the first place.
Back to the original question. In this edit you removed at object-oriented programming (Q79872) the subclass of object-orientation (Q2011845) and you replaced it with activity (Q1914636). That seems to be a bit odd at least and I understands why Succu would like you to explain it.
And to make this clear. This is not mobbing. Next time you falsely accuse another user of things you will get blocked on the spot. Multichill (talk) 20:46, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
"You can't just put a message on your talk page and ignore the rest of the community." - Actually, I did put rules for the page and I am listening to others and talking with them. "Ignoring the community" is more done so by Succu, who is re-creating constraint violations for P17 and or P279. "This is not mobbing." - what then is mobbing in your definition? Tamawashi (talk) 20:58, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
@Multichill: "I understands why Succu would like you to explain it." - He didn't say so yet. If you know more, please show where he asked for explanation. Tamawashi (talk) 21:00, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: Also, project chat is not for user conduct complaints - please do limit such posts to WD:AN in the future.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:52, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

That doesn't work, since John F. Lewis opposed me posting there. Tamawashi (talk) 20:58, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
@Tamawashi: Because forum shopping is inappropriate, even more so at venues which are not for issues of this kind.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:59, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
You are forcing pages from the English Wikipedia Project space on users involved in the Wikidata Project? So, what is the venue in your opinion? At AN John F. Lewis opposes. Here you oppose, do you? Tamawashi (talk) 21:03, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
The guidelines are no less relevant. And quite honestly, I would just close the AN thread too, but it is the appropriate venue now for discussing this. It's just that, you would've been much better off not posting in either place in the first place.--Jasper Deng (talk) 21:06, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Programming a subclass of object orientation but not of activity?

Moved to Wikidata talk:Item classification after concerns of venue by User:Pasleim Tamawashi (talk) 21:30, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Interwiki links in Arbic wikipedia and Commons

Hello.There are Interwiki links in Arbic wikipedia and Commons (example).Who can make a global bot to expulsion these links to here? --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 14:36, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

There is an bot-flag request underway for commons interwiki links at Wikidata:Requests for permissions/Bot/SamoaBot 39. For the arabic wikiedia interwiki links you might wan´t to ask at Wikidata:Bot requests.--Snaevar (talk) 14:25, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Compare categories

Is there any tool that can compare the contents of categories on different Wikipedias? For example, items which have links in sv:Kategori:Diptera yet also links in en:Category:Plants. This would check for incorrect links. Del♉sion23 (talk) 22:42, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Try User:JVbot/wikipedia-sync.py.
syntax: wikipedia-sync.py -qid:Q123 -once JAn Dudík (talk) 09:18, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Adding TimeValue with Autolist

I want to add some dates using Autolist and and Wikipedia categories. Problem is I don't know how to format a date statement to efficiently add this information to Wikidata, I can't find any documentation for this and the interface doesn't allow me to see how they are formatted. How would I, for example, format a statement to add publication date (P577) to a bunch of film (Q11424)s that were released in 1944? Is it at all possible? Väsk (talk) 15:59, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

@Väsk:. I do not think there is any way to add a date from autolist at the moment. Autolist2 is an independent tool developed by a volunteer (user:Magnus Manske), not a built-in feature of Wikidata, so it cannot always support all the features of Wikidata's software. :). --Zolo (talk) 13:38, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
You can do it with QuickStatements; you'll need to prepare a "tabbed" text to paste in. --Magnus Manske (talk) 15:44, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

first draft for Main page redesign ready for review

Hello again,

thanks for everyone who left feedback on the Main page redesign planning page. As promised, I've put together a first draft for the new Main page at Wikidata:Portal_Redesign/draft and would love to hear your comments and suggestions - please leave your feedback on the talk page.

Major changes include the following:

  • moved language links down the very bottom of the page (currently they eat up a lot of important real estate at the top of the page)
  • updated the "quick links" at the top of the banner/header (currently we just link to Statistics)
  • added in a visual right at the top of the page - this is just a placeholder and could either function as a banner OR a rotating/dynamic slideshow (see Wikivoyage for an example of a main page with both a banner and slideshow)
  • added in other images and screenshots; updated link for "Wikidata in action" item to one in Reasonator that is more visually appealing
  • added a new section, "Learn about data," that will ideally communicate what structured data is to those who don't already know (note: supporting content is still under construction)
  • added a new section, "Discover," with the intention of highlighting and/or featuring tools, applications, queries, WikiProjects initiatives, showcase items, etc.
  • removed "Use Wikidata on your wiki" section (it's important content but I don't think necessary to have on the main page, at least not at this stage in the project)
  • merged "News" and "Staying up-to-date with development" sections together
  • re-named "Contribute" section to "Get involved" - got rid of some of the links and clustered them together to make it a more manageable list
  • made "Welcome!" section one column that takes up half the page instead of one that spans the entire length of the page
  • made all sections one colour - green. This was just easier to work with as I moved sections around to different places but I thought I'd leave as is while collecting feedback

Just a note - the placeholder image at the top (File:Wikidata_POTW_Candidate_11_(Plain_Map).JPG) comes from Wikidata:Picture_of_the_week - other ideas for infographics or images that would make good banners are more than welcome. While I like the placeholder one and think it's both visually appealing and relevant to conveying some of what Wikidata can do, it also does look very similar to the Wikivoyage banner.

Looking forward to your comments. -Thepwnco (talk) 20:01, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

The draft of the main portal seems good but the picture is more similar to the propagation of a virus than something about knowledge. I would prefer another picture or at least to modify the colors of the proposed picture. Snipre (talk) 11:23, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
The draft of the main page is a step in the right direction. I have three pointers. Firstly, like snipre mentioned the map picture is neither relevant nor helping the overall look of the page. Secondly, I´m not getting the point of the arrows between the links to Introducing Wikidata, Project chat, etc. Personally I would just put each of those links to their own line. Thirdly, I would swap the placements of the discover and get involved boxes. At least at my current resolution (1024x768) the placement of those two boxes create a big area of whitespace. Also, the position the discover box is at currently seems to be in a prominent place. I don´t really get why, since a minority of users are interested in the technical side of things.--Snaevar (talk) 14:09, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Language links incomplete in mobile view

In normal page view, en:Tin Can Cathedral shows a link to the Danish (dansk) page da:Blikdåsekatedralen and vice versa, which seems good.

But in mobile view, en:Tin Can Cathedral language links does not show a link to the Danish page. However, English seems to be available from the Danish mobile view. Seems to be a glitch in how mobile view, at least in English, is processing the Wikidata. Dl2000 (talk) 21:33, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

This needs a bug in Bugzilla. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 11:29, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Is there a tool / bot to detect REDIRECT's linked to items?

Hi! Comala (Q1113251) lists the REDIRECT en:Comala, Colima and Comala (Q5150494) lists the page en:Comala. The question is not about merging the WD items. The question is how such / similar items can be detected. gangLeri לערי ריינהארט (talk) 12:41, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Ping! @Magnus_Manske, @Lydia_Pintscher_(WMDE), @Ladsgroup / Amir . The question sis quite simple. Please answer! Thanks in advance! לערי ריינהארט (talk) 07:46, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
@לערי ריינהארט: If you link the usernames or if you use the template {{ping}}, the users get a message via Echo. Otherwise, it's likely that the addressed users don't see the post. --Pasleim (talk) 21:19, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@Pasleim As far as I know wiki syntax checker can be tricked using UNDERSCORE's instead of spaces in user names. template:ping does the same. לערי ריינהארט (talk) 21:25, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

This paragraph should not be archived unless the question is answered. לערי ריינהארט (talk) 19:37, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Many cities, towns, places, rivers, etc. from Germany are located in Europe too ...

Hi! @Andreasmperu / Andreasm, @Ladsgroup / Amir: claim[17:183] AND claim[30:46] is just a query. I analyzed more then ten thousand places searching twin places.
While most items about communities from Italy contain located in the administrative territorial entity (P131) and the proper province and region those from other countries as France contain region and department on an "arbitrary base". Some places from Greece, etc. did not contain the country (P17) statements. Some city subdivisions called suburbs, districts etc. depending on the countries do not contain all relevant located in the administrative territorial entity (P131).
questions:

a) What is the today policy about located in the administrative territorial entity (P131) values. Should all relevant values be added? These values are hierarchical. Are they validated?
b) Is there a bot support for adding / validating the values.
c) Which is the best place to maintain a to do list?

Regards gangLeri לערי ריינהארט (talk) 19:28, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

User:לערי ריינהארט - Wikidata:Administrative territorial entity provides some documentation. If you have a query that checks if P17 is there, then add it to the page. Maybe you also have other observations that could be added to the page. There are now 1724 subclasses. Maybe Wikidata:Database reports/Administrative territorial entity has some value for you. Regarding P131 - why not use the talk page there? Tamawashi (talk) 00:47, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks @Tamawashi for your comments. The title is ironic / sarcastic / cynic etc. It seems that WD is a source of intergalactic wisdom ... Why do we need 1,600++ different abstractions at Wikidata:Database reports/Administrative territorial entity? Probably to optimize querries ... לערי ריינהארט (talk) 19:43, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
There a lot of different meanings of some terms, e.g. what "town" means, depending on the country/state. Maybe some could be removed though, not sure. --Bthfan (talk) 20:04, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Help with moving task forces to WikiProjects

Hi all,

I'm putting the call out for folks to help move/rename their task forces as WikiProjects. I'm asking because right now we are using both names in a seemingly arbitrary way and it is important to keep this consistent so as not to confuse people (in fact, this issue came up as something that should be discussed on Help:FAQ when I polled the community about sources of confusion when using Wikidata).

This issue was previously discussed on Project chat about a year ago (see here for the discussion) when it was proposed to rename task forces as WikiProjects because of the naming conventions of other sister projects (i.e. "WikiProject" is the term used on Wikisource, Wikipedia, etc.) and because the term "task force" was not a concept easily translated into other languages.There was also a bot request for assisting with this process but it appears it was decided in the end that we should just move task forces one by one.

For those wanting to help, I recommend that something like "XX task force" be renamed to "WikiProject XX". The WikiProject should then be removed from Category:Task forces and added to Category:WikiProjects.

I will take on moving Wikidata:LGBT_task_force and am happy to edit appropriate Help pages to reflect and document this change, but need help with the rest. Please let know if there are questions or concerns related to this proposal. Thanks. -Thepwnco (talk) 17:12, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

The page Wikidata:Task forces needs moving. The categories which sort the WikiProjects should probably be called e.g. Category:Geographical WikiProjects, the same as done on en.wikipedia, rather than Category:WikiProjects Geography which seems to be the pattern we're heading for now. Del♉sion23 (talk) 08:38, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
Thepwnco: I made you a todo list (query). It currently contains about 650 pages. Multichill (talk) 10:43, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata is a Wikimedia Project. Now inside there are WikiProjects. The latter have pages in the project namespace of the Wikimedia Project "Wikidata". The project namespace of the Wikimedia Project "Wikidata" is named Wikidata. Tamawashi (talk) 16:45, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

@Delusion23: thank you for pointing this out - I have now added those recommendations to Wikidata:WikiProjects (which did not have much in the way of information on category use).
@Multichill: thank you for the to-do list! Do you think this is worth adding to a new section or subpage of Wikidata:WikiProjects?
-Thepwnco (talk) 00:11, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
And Category:Completed_task_forces --> Category:Completed_WikiProjects please... --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 10:51, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikinews Sitelinks (Phase 1)

Greetings everyone!

As planned Wikinews will be the next sister project supported by Wikidata. We're starting with language links again and will later enable data access. Phase 1 is currently scheduled for August 19th. Depending on how that goes the next phase will scheduled. Coordination is happening at Wikidata:Wikinews and it'd be awesome if you added your name there if you're active on Wikinews. We need people to act as local ambassadors to make sure everything goes smoothly.

Let's make this deployment even better than Wikiquote was!

On behalf of the development team, John F. Lewis (talk) 18:57, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

How will we deal with linking news stories and notable events? --Jakob (talk) 19:23, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Over at en.wn, I remember we discussed Wikidata. Perhaps aspects of the discussion are slipping my mind. My memory (however flawed it might turn out to be) is we generally didn't see much utility for it in mainspace; and from what I know of other-language Wikinews category spaces, they often have such disparate category hierarchies that the prospects didn't seem very promising there.
I'd be interested to know quite what is meant to be done. To the best of my definitely limited knowledge Wikidata seems to be a vehicle of encyclopedic structure, while Wikinews is about as different from an encyclopedia as a wiki can get. Just for example, our concept of newsworthiness is very different from Wikipedia's notability; and Wikinews is usually more interested in covering under-reported stories (and otherwise unreported ones, via original reporting) than in covering the biggest stories of the day, which typically have less need of our coverage. (Keep in mind, being involved with news, I'm supposed to be skeptical aobut everything; I'm also supposed to have an open mind, and with all the bad news in the world I surely need to stay open to a positive outlook.) --Pi zero (talk) 12:15, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
I might mention, Wikinews categories quite often do not correspond, or correspond closely, to Wikipedia categories, as the very purpose of a news category hierarchy is different from that of an encylclopedia category hierarchy. Sister-linking Wikinews categories tends to be highly customized, and likely to only get more so over time as we get around to various types of hierarchy upgrades we've been planning. --Pi zero (talk) 12:39, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Forth and back conversions of items between class and instance

I changed instance to class [19] then had a look into the page history to obtain a link for my edits and ..., just on 2014-07-01 User:Humatiel did the opposite [20].

The editor did create a Wikidata:Database reports/Constraint violations/P279, since the item was target of "subclass of" since 2013-08-06 [21], created by User:TomT0m.

There are still 6000 unrooted subclasses listed at Wikidata:Database reports/Item classification. Can a bot inform editors that unrooted an item, i.e. that created a P279 or P31 constraint violation? Tamawashi (talk) 13:13, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

The difference between "subclass of"/"instance of" is confusing many users. After many discussions the conclusion has been that "instance of" represents something material of which there can be only one ("single exemplar of"), whereas "subclass" represents something abstract of which there can be many ("subcategory of").
I don't know how to make that more clear, but the current labels don't convey their meaning, otherwise there wouldn't be so many wrong uses. Any suggestion about how to convey better the difference?--Micru (talk) 13:47, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Tamawashi, Micru: Develop and make Help:Classification more visible ? It's a really important page imho. Even people like @Emw: seem to disagree with me on some topic like the type of the isotope class, after many discussions. I, (I speak for myself) am pretty confident I am at a point where I sorted this out and the instance/class/class of class scheme works pretty well for me and is really useful to model things in Wikidata, see many examples on Wikidata talk:Item classification of why I think this works and is useful. But we need to be really clear on that and not make that discussion over and over again. I'd like to make Help:Classification approved by community when it is ready for beginners and reasonably complete.
A constraint cannot do the job of explaining that to a user. @Micru: The abstract/concrete view is probably confusing. There is often several level of abstration : we divide concrete things like atoms in chemistry in classes of concrete things like "oxygen", who is a class of atom, and "oxygen-18", who is a class of atoms to, a class of oxygen more precisely. But we also use more abstract levels : isotopes for example regroups classes, not instances : we can say that oxygen-18 and oxygen-16 are isotope, but oxygen-18 is not a subclass of isotope. The definition of subclass is not "things that links abstract concept", it's more precise. TomT0m (talk) 06:33, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
@TomT0m: It doesn't seem that you have sorted out so well the distinction, otherwise you wouldn't be saying that "oxygen-18 is not a subclass of isotope". My reasoning is as follows:
  1. There are things that happen in nature by themselves
  2. By being in sensory contact with differentiable things (instances) we create representations of them
  3. By observing repeated occurrences, we create models of these things (classes)
Now I apply the same reasoning to "oxygen-18"
  1. There are oxygen-18 atoms that happen in nature by themselves
  2. By being in sensory contact, in this case through devices, with distinct oxygen-18 atoms (instances) we create representations of them (instance:oxygen-18 [one atom])
  3. By observing repeated occurrences, we create models of oxygen-18 (class:oxygen-18 [represents all atoms of oxygen-18 that may exist] )
Usually I see very often the inverse reasoning, specially from IT people, who put the class first and that is totally meaningless. Either we agree that if we want to model reality, reality has to come first, or we we'll be circling around this till the end of the times.--Micru (talk) 08:27, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: : I have a discussion going on with Emw on this very page about this. See in particular about the proposition of query by Emw built with the <isotope> class and my answer on why it does not make sense : if <isotope> is a superclass of <isotope-18>, then the <atom> class and the <isotope> classes are indistinguishable for a reasoner, he can substitute one with the other. And I think I took part in pretty much every discussion about class/instance relationship and how they are implemented in the semantic web. I argumented and proposed to use the metaclass concept : <isotope> is a class of concepts whose instances are classes such as <isotope-18>, who exists as an entity in the human conceptualisation. What a human call an isotope is a class of atom. When we say oxygen-18 is an isotope, in common language, we don't say every oxygen-18 instance is an isotope. Otherwis the whole isotope concept is useless compared to the atom concept. The <isotope> concept by itself is useful because all atoms in an isotope class have the same numbers on nucleons. We have an isotope concept because this property is shared by a big numbers of important classes of atoms, we can regroup in a set : the set of all isotope classes, which is NOT the set of all atoms at all. I backed up by citing the french Wikipedia's definition of the <isotope> concepts which says exactly that : an isotope is a class of atoms who share the same numbers of nucleons. In short, in Wikidata we do not model reality only, we also model how human models reality. Which is a real thing too somehow. TomT0m (talk) 09:12, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
@TomT0m: if the "the <atom> class and the <isotope> classes are indistinguishable for a reasoner" it is not because the classing, it is because they do not contain enough information to make them distinct enough. We need to translate the definition in human language (an isotope is a class of atoms who share the same numbers of nucleons) into ontological language (for instance, like this, but it could be done better). Anyhow let's keep the atomic discussion in one place.--Micru (talk) 09:41, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: No it cannot. The best stuff we have for this is to class not atoms, but substances, especially a pure substance is a substance made of only one type of atom. An isotopically pure substance is a substance made of only one isotope of one chemical element (as a class of atoms). But this concepts still do not map the isotope concept as all the kinds of isotopes types of all the atom types. But feel free to join the discussion on the query: here is my answer to Emw. TomT0m (talk) 10:18, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
@TomT0m: Substances (class) have atoms (class) as parts, and an isotopically pure substances (class) have atoms of the same isotope as part (class), but ok, I'll read the (now long) discussion.--Micru (talk) 10:40, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
I followed exactly the logic that Micru presented. In programming languages, it is usual that an instance being an object and a subclass being a subcategory. For example, an apple is an object/instance of fruit, and fruit is a subcategory/subclass of the kingdom Plantae (plants). That's why I changed it, since wikidata is to be human and machine readable. Regards, Humatiel (talk) 22:49, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Humatiel, an instance it is not only an object, it is *the only* object that exists of something in the universe at a molecular level. One indeterminate apple is a "subclass of fruit", this apple that I have on my desk is an "instance of the class apple". Everything that is abstract (awards, movies, albums, concepts, etc) cannot be instances because there can be many of the same.
In Wikidata there is this confusion all over the place, even myself I had it until very recently, that is why I was suggesting to change the property labels to something that is more self-explanatory... but I don't know what.--Micru (talk) 23:14, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: I french we have nature for instance of (P31) as a default label. I guess the subclass of in english would be better with something like special kinds of. How sounds "the nature of Micru is Wikipedian" in english, and "wikipedians are special kinds of humans" ? The plural for subclass of (P279) seem to me an idea worth investigating. Though instances of seems not really good, how reads Wikipedian instances of human (just random thought letting it going). Or <Wikipedians> are all <humans> with <Micru> example of <Wikimedian> ? (I'm not very aware of how natural sounds the instance word in everyday english. <Micru> yet another <Wikimedian> (no offense :)) ... <Apple> yet another <Fruit> works too. Hard to get rid of the is a easily substituted to are all in common language. <Apple> is a <fruit> works as well as <apples> are all fruit. <Apple> kind of <Fruit> or <Apples> are all <fruits> works, but can we add plural marks to all classes ??? (I like the idea, not sure it is a good one). TomT0m (talk) 07:40, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
I would go with "@TomT0m: <one exemplar of> human" and "apple <all exemplars are> fruit". More opinions on this?--Micru (talk) 08:27, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
@Humatiel: a fruit is part of a plant and not a subclass of the kingdom Plantae. BTW: there are some substantial differences between an object orientated programing language and OWL. --Succu (talk) 06:46, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

@Humatiel, TomT0m, Micru, Zolo, Emw: - To my understanding, in the tree "abstract object" there are no instances. And probably "physical object" is a tree that contains all instances. That means, two little queries would reveal already some errors in classification. There are still ~5900 unrooted classes listed by autolist2. If you could help here :-). Numbers are going down, but very slowly: Wikidata:Database reports/Item classification. And sometimes I found it hard to find an upward class, that is not "entity". Tamawashi (talk) 11:28, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: That is more or less correct, and it matches the formal definitions of 'continuant' and 'process' that Emw brought with this paper. I can help rooting, but in some cases it will be useless (as you have seen first hand), since some concepts are best defined in other terms.--Micru (talk) 12:03, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
There are individual things which are 'instance of' a class of things.
In some cases however a class is an instance of a 'type of class' as well as being a subclass of a larger class.
Oxygen-18 a class of millions of individual atoms each with 10 neutrons and 8 protons. This is a subclass of:oxygen atoms.
The class of Oxygen-18 atoms is also an 'instance of:isotope' - a special type of class.
The class of Oxygen atoms is on the other hand a subclass of:atom but an instance of:element - another type of class.
Note that 'isotope' is not a 'subclass of:element'. They are both 'subclass of:ways of classifying atoms'.
Other 'types of class' that classes can be an instance of:
  • Moby Dick subclass of:book, instance of:novel
  • Ford Model T subclass of:car, instance of:model.
At least that is how I see it. Filceolaire (talk) 21:53, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

"The class of Oxygen-18 atoms is also an 'instance of:isotope' - a special type of class." I do not agree with this. An instance has to be either a material thing (continuant) or a unique process in order to be considered "instance", in other words it has to be something that exists "here" and "now". All the rest are class relationships, either as "subclass of" or "superclass of", that we don't use. The relationship between "the class of all Oxygen-18 atoms" and "the class of oxygen isotope (classification of atoms)" is a subclass relationship.
I also don't agree with the book/novel, car/model examples. It was a mistake that we did on the Books task force that is spreading all over the place. It should be:
  • Moby Dick subclass of:novel
  • Ford Model T subclass of:car model
Of course the terms "subclass of"/"instance of" are confusing, that is why it would be better to change them. Possible synonyms for "subclass of": "is a", "nature", "all exemplars are", "all instances are". Possible synonyms for "instance of": "unique exemplar of", "real-life specimen of", "mass-energy occurrence of".--Micru (talk) 14:55, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: You can't stay with an argumentation as poor as it was a mistake witout begin solid on this. You disagree with everybody one way or another with 3 people at least here : with Emw, who could be your best friend here because he do not like metaclasses, @Filceolaire:, me ... We discussed this a lot, you will have to do better than just saying everybody else is wrong. TomT0m (talk) 13:50, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
@TomT0m: After the discussions with you, with Emw, and with others I have now a more coherent view that I had in the past, for that I am very grateful that you have helped me with great patience in our long discussions. I say that it was a mistake because the method used back then doesn't hold to deep scrutiny and makes the properties p31 and p279 indistinguishable from one another, as I have been argumenting here and on the other conversation below. Funny that you use argumentum ad populum (Q251695)... history is full of examples where that was a bad idea. For instance, that many people agreed that the Earth was the center of the universe doesn't make it more true, just means that there was an agreement and a legal body to keep that acceptance. In this context I do not believe in "right" or "wrong", just in approximations. If there is a general consensus then of course I will let it flow as an "accepted approximation", I am just pointing out that there are better ones. Please, do not take my disagreement personally since I consider you, Emw, and all others, allies in the mission of bringing the sum of all knowledge to all sentient beings. If you consider that this conversation is straining, let's stop it now. Sometimes it is just better to wait.--Micru (talk) 14:52, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
If you consider that this conversation is straining, let's stop it now. Sometimes it is just better to wait. That's why I went meta on the discussion and stopped argumentation at that point :) TomT0m (talk) 07:06, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree and disagree with things Micru says above. Foremost, I think changing the labels of P31 and P279 from instance of and subclass of to something else would be a bad idea. Those labels have been established for over a year, have been used in academic publications and media coverage about Wikidata, and give an immediate, glanceable, conventional visual hook that illustrates a fundamental distinction used throughout the Semantic Web and philosophy at large to describe the nature of things. Changing their aliases is OK, changing their descriptions with care is OK, but we should not change their labels.

I agree with Micru that "Moby Dick subclass of novel" is preferable to "Moby Dick instance of novel". However, I disagree with the statement "Ford Model T subclass of car model". Cars models are like biological taxa in that they are not physically instantiated. Stating otherwise is a subtle mistake with significant consequences. For example, if we say "Chevrolet Malibu (Q287723) subclass of car model", then that entails the incorrect statement "The Peekskill Meteorite Car (Q7756463) instance of car model". The Peetskill Meteorite Car is not a car model, it is a car (specifically, an instance of a Chevrolet Malibu). Although Wikidata covers far fewer instances of car than instances of human, we should keep the application of instance of and subclass of consistent.

And that is why the statement "oxygen-18 instance of isotope" is problematic. Oxygen-18, cars, and humans are all types of material entity. Oxygen-18 is a type of isotope, car is a type of vehicle, and human is a type of Homo. Stating "oxygen-18 instance of isotope" creates an inconsistency in how we apply instance of and subclass of in cars and humans and all other physical things. The fact that Wikidata will likely never have an item about an instance of oxygen-18 does not mean we shold state that oxygen-18 is an instance. instance of (P31) is not simply what you use at the bottom of Wikidata's concept hierarchy. For at least physical things, outside rare and straightforward usages of explicit metamodeling, instance of should only be used on items that have a unique location in space and time. Emw (talk) 15:34, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

@Emw: I am glad that we are approaching postures. You might be right that it might no longer possible to change the labels of p31 and p279 without causing major disruption that we might want to avoid, but it worries me that some languages have departed from the canonical names and now they have come to represent different things (in German p31 is now "is a"), perhaps it will be enough making sure there is no confusion by explaining it better, or creating a tutorial.
Just a minor correction regarding your car example. You say: if we say "Chevrolet Malibu (Q287723) subclass of car model", then that entails the incorrect statement "The Peekskill Meteorite Car (Q7756463) instance of car model". I think we should examine deeper what a "car model" is. If we assume that a car model is a blue print for manufacturing an automobile with shared characteristics, then the statement "The Peekskill Meteorite Car (Q7756463) instance of car model" is not incorrect, because we have a blueprint and from there we generate something that is an automobile. Of course the statement is less accurate than saying "The Peekskill Meteorite Car (Q7756463) instance of Chevrolet Malibu (Q287723)", but still right. Same case as the example you gave me "Pluto (Q339)<part of>Universe (Q1)", which is not wrong, just "less right".--Micru (talk) 16:27, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: : this depends on the definition we use for car model. Of course we can take a car, scan it and make a copy with a 3D printer, and our copy has a model : the original car. But it's not the common definition car manufacturers uses for car model. We can define the <car model> item such that its correct wikidata use is a car model in the car manufacturing industry sense, and we get rid of this correct in a loose sense notion that is ... Uncommon. Of course if there is a use for this definition we can create an item with this definition, but let's be precise and say that car that are 3D printed with some scanned car and car model in the car industry sense are different item. The vast majority of car models in Wikidata are on the second sense. That's indeed a compelling case for class classification. TomT0m (talk) 07:52, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@TomT0m: What is a car model in the car industry sense? Put the definition on the operation table so we can dissect it ;) --Micru (talk) 09:57, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@emw:. My understanding is that O-18 is general would be considered an isotope of oxygen but an individual molecule of O18 would not. That sounds remarkably similar to the Ford T case.
As stated in #Issue with "instance of" for text, I would argue for a similar analysis with novels. Novel is a subclass of text, and a text is, roughly speaking, an (immaterial) string of words and Moby Dick is best viewed as an instance of novel starting with "Call me Ishmael." It can be materialized in a book, an audio recording whatever, but those are instances of book, audio recording etc, not instances of novel. Of course defining a text as a string is a very crude approximation, but a definition of text would have to do with the us of words, the existence of a plot, etc. These are not features that a material object can have It implies that the class "text" is disjoint from the class "material object".--Zolo (talk) 17:35, 19 July 2014 (UTC)--Micru (talk) 14:30, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Agreed with Zolo on the similarity with the <car model> and <isotope> discussions, that's why the instance/class/metaclass modeing 3 layer scheme I push other and other again make sense. "oxygen-18 instance of (P31) isotope" creates no inconsistency if we make clear that isotope IS NOT a class of physical objects itself, which can be made explicit in the ontology by a disjoint with statement beetween the <physical entities> class and the <class> class, so it is absolutely not a logical inconsistency. It's not an inconsistency with the Wikidata usage if we stop pushing the Token/class philosophical principle to newbies and start pushing a Token/class/metaclass principle which actually helps a lot into understanding how to model the world. Using subclass of (P279) as the only relationship beetween classes of tokens (I don't say instances intentionally) is a mistake and logical inconsistency source and should as a result not be pushed to users. So, Emw, I think you should revise your way of thinking and starts thinking not car models as weird exceptions, but as the general case. When a scientific theory starts to have one exception scientists can be fine saying OK, that's a weird exception. When there is a second, a third and so on they'll start thinking they need a paradigm shift (Q689971)      (paradigm shift) in their theories. I think token/class principle is such a paradigm who put our mind in a bottle, but everything is simpler if we break that bottle and shift to the token/class/metaclass paradigm. I provided several usecases for which this paradigm is useful, for me it's a compelling argument it's a solid paradigm, and more consistent than the "token/class with exception" you are proposing, who is unsatisfactory : if we got a 3 concepts principle which fits almost all wikidata, wrt. a 2 concept principle with 30 exception, the first has 3 concepts, the second 32 concepts. Ockham rasors says "the first one is better". TomT0m (talk) 07:52, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Zolo, an actual atom of oxygen-18 is an instance of an isotope. Instances of isotopes is what is measured in e.g. isotope-ratio mass spectrometry. Thus the statement "oxygen-18 instance of isotope" is indeed inconsistent with how we use that property to describe things like humans, cars, and other physical things. It is like saying "human instance of Homo", not "human instance of taxon".
Some domains talk of types of types of things. Biological taxonomy is one, but chemistry does so less, certainly in the way TomT0m envisions:
Chemical elements (model by TomT0m)

 

Which is easier for users to understand, the "atom type class" model proposed above or the one without a metamodeling layer, as used in widely-cited, professionally curated chemistry ontologies like ChEBI? I do not think pervasive explicit metamodeling will ameliorate users' unfamiliarity with instances and classes. I think it will bewilder them.
Instance of and subclass of can be used for explicit metamodeling in a way that accommodates type-token distinction. The usage seen in biological taxonomy is an example. However, it is easy to do metamodeling in a way that breaks that useful distinction, as illustrated in statements like "hydrogen instance of chemistry element" and "oxygen-18 instance of isotope."
Doing so compels us to make absurd statements like "isotope is not a class of physical object" as TomT0m does. As any chemist or high school student who has completed a course in chemistry will tell you, isotopes are physical objects. Stating "oxygen-18 subclass of isotope" rather than "oxygen-18 instance of isotope" consistently applies classification properties in a way that does not compel us to paraphrase away basic scientific facts. Emw (talk) 14:13, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@Emw: I share your opinions to some extent. I think we should not use "instance of" for cross-domain relationships, but we can attempt to cross it with a different property, even if that departs from ChEBI. The way I envision it is like this:
Chemical elements (model by Micru)

 

I don't think using metaclasses it makes it more complicated if it is explained properly (i.e. not using technical jargon).--Micru (talk) 16:27, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Micru, I think it is essential for Wikidata to use vocabulary from the wider Semantic Web. The connection between Wikidata, the Semantic Web and ontology is that "class" is synonymous with "type" or "concept", as outlined in e.g. The Role of Foundational Relations in the Alignment of Biomedical Ontologies. The conventional term for "classes of classes" like "taxon" or "car model" is metaclass. Implying that classes are not types or concepts as your graphic above does would misalign Wikidata with most literature relating Semantic Web vocabulary to that from ontology. Styling instances as "phenomena" and classes as "substance" is also highly idiosyncratic and would lead to even obscurer philosophical wanderings than those we currently see on Wikidata.
Metamodeling in the domain of chemical elements seems generally extraneous and unhelpful. What makes "atom" a class and "isotope" and "element" metaclasses? How do "chemical substance" and "physical object" fit in; are they class or metaclasses? As explained above in my reply to Zolo, isotope is clearly a class of physical object and individual atoms are also isotopes. Why should I have to include nature of as outlined in your graphic (note: as presented it should be has nature) rather than use subclass of? What is the precise definition of has nature -- in terms used by the Semantic Web, i.e. OWL? Precisely how would it relate to P31 (i.e. instance of, rdf:type) and P279 (i.e. subclass of, rdfs:subClassOf)?
I think it would be far simpler to say something like "oxygen-18 subclass of isotope of oxygen" for such classes of isotope. We could then say "isotope of oxygen subclass of oxygen, isotope". Alternatively, we could say "oxygen-18 subclass of oxygen, isotope", and consider "isotope of oxygen" to effectively be a query result. Both of these approaches adequately model isotopes in a way that is consistent with major existing ontologies and does not pose compatibility issues with Semantic Web standards. Emw (talk) 18:09, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Brilliant paper, Emw! It brings many insights and I dearly recommend Zolo and TomT0m to read it. I will do it again, and again. On a first read I found some gems:
  • inst: defined as bound to a specific time and space. An instance can be related to its class (a instanceOf b)
  • class: defined by its instances, which means that they can change in time. A class can be related to its upper class (b subclassOf c)
  • set: a timeless entity, idealized class, not bound to time and space. A set or a class can be related to a set (b is_a d)
The definition of what I called "nature" is what they call "is_a". Please, do notice the differences with "subclassOf" as cleverly explained in the section "Classes vs. Sets". I can go further and say that "is_a" is equivalent to "type" (well, they also say it in the paper), and "taxon rank" is a subproperty of "is a".
Coming back to my drawing, yes, you are right, it is wrong, I'll try again:
Chemical elements (interpretation of FMA paper)

 

That is my interpretation of the provided paper, with the nomenclature stated in the paper. True that for atoms it looks quite redundant (although here we wouldn't use classes), however it models accurately the relationship between classes-metaclasses and between metaclasses themselves. To use subclassOf for both purposes is missleading and brings to many confussions and long discussions as we are seeing. I hope we can all reach the same interpretation and consider it both acceptable and practical.--Micru (talk) 23:18, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Micru, that paper formally defines is a, a foundational property in major ontologies like the Gene Ontology (GO), ChEBI and others. It is referenced as the basis for is a and part of as discussed in Relations in Biomedical Ontologies, a very widely-cited, classic paper in modern ontology. That paper establishes the link between "is a" and the language of the Semantic Web: "A has_subclass B = [definition] B is_a A." -- in other words, "A rdfs:subClassOf B" equals "A is a B". This equivalence between BFO/OBO's is a and RDF/OWL's rdfs:subClassOf is noted in the draft BFO 2.0 release documentation and clear from RDF/OWL exports of GO, ChEBI and other ontologies among the Open Biomedical Ontologies.
The relation between classes and sets is a recurring topic in these discussions on Wikidata. Classes are treated essentially as sets in the Semantic Web. The foundational subclass of property is even symbolically represented with the symbol as "subset of" -- i.e. ⊆ -- in the Interpretation of Axioms and Facts in the OWL Direct Model-Theoretic Semantics specification. The relevant OWL specifications address this by noting that a class is distinct from the "extension" of that class.
It is interesting how your subsumption hierarchy (the "class tree") of atom in your interpretation of the FMA paper is virtually identical to that used in ChEBI. See e.g. the "graph view" visualization in the ChEBI model of oxygen-18 at http://www.ebi.ac.uk/chebi/chebiOntology.do?chebiId=CHEBI:33815&treeView=false#vizualisation. Of course there is no mirrored subset tree, because is a is equivalent to subclass of.
The ChEBI ontology does not explicitly account for some things we may want to, e.g. isotopes. One suspicion is that this is because all instances of atom are also instances of isotope, and vice versa. However, we might be able to model the notion that "oxygen" itself is not an isotope -- while preserving consistency with ChEBI and those other widely used ontologies -- with an approach I outline above. Emw (talk) 01:35, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: Thanks for the link. Some notes:
  • It states that nothing can be both a class and an instance, and that conflicts with the latest OWL version. The current theoretical view appears to be that we should distinguished between the statements about the item seen as an instance of X and those of the item seen as a subclass (seen as a instance of species, gorilla beringei is an endangered species, seen as an subclass of animal, it is hairy).
  • Nothing in the theoretical part of the article says that an instance must be localizable in time and space. They indeed allude that they should in the conclusion, and for highly empirical topics like biology, it is certainly true that most instances have a location, but that would be an empirical fact, or a methodoligical advice, not a formal imperative (yes
  • You are misreading the paper, it does not say that classes are defined by its instances, quite the opposite: contrary to a set, a class "survives the turnover in its instances".
  • I like their idea that contrary to a set, a class does not have 2n subclasses (actually it think we can say that "subset" is a subclass of "class" with some special features, except that it would sound a bit odd to include the empty set and singletons in the list of subclasses). --Zolo (talk) 07:56, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
@Emw:. Ok, if individual molecules are isotopes, then clearly it is fine to call 018 and subclass of isotope. --07:56, 21 July 2014 (UTC)~
@Emw: first of all some term equivalences:
* what OWL calls "extension of a class" = what FMA calls "class"
* what OWL calls "class" = what FMA calls "set"
For the particular case of chemical elements I agree with you that there is an "almost" 1:1 relationship between class-set (real atom vs conceptual atom), but not making this distinction is problematic for several reasons. The main one is the superposition of "natures" that an element has, which collapse into one as soon as we try to access experimentally (adding instances to) one of them (cf. w:wave function collapse). Only by avoiding to use the "isotope" set, they are able to keep an equivalence between "class" and "set". It is not a lie, they just don't consider all the range of possible truths.
In our particular case, it would be perfectly fine to model chemical elements considering an equivalence between subclassOf = is_a because we don't instantiate them. For the classes that we do instantiate then metamodelling (making a distinction between class and set) is useful (taxonomy, cities, literary works, etc). But that of course forces us to juggle with properties, when by using two distinct properties (FMA-subclassOf, FMA-is_a), would remove all obscurity from our model.
The other reason to make the distinction is to avoid mixing up "extension of a class" and "class". If we use OWL-subclassOf for both cases we might arrive to the weird conclusion that a person might have the permanent nature of being an actor (!). That means that we accept instantiating permanent concepts as impermanent instances, with all the inconsistencies and headaches that it brings.
For these reasons my recommendation is to abide to the FMA definitions (instanceOf=phenomena, subclassOf=OWL-"extension of a class", is_a=OWL-"class"). This will guarantee compatibility with all existing and yet to exist ontologies, because we'll be able to cast both subclassOf and is_a to the same external ontology property (if they have so defined), or to distinct properties (if they have so defined).
@Zolo: They refer to "SNAP and SPAN: Towards Dynamic Spatial Ontology". Basically: SNAP=continuants (permanent) and SPAN=occurrants (impermanent). According to this model, yes, you can instantiate a permanent class (set), but not as an impermanent entity!--Micru (talk) 08:26, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: That is true, but that seems to work well as long as we do not need to assume that everything is a SPAN and SNAP.
To keep things in plain language:

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @Zolo: Your tree puts again together sets and classes (the "entity" you put on top cannot be both "abstract" and "real"), and as showed before that is problematic. Here there is another one:

  • unlocalizable entity (concept, set)
    • qualities: physically identifiable characteristics (shape, color, etc)
    • attributes: abstractedly identifiable characteristics (the "is_a"-ness)
    • entity: the concept that something might exist either as unlocalizable or as localizable entity
  • localizable entity (phenomenon, instance)
    • event
    • material object

@Emw: I'm sorry that I'm not following OWL conventions :( I realize that the definition of entity is self-referential... this is not my personal preference, it is just how nature appears to me... very weird... :-/ I also realize that there are more "unlocalizable entities" that only apply to living beings, but it is better to focus on this first.--Micru (talk) 12:57, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Micru, is a is equivalent to subclass of, i.e. rdfs:subClassOf. The lead author on that paper you like is also the lead author on Relations in Biomedical Ontologies, and also the head of the team that produces the BFO, which uses that equivalence. Please take another at the first paragraph in my previous comment where I describe how is a equals subclass of in that major school of formal ontology. Please review the BFO class hierarchy, which accounts for the relation of 'entity' to 'material object' and 'qualities'. Let's use conventions from the Semantic Web and not add yet another upper ontology to it. Emw (talk) 12:55, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
@Emw: Which property shall we use to express "extension of a class"? And for metaclasses?--Micru (talk) 15:28, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Micru, subclass of (P279), i.e. rdfs:subClassOf. Here's the definition in OWL:
The rdfs:subClassOf construct is defined as part of RDF Schema [RDF Vocabulary]. Its meaning in OWL is exactly the same: if the class description C1 is defined as a subclass of class description C2, then the set of individuals in the class extension of C1 should be a subset of the set of individuals in the class extension of C2. A class is by definition a subclass of itself (as the subset may be the complete set).
—OWL Web Ontology Language Reference: Class axioms
And reviewing the definition of classes in OWL:
In general classes are used to group individuals that have something in common in order to refer to them. Hence, classes essentially represent sets of individuals. In modeling, classes are often used to denote the set of objects comprised by a concept of human thinking, like the concept person or the concept woman.
— OWL 2 Primer: Classes and instances
The equivalence between BFO's is a relation and OWL's subclass of is used, for example, in the chemistry ontology ChEBI:
All database entries are now 'is_a' classified within the ontology, meaning that all of the chemicals are available to semantic reasoning tools that harness the classification hierarchy... To comply with our goal of increasing interoperability with other ontologies in the biomedical domain, ChEBI has provided a mapping to the upper level ontology Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) (12), version 2.0.
— The ChEBI reference database and ontology for biologically relevant chemistry: enhancements for 2013
Feel free to verify this by downloading any of the OWL files in ftp://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/databases/chebi/ontology/ and seeing the substitution of all usages of is a used through the ChEBI OBO files with rdfs:subClassOf.
Reviewing further, Role of Foundational Relations formally defines is a, and Relations in Biomedical Ontologies harmonizes that definition with Semantic Web standards from the W3C by clearly defining the equivalence of is a and subclass of. The equivalence is made explicit in the BFO 2.0 release notes. The three aforementioned works are led by the same individual and the latter two are produced by the same group. The equivalence is used throughout the world's most widely used biomedical ontologies.
Nowhere in any of those works is the discrepancy you assert between is a and subclass of alluded to. The ontologies in question that use the equivalence of is a and subclass of in practice, Gene Ontology and ChEBI, are maintained by content experts with advanced degrees and deep experience in chemistry, computer science, philosophy and ontology. If your concern with the discrepancy between sets and classes because of wave function collapse were warranted, don't you think they they would have noticed that, and raised that issue somewhere in a publication? Do you really think that's why they don't explicitly have an "isotope" concept in ChEBI? I suspect the cause was much more mundane. A discrepancy between is a and subclass of would directly contradict what that network of researchers have clearly stated in multiple major publications and spent over a decade building. Emw (talk) 04:29, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
@Emw: the last message by TomT0m about intensional vs. extensional definitions clarifies quite well the class-set duality paradox that was besetting me. Seen under that light, yes, I agree on the equivalency between subclassOf and is_a, not because any researcher or produced bible says so, but because it is possible to reconcile that duality the same way it is done in quantum physics. Any entity has thus an "existential state:indeterminate", that can collapse into "determinate existence" -when seen from the perspective of its instances (extensional view), it can represent "extension of that class"-, or into "determinate non-existence" -when seen from the perspective of its abstract meaning (intensional view) it can represent an ideal set, non-localizable in time or space. It is not necessary to declare this explicitly, because the presence or absence of instances already serves that purpose.
Do you still hold the opinion that aligning our vocabulary with CHEBI, BFO and other major ontologies by changing the label of p:p279 to "is a" would be a bad idea? As TomT0m noted, it feels more natural to to write "<isotope> is a <nuclide>" than with the current label.
it is indeed a terrible idea. Did not you really understood the risk for users to mix instance of (P31) with the is a label ? Micru is a talkative Wikidatian is not
⟨ Micru ⟩ subclass of (P279)   ⟨ Talkative Wikidatian ⟩
. TomT0m (talk)
Ha, ha :D Considering that the German label of p31 is "is_a", I take back by words, and I will not keep insisting on this. --Micru (talk) 09:46, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
About CHEBI and their lack of isotopes, why don't we stop our elucubrations and just ask them about it? :) --Micru (talk) 07:47, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Good idea, let's not forget to include a word about nuclides :) With this concept, we got something very similar to the biological taxonomy usecase for class/instance. TomT0m (talk)
I already sent an email to the BFO-discuss list about the proposed "embodiment of" as a way to bridge abstraction and reality, so I leave contacting CHEBI to you or to Emw. Contact page.--Micru (talk) 09:46, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
I might be able to contact them today or early tomorrow. Emw (talk) 12:47, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@Zolo, TomT0m: Continuing expanding the reasoning that I was exposing below, I realize that it is very similar to the 3 layer model that TomT0m is talking about:

  1. there is an idealized class of something, that at the same time is an instance of itself (see my example with the natural number "5" below)
  2. there is a class of all real occurrences of that class
  3. there are instances of the class of the real occurrences

So applying it to the case of "a novel"

  1. there is the idealized class of a novel, and the class is abstractedly equal to their instances (all thoughts about a "novel" are both a class and an instance, even if they happen with different material substrate)
  2. there is a class of all real occurrences of the class abstract novel
  3. there are instances of the class of real occurrences of the former

Now the problem is to find what is the relationship between 1-2 (I hope we can all agree that the relationship between 2-3 is clearly class-instance). For 1-2 is not that clear, because it seems that this relationship is neither of instantiation, nor of classing, but of abstraction. 2 is an materialization of 1, 1 is an abstraction of 2. It would be interesting to see if there are precedents of these kind of relationship in the literature (pun intended :P).--Micru (talk) 11:34, 20 July 2014 (UTC)zz

I don't follow you, and I think numbers are a bad example: they are already exists as a datatype in Wikidata, so I think we are fine using properties like length (P2043)   or cardinality to use them. Otherwise clearly we are fine with the set membership/subset relationships for classes here : Natural numbers are a subset of numbers in the most general sense, "5" is a member of that set, so I'd be happy with
⟨ number 5 ⟩ instance of (P31)   ⟨ natural number ⟩
for Wikidata, and
⟨ Natural numbers ⟩ subclass of (P279)   ⟨ numbers ⟩
. I don't think it's interesting to go deeper here and enter philosophical or math foundation like number set construction problems.
Otherwise I think it's interesting to keep with instance of (P31) for linking classes to metaclasses because it is user friendly imho : in french, instance of (P31) is labelled nature (by the way Emw the english labels are not really supposed to be a reference here so I'm fine with changing the english labels, there is aliases and definition for precisions) and it's pretty intuitive to say that the nature of Porshe 911 is car model imho. It's a cool entry point, not boring the user with obscure philosophical and maybe even confusing considerations.
It would be interesting to see if there are precedents of these kind of relationship in the literature (pun intended :P) I don't see the pun, we're building something here, it has to make sense, that's all, not following absurdely some sourcable rule that may fit less well our needs. We are taking great care of standards in our discussions and are pretty standards friendly nonetheless. TomT0m (talk) 13:28, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
@TomT0m: The pun was because I was giving an example with a "novel", which is also literature... but yes, I agree with your statement, we have to be consistent mainly internally, because if we try to follow every source, the most we can aspire to achieve is inconsistency.
Ok, so we have metaclasses that are abstract concepts, classes and instances, and your proposal is to use p31 to link both metaclasses-classes and classes-instances... wouldn't that put metaclasses and classes in the same tree? It seems a bit like using "part of" or "subclass of" for everything... valid, but doesn't allow us to do consistency checks as the ones Tamawashi is doing. On the other hand, I like a lot the label "nature" for the relationship between classes and metaclasses, but I would prefer another for the relationship between classes-instances, perhaps "occurrent of", "phenomenon of" or even keep "instance of"?
If numbers are such a bad example, why do you bring it from another subsection? :)--Micru (talk) 14:30, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Micru, "occurrent" is a direct subclass of entity in BFO, the upper ontology used in the world's most cited ontologies. It translates roughly to "event"; it is disjoint with "continuant", which includes things like material and immaterial entities. A complete rendering of BFO's class hierarchy is shown here. Thus changing instance of to occurrent of wouldn't be ideal. Changing it to phenomenon of would make Wikidata very idiosyncratic in the Semantic Web. The label instance of makes it clear that that property is based on Semantic Web conventions and the description logic that undergirds it. These disciplines use one property for instantiation -- instance-class classification -- and one property for subsumption -- class-class classification. It also makes it clear that the subject is an instance, whether that instance is an occurrent, a phenomenon, a human or a car. Emw (talk) 15:00, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

@Emw, Micru:

I lost some part of the discussion, but I'm not sure we are fine with some useful definitions of set theory : the so called set intentional definition concept : a set is defined by a property of their instances. This is an equivalent to class expressions in OWL : a class is then defined not by its instances, but by properties of its instances, see intensional definition (Q1026899)      .

This notion is useful to understand my proposition (which is not an invention of mine btw, it's a used definition) because it fits : clearly <Oxygen-18> and <Oxygen> are both classes of atoms. But what makes one an element-class and the other an isotope-class is that we use different criteria in the intensional definition : in the element classes like <Oxygen> or <Hydrogen>, we use the property atomic number of atoms in the intensianal definition formula (class expression in OWL), and in the other one we use the number of nucleons of the atom. Now imagine we want to class, as in automatic classification in computing with learning machines or other mechanisms, ie. define a set of classes and put every class expression into some of those classes, clearly the chemical element class expression and isotope class expression definitions would become very handy and have a lot of sense. Imagine, in the sense of OWL punning, the classes item (<Oxygen-18> or <Oxygen>) becomes some kind of reification ( the senses on computer science for example, or in knowledge representation, I'm also aware of uses in logic), in some sense, is the act to treat something abstract like the other object in a model to be manipulated as the other basic objects of the model).

Then we got something very solid here : metaclasses are classes of reified (OWL2 allows this) classed using properties of their intensional definitions (as classes). We're fine with the class/token principle if we don't forget that reifications are not real world objects. It's natural to a lot of people (ie. this is exactly how the <isotope> concept is defined by french Wikipedia : an isotope is a nuclide (Q108149)      , nuclide is a type of atom. (seems the article have been rewritten since I read it the last time, it did not have the nuclide concept in it ! By the way @Emw:, were you aware of this concept ? How does this fits in your views ? It seems to me that it is exactly the atom type class concept I proposed ! Once more something I did not know but prove my reasoning solid, there is a word for this concept. So Wikidata has to be able to deal with this. Just merged the items.) I don't have time to rewrite all, but feels like a victory to me. TomT0m (talk) 17:00, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Q194195 and Q2416723

Both Q194195 and Q2416723 are labeled "theme park" and seem to be described similarly. I'm sure something should be done (merge, delete, rename, etc.) but I've tried reading the Wikidata documentation and still don't know how to proceed. (I tried to merge, but the system disallowed that action.) Senator2029 (talk) 17:17, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

@Senator2029: You weren't allowed to merge because both items have links to dewiki. I've changed Q194195's label to "amusement park" and left Q2416723 alone, because a "theme park" (freizeitpark) in German is not the same as an amusement park (themenpark). --AmaryllisGardener talk 20:02, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Increase the minimum support votes for WD:RFA

I think we are now such a large community that it'd be safe to raise the number to 10 or 12. --Ricordisamoa 13:03, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree. I've also thought about if we could make some rule to not accept users without any edits on Wikidata to vote. --Stryn (talk) 17:32, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  • This needs an RfC, it can't be raised by a project chat discussion alone. But I do agree - I would even suggest 15 (12 is not that much greater than 10) and 20 for bureaucrats (do not change CU and OS).--Jasper Deng (talk) 18:04, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
not broken and does not need the change. If community is big enough, there will be enough votes pro and contra. If we have big community and not enough vote -- it means nobody cares. So, no big deal. I don't like the idea to force people to care. But, i agree to Stryn, votes should be required to have some qualification. -- Vlsergey (talk) 18:26, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
I don't really think we need a change in support levels but I won't be against implementing them. re. voting requirements - yes. John F. Lewis (talk) 18:35, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
+1. --AmaryllisGardener talk 20:15, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
I can not recollect recent closing problems because of the low participation, and I would not object rising the number of minimum votes, on the other hand I do not see any particular need. It should go through an RFC anyway after this preliminary discussion.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:58, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
I would think 12-13 is enough. Jianhui67 talk★contribs 01:38, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Per Ymblanter. --Rschen7754 06:18, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Can't see much of a need, but wouldn't be vehemently opposed to it. TCN7JM 06:21, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Don't see a need either. More important is that there aren't too many "oppose" votes. Lymantria (talk) 07:15, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
10 supports should be enough for now, but I agree with what Stryn said. --Jakob (talk) 13:25, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

General question regarding subjects of important works

Hi I have been updating the items for people portrayed by Frans Hals, but I notice that it's sometimes a bit blurry whether an article is about the person portrayed or about the creative work (in this case, a portrait). To solve these, I have been creating two items, one for the person and one for the creative work. See Aletta Hannemans: Q16859703 and Q17275957. With the portrait painting, I want to link to the pendant (for which I use the property "part of"). With the person, I want to link to her family (and soon also, the house where her brewery was). My question is, does she really need two items in this case? I want to be sure before I do more of these. Thanks in advance. Jane023 (talk) 07:11, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you should create two separate items like you did here. Multichill (talk) 17:28, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
OK Thanks! Jane023 (talk) 20:20, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

OK same two items, next question: In the person item, should the property "image" link to the Commons image, or should it link to the item for the portrait? Thanks again in advance! Jane023 (talk) 12:22, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

And Multichill, here is another related question (working with the Rijksmuseum dataset): In Q17419089 this person item, I pick a detail of a painting to illustrate the person. I link to the detail file on Commons with property "image", and then I say that it is "part of" the item for the painting. Is this enough? Jane023 (talk) 13:50, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Misrepresentation of edits and the respective users

@Lydia Pintscher (WMDE): User:Vlsergey did not change any contribution made by User:Tamawashi to this item. User:Tamawashi did not claim Barack Obama to be the designer of AK-47. So, why does it say "Undid revision 146609291 by Tamawashi" and looking at the prev-link Tamawashi is heavily misrepresented?

As of 2014-07-26 15:50 https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q37116&action=history shows 

(cur | prev) 07:13, 22 July 2014‎ Vlsergey (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,745 bytes) (-8)‎ . . (Undid revision 146609291 by Tamawashi (talk)) (undo | thank)
(cur | prev) 01:34, 22 July 2014‎ Tamawashi (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,753 bytes) (-2)‎ . . (‎Changed claim: Property:P279: Q177456) (undo) (restore)
(cur | prev) 20:48, 21 July 2014‎ Deaaaa123 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,755 bytes) (-4)‎ . . (‎Changed claim: Property:P287: Q76) (undo | thank) (restore)
(cur | prev) 20:48, 21 July 2014‎ Deaaaa123 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,759 bytes) (+2)‎ . . (‎Changed claim: Property:P279: Q14955393) (undo | thank) (restore)
(cur | prev) 20:48, 21 July 2014‎ Deaaaa123 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,757 bytes) (0)‎ . . (‎Changed claim: Property:P739: Q277462) (undo | thank) (restore)
(cur | prev) 20:47, 21 July 2014‎ Deaaaa123 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,757 bytes) (+12)‎ . . (‎Changed claim: Property:P1092: 75,000,000,000±1) (undo | thank) (restore)
(cur | prev) 16:04, 5 July 2014‎ Vlsergey (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,745 bytes) (+1,060)‎ . . (‎Updated item) (undo | thank) (restore)

The prev link for the first, having text "(Undid revision 146609291 by Tamawashi (talk))" is

The prev link for the second, having text "(‎Changed claim: Property:P279: Q177456)" is

Tamawashi (talk) 15:53, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Blocked by two admins, where was the "pattern of local abuse"?

You are currently unable to edit Wikidata.

You are still able to view pages and data entries, but you are now not able to edit, move, or create them.

Editing from Tamawashi has been blocked (disabled) by John F. Lewis for the following reason(s):

Inappropriate use of user talk page while blocked: Refusal to listen/acknowledge comments by users, see also this AN discussion

This block (ID #6387) has been set to expire: 23:52, 20 July 2014.

Even if blocked, you will usually still be able to edit your user talk page and email other editors. To discuss the block, you may contact John F. Lewis or another administrator.

When following the link labeled "blocked", one comes to the page "Wikidata:Blocking policy", which says:

Administrators may block user accounts or IP addresses:

  • To prevent local abuse where a pattern of local abuse has been established. Local abuse includes, but is not limited to:
  • When consensus to block a user or IP has been developed on a discussion page, with at least a week of discussion and clear consensus on administrators' noticeboard.

QUESTION: Where was the pattern of local abuse? Where is "local abuse" defined? Tamawashi (talk) 00:29, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: First thing which people never understand; we don't have a blocking policy. Now, refusal to work in a co-operative and community environment by repeatedly removing questions and warnings is just a major no. The AN section in question pretty much shows me a consensus among the administrators that there is an issue here which we can't resolve because you refuse to communicate with us. On a side note; unless you have something real to discuss - I ask you to stop carrying on the behaviour which resulted in your talk page access being revoked. Thank you, John F. Lewis (talk) 00:33, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
My reply:
  1. OK, no blocking policy, admins can do what they like to. Thank you for at least admitting this.
  2. I ask you to stop carrying on the behaviour which resulted in your talk page access being revoked. Can you define such behavior? Oh, but wait, there is no blocking policy, i.e. talk page access can be randomly removed, it wouldn't follow any defined behavior.
  3. "consensus among the administrators that there is an issue here" - ah yes? A consensus among those with superior rights to keep users down that don't follow their random commands?
I made 300000 contributions in one month, I am at 200000 in the second month. I am discussing EVERY content issue, 1) if there is disagreement 2) if I am aware of the existence of such 3) if the discussion is lead in English. It is pure defamation to talk of "refusal to work in a co-operative and community environment". You are now at least the second admin to post defamatory statements. 01:06, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
The comments by these two admins are not defamation under any standards. Please refrain from using that word lacking a proper context. Now, we do have a blocking policy and is called common sense. We are here to take care of a wiki and make sure everyone can work and discuss matters on a timely and friendly manner. This is not the behaviour you have shown, and as such you received warnings and, ultimately, a block. — ΛΧΣ21 01:11, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: I'll be completely blunt about this. In addition to John's and Hahc21's comments above, you appear to not assume good faith nor assume that we do with you. "Defamation" and "trolling" accusations (such as here, against @TomT0m:) fundamentally fail to do either, without substantial evidence. As for blocking you, I do not know of any administrator who opposed the block of you, nor did I see any other users comment to that effect. It is true that our blocking policy needs to be actually fleshed out, but en:WP:NOTTHEM behavior is invariably frowned upon by the community and not an appropriate use of your talk page while blocked. My honest advice for you is to just drop the stick, because your behavior, if you choose to continue it, will lead to further blocks.--Jasper Deng (talk) 01:49, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

User:Jasper Deng - you again fail to properly parse text. It was TomT0m that made the troll allegation against me. So, now the way you treated me, go to TomT0m and treat him like that? Let's see, if you are fair, and apply your standards to everyone. "en:WP:NOTTHEM" - First, this is Wikidata not English Wikipedia. Second, why do you refuse to talk about your behavior? It was a separate issue. My behavior is mine, yours is yours. Putting the NOTTHEM sticker all the time makes you look a little bit like a hypocrite, since when a discussion about your behavior is started then you use NOTTHEM to evade the discussion. Regarding "drop the stick" - well, you chose to attack me in the first place, by stating "I will also say that Tamawashi's been not so careful with his editing of items" at the AN [22], without providing evidence that I was not careful. Tamawashi (talk) 02:04, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Can we please desist from this matter now? No more mentions of it, no more accusations etc. that goes for both of you (Tamawashi and Jasper Deng). I shouldn't really have to say this but if you make another accusation whether provoked or not Tamawashi, I'm afraid we may have to block you again for carrying on behaviour immediately after your block expired. Take this as a final warning please. John F. Lewis (talk) 02:10, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
May I ask, why threatening with a block is only applied to Tamawashi, and not to other people? Can they make accusations against Tamawashi, but if he accuses them of unfair accusations, then he gets blocked, irrespective of whether he was right or not? I would like to drop the whole matter, but I FEEL TREATED UNFAIRLY. Tamawashi (talk) 02:17, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
This is nothing about unfair treatment. The mention of a block with regards to you is only because you came off a 24 hour block and immediately started this thread and began to accuse another user of trolling, therefore you came off a block and started to be disruptive again. If Jasper Deng just came off a block and did this; he would get the same response as you. John F. Lewis (talk) 02:21, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Section break

This still is not answered: "Where was the pattern of local abuse?" - Any idea why? Any diff? Tamawashi (talk) 02:13, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

There does not need to be a pattern of local abuse. The block comes up 'consensus to block at WD:AN' and general discretion I exercised by WD:UCS. Now as I said, please desist from this matter now. John F. Lewis (talk) 02:15, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification that "pattern of local abuse" was not the reason. Tamawashi (talk) 02:22, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Great, can we drop the matter now and get back to focusing on editing? John F. Lewis (talk) 02:23, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

This place is starting to look even worse than the English Wikipedia. Great.—Al12si (talk) 10:04, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

What are the aims of the Wikidata project for Wikipedia interlanguage links?

I am looking for a Wikidata page that describes the aims of the Wikidata project for Wikipedia interlanguage links. What should it provide? Of course it should provide links between different languages of Wikipedia. But what characterizes two articles of two Wikipedias-languages to have an Interwiki link on Wikidata? Could anybody give me a Wikidata link to such a description? Thank you! -- Tirkon (talk) 20:32, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Does Help:Sitelinks help you? --YMS (talk) 07:32, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, YMS. I think one hint is missing there. Wikidata interlaguage links serves readers of Wikipedia and not the data-aspect. Readers should find informations from the article in other languages. It is not necessary that two linked articles have the equal lemma. Nevertheless you should aim this. But it is sufficient to find similar informations in the articles. Since the interlanguage links moved to Wikidata people think they should give different Ids to slightly different article-lemmata. But that is not the sense of the interlanguage links. And it was not the way interlanguage links were provided in Wikipedia. Thus the reader does not find informations in other languages. -- Tirkon (talk) 04:15, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
Tirkon, this is by design. The whole point of Wikidata is being specific, while often on Wikipedia various concepts are bundled into one article. In languages where there are two meanings for one word, you will often both meanings in one article, whereas in languages where these two meanings have two words, there are two articles. Neither language is more "correct" than the other one, but Wikidata has two items, only one of which can be linked in those languages which have "bundled" their concepts into one article. Jane023 (talk) 12:30, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, Jane. I know the problem with not matching articles or two lemmata in one article. What do you think about the following approach in case of doubt how to group the articles together under same ID: "The aim of Wikidata interlanguage links is to provide informations in as much as possible other languages. The aim is not to group exactly the equal lemmata. That means: If grouping similar lemmata together (same ID) instead of dividing them into different groups (different IDs) produces considerable more interlanguage links in all languages than another grouping, then this grouping should be chosen. -- Tirkon (talk) 17:54, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
I think you need to just start in and see how it goes. At first I felt the same as you, but I changed my mind. I disagree with your purpose for interlanguage links. Not "as much as possible other languages" but "in other languages". Wikidata will help to start splitting articles that are now bundled in Wikipedia. I don't mean that Wikipedia should become a dictionary, but I do think we should see some of the really long articles on Wikipedia start to split into more manageable chunks that can be read comfortably on a mobile device. Jane023 (talk) 18:40, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
There are cases where every Wikipedia groups topics together but Wikidata still needs to split these topics into different items. This happens when statements about one topic are not true about the other item. If we need separate items to make statements then we create separate wikidata items, even if none of those items will ever have it's own independent wikipedia article. Filceolaire (talk) 07:14, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

merging occupation items

there are many duplicated occupation items which are listed in here please merge them by bot. (eg. Q2304816 and Q716711)Yamaha5 (talk) 05:47, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Not sure if that is a good sample. Clearly those two (Q2304816 and Q716711) shouldn't be merged, --- Jura 06:00, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
Excuse me I linked by fault eg. Q14616727 and Q13381753 Yamaha5 (talk) 06:12, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata:Requests for comment/Admin conduct policies

Since recently some admins arbitrarily, without coverage by policies, used their right of blocking a contributor, I created Wikidata:Requests for comment/Admin conduct policies. Tamawashi (talk) 14:28, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Not a real RfC; just a way to cause trouble. The questions is poses are already policy. I recommend you close it/request it for deletion or an uninvolved admin closes it/deletes it. It's just a case of 'I was blocked, I want the admins involved to be desysop'd immediately because the community has no policy regarding it!' John F. Lewis (talk) 14:34, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

What makes an RfC a "real RfC"? Do you disagree with the initial text:

Admins should only use their specific admin rights if the usage is covered by policies.

Admins should loose their specific admin rights if they violate that rule.

The guideline(sic) named "Wikidata:Blocking policy"(sic) should be upgraded to a policy.

?

This It's just a case of 'I was blocked, I want the admins involved to be desysop'd immediately because the community has no policy regarding it!' is defamation. Tamawashi (talk) 14:45, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

It's not defamatory. Also the first line basically says we can't; block, protect, revision deletion etc. because we have no policies regarding them. The second line is already policy and the third point requires a dedicated RfC for it. John F. Lewis (talk) 14:52, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
  1. It is defamatory according to Google's definition [23] "damaging the good reputation of someone; slanderous or libelous.".
  2. Fixed by creating policies. Real life analogy: Give the rules to the policy and the army.
  3. Where is that policy?
  4. Agreed. Done already.
Tamawashi (talk) 15:19, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
Tamawashi, if you answer harshness with more harshness, there will be no way out of the conflict. If you feel that the other rfc was a provocation, there is no use to answer it with another rfc that also can be seen as a provocation. It just emphasizes the conflict, but doesn't offer any way out of it.--Micru (talk) 17:04, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

@John F. Lewis, Jasper Deng: - To clarify: I don't want that you both loose your admin rights. I only want that your admin actions as well as those of any other admin are bound by policies. Tamawashi (talk) 15:19, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

I also want us to resolve these conflicts; but you have to see it from our point of view. Since the block; you've been persistent about commenting on administrator's actions, wanting to make swift immediate changes basing things around our actions and claiming we're violating nonexistent policies. Please read Wikidata:Administrators. John F. Lewis (talk) 15:27, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
As a matter of peripheral interest, en.wn has an actual blocking policy, which starts
In certain circumstances it may be necessary for an admin to block a user or IP address in the best interests of the site. It is up to admins to use their discretion to decide when to block, and how long for, however for guidance: [...]
So everything else on the page is guidelines. Imho that's the sanest blocking policy around. Saves wikilawyering. If an admin is a reasonable person, reasonable dialog is possible; if not, if they're truly a problem, the community can take away their privs. --Pi zero (talk) 16:23, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
Pi zero, even not liking the word "policy", I agree that version is the sanest one we could have. I think the admins are more reasonable when they do not follow any specific criteria other than their own experience, but that also requires users to understand the responsability weight that they carry and do not force drama upon them.--Micru (talk) 17:12, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata:Requests for comment/Blocking policy

I started Wikidata:Requests for comment/Blocking policy with the initial text:

There is a page named "Wikidata:Blocking policy" which is labeled as "guideline".

  • There are admins that claim that Wikidata has no blocking policy.
  • There are admins that claim there is one.
  • Admins refer blocked users to that page, as if it would be a policy.
  • Admins refer blocked users to that page as if it contained all rules for blocking.
  • Other admins refer blocked users to Wikidata:UCS "use common sense".

The proposal is either

  1. to make this page a policy or
  2. to rename this page to "Wikidata:Blocking guideline" or
  3. to rename this page to "Wikidata:Blocking" and mark as an essay.

Tamawashi (talk) 14:42, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

wp:az

It seems that in wp:az, there can be two articles about the same topic, one in arabic alphabet and the other in latin alphabet. The result is this : Q4361548 and Q12846577. I don't know what to do in Wikidata with this; for now these two items can't be merged. Ideally the problem could be solved directly in az wikipedia. Louperivois (talk) 15:07, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

This may apply to other multi-script Wikipedias, e.g. WP:SH too. Maybe User:Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) can let the developers create linking possibilities for language and script. For az: 1) az-Latn 2) az-Arab. For sh: 1) 1) sh-Latn 2) sh-Cyrl. Tamawashi (talk) 15:23, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

WEF gadgets update

This is an gadget update notification.

External links gadget update

(«WEF: Links» in "Tools" menu at the left)

  1. all changes are stored using single edit query (second can be used for removing claims, if any were deleted), not query-per-edit as before
  2. support qualifiers (usually -- language of work or name (P407)). language of work or name (P407) qualifier used by Template:Authority control (Q17116619) to select and display links (for example, if we have Russian and English links with normal rank, and French one with preferred rank, template will output Russian and French only)
  3. add encyclopedia links support (via own properties or described by source (P1343))
  4. add VIAF lookup support
  •  
    edit social networks links
  •  
    edit authority control IDs
  •  
    lookup VIAF data

Gadget is available in ruwiki directly (from prefferences). In all other projects (incl. Wikidata) it can be added to common.js with the following line: 

mediaWiki.loader.load( '//ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:WEF_ExternalLinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&maxage=86400&smaxage=21600' );
New gadget to edit person data

(item «WEF: Person» in "Tools" menu at the left)

  •  
    Common data. Fields populated with entity from Wikidata
  •  
    Birth and death information. Date fields support multiple modes
  •  
    Profession and occupation

Gadget is available in ruwiki directly (from prefferences). In all other projects (incl. Wikidata) it can be added to common.js with the following line: 

mediaWiki.loader.load( '//ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:WEF_PersonEditor.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&maxage=86400&smaxage=21600' );

Source code is available here: https://github.com/vlsergey/WE-Framework

Gadgets are localized in Russian and English. One of the following languages is used:

  • language from user preferences
  • content language of the project
  • English (fallback)
  • Russian (fallback)

Property and entity names are obtained as localized labels from Wikidata and stored in local storage cache.

Also, creation of new gadget is a matter of hours. If any project need a similar gadget (movies, cities, countries, languages) -- feel free to ask here or at my talk page. -- Vlsergey (talk) 05:47, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Interesting and useful gadget I think! But somehow loading localized labels does not work in all cases fine though. I just tried with German language for the person gadget, when I click on "Update labels" in the "General" tab, sometimes it loads the German labels for the bottom three properties and sometimes it loads the German labels for the other properties in that tab. And sometimes it does not display any labels at all, just the property number.
Actually, I just logged in into Wikidata (I was only logged in into Wikipedia at the time I tried it) and now it works fine. So, problem resolved I guess? Not sure what logging into Wikidata changes here. Or it was just some random glitch. --Bthfan (talk) 07:32, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
@Bthfan:, labels are not loaded immediately, it takes some time to send requests to Wikidata server and load all labels and descriptions. But i will try to reproduce the case and check what can occur. -- Vlsergey (talk) 07:59, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
@Bthfan: I was able to reproduce the problem and fixed it. -- Vlsergey (talk) 15:38, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
@Vlsergey: Many thanks for doing this, it is so useful! The only thing I missed is some link to the property here in wikidata. Sometimes they are not translated, so I have to come to WD and look for the page here. I also missed these properties for people: movement (P135), notable work (P800) and this in general: Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana ID (former scheme) (P1296). Another gadget for taxon info would be useful too.--Micru (talk) 08:13, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: i've added movement (P135) and notable work (P800) to person form; Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana ID (former scheme) (P1296) and Sandrart.net person ID (P1422) to external links editor (on "Encyclopedias" tab). Let me check, what property types are required for taxon editor. -- Vlsergey (talk) 17:25, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
@Vlsergey: Wonderful! I have some problems when using the search function of Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana ID (former scheme) (P1296), for some reason it uses the English name in Wikidata instead of using the text I input on the box. It would be nice if CANTIC ID (former scheme) (P1273) had the search function enabled too, it looks something like: http://cantic.bnc.cat/index_nps/index?text=$1&index=1, where $1 is the search string with white spaces converted into "+" signs.--Micru (talk) 09:30, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: All search on external websites uses the titles of wikipedia pages, not the value fields. So for Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana ID (former scheme) (P1296) it now uses the title of the page from cawiki first (if present), and after it -- title of the page from 'enwiki'. Also i've added search button for CANTIC ID (former scheme) (P1273). -- Vlsergey (talk) 17:23, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
@Vlsergey: I've translated the gadget in French. Could you add fallback for it please?
French translation
var wef_PersonEditor_i18n_fr = {
 
	dialogButtonUpdateLabelsText: 'Mettre à jour les libellés',
	dialogButtonUpdateLabelsLabel: 'Recharger les labels et descriptions des propriétés, qualificatifs et objets',
	dialogButtonSaveText: 'Enregistrer',
	dialogButtonSaveLabel: 'Fermer la fenêtre en enregistrant les modifications sur Wikidata',
	dialogButtonCloseText: 'Annuler',
	dialogButtonCloseLabel: 'Fermer la fenêtre sans enregistrer',
	dialogTitle: 'Données biographiques — WE-Framework',
 
	fieldsetBirth: 'Naissance',
	fieldsetCoatOfArms: 'Armoiries',
	fieldsetDeath: 'Mort',
	fieldsetImage: 'Image',
	fieldsetGeneral: 'Général',
	fieldsetName: 'Nom',
	fieldsetTitle: 'Titre',
 
	groupAwards: 'Distinctions',
	groupBirthAndDeath: 'Naissance et mort',
	groupCulture: 'Culture et art',
	groupEducation: 'Scolarité',
	groupFamily: 'Famille',
	groupGeneral: 'Général',
	groupMedia: 'Images, sons et vidéos',
	groupMilitary: 'Armée',
	groupProfession: 'Profession',
	groupSport: 'Sport',
	groupViews: 'Opinions',
 
	errorLoadingWikidata: 'Échec du chargement des données de Wikidata',
 
	menuButton: 'WEF : Biographie',
 
	statusLoadingWikidata: 'Chargement des données de Wikidata',
 
};


wef_ExternalLinks_i18n_fr = {
 
	buttonMenuLabel: 'WEF : Liens',
	buttonNavboxLabel: '[modifier les liens]',
	buttonViafLabel: 'Rechercher et importer les données du VIAF',
	editFormTitle: 'Modifier les liens externes et sites liés',
 
	dialogButtonUpdateLabelsText: 'Mettre à jour les libellés',
	dialogButtonUpdateLabelsLabel: 'Recharger les labels et descriptions des propriétés, qualificatifs et objets',
	dialogButtonSaveText: 'Enregistrer',
	dialogButtonSaveLabel: 'Fermer la fenêtre en enregistrant les modifications sur Wikidata',
	dialogButtonCloseText: 'Annuler',
	dialogButtonCloseLabel: 'Fermer la fenêtre sans enregistrer',
	dialogTitle: 'Liens externes et sites liés — WE-Framework',
 
	tabOfficialPages: 'Pages officielles',
	tabTexts: 'Textes',
	tabMedia: 'Images, sons et vidéos',
	tabTheaterAndMovies: 'Profil : Théâtre et cinéma',
	tabMusic: 'Profil : Musique',
	tabLiteratureAndManga: 'Profil : Littérature et manga',
	tabScience: 'Profil : Science',
	tabOther: 'Profil : Autres',
	tabEncyclopedias: 'Encyclopédies',
	tabAuthorityControlVIAF: 'Données d\'autorité (VIAF)',
	tabAuthorityControlOther: 'Données d\'autorité (autres)',
 
	tipDefault: 'L\'identifiant « {0} » est incorrect. Il doit respecter la forme « {1} »',
	tipOnlyNumbers: 'L\'identifiant « {0} » ne doit contenir que des chiffres',
 
	tips: {},
 
	getTip: function( definition ) {
		var tip = this.tipDefault;
		if ( definition.check.toString() === /^\d+$/.toString() ) {
			tip = this.tipOnlyNumbers;
		}
		if ( typeof ( this.tips[definition.code] ) !== "undefined" ) {
			tip = this.tips[definition.code];
		}
		if ( $.isFunction( tip ) ) {
			tip = tip();
		}
		tip = tip.replace( '{1}', definition.check.toString() );
		return tip;
	},
};
Thanks. — Ayack (talk) 10:01, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
@Ayack: thank you for the translation! Please, also, have a look at the commons file used by both gadgets, it may need some translation as well: [24]/[25]. -- Vlsergey (talk) 17:25, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Great tool! One question, should Property:P1037 really be on the person editor? --Ainali (talk) 11:36, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Taxon editor

@Micru: please check the new Taxon Editor: 

mediaWiki.loader.load( '//ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:WEF_TaxonEditor.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&maxage=86400&smaxage=21600' );

I'm not a specialist in biology, so feel free to propose any changes to grouping/splitting/etc on the form (at github, for example: [26]). -- Vlsergey (talk) 08:59, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

  WikiProject Taxonomy has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead..
Some remarks: botanist author abbreviation (P428) and author citation (zoology) (P835) belong to the "person editor", not to the "taxon editor". I would also add ecoregion (WWF) (P1425).--Micru (talk) 09:23, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: botanist author abbreviation (P428) and author citation (zoology) (P835) moved to "person editor", ecoregion (WWF) (P1425) added to "taxon editor". Thank you! -- Vlsergey (talk) 09:36, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Instructions

Small update: just wrote up some instructions for framework. -- Vlsergey (talk) 20:41, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Sometimes DOB and DOD get set to today's date, I fixed a few. Sample Q6025241 (still needs repair).--- Jura 21:20, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

"Uncle" in Turkish and Bosnian

It appears that Bosnian and Turkish may have different words for an uncle who is your mother's or your father's brother. The "mother's brother" uncle links are at Q6041134 on their own but the "father's brother" links are with the other links for "uncle" in general at Q76557. Should they be separated out? And if so, what would the labels be in languages that just have one word? Perhaps "paternal uncle" and "maternal uncle"? Cheers. Del♉sion23 (talk) 18:52, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Chinese also makes this distinction. In fact we make a three-way distinction: paternal uncles younger than your father (Q10912818), paternal uncles older than your father (Q10885666), and maternal uncles.—Al12si (talk) 19:10, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
The same is in Swedish, I think: morbror, farbror. Matěj Suchánek (talk) 19:25, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
True, and also in Finnish: setä and eno. --Stryn (talk) 19:31, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Seeing as Turkish and Bosnian have articles for both, I've kept the maternal uncle articles at Q6041134 and moved the paternal uncle articles to Q17438502. I've added a statement to both that they are "subclass of = uncle". Del♉sion23 (talk) 21:16, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

There’s already an entry for “father’s brother” (Q13907976, the parent of Q10912818 and Q10885666). I suppose the two should somehow be merged?—Al12si (talk) 22:09, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
  Done Del♉sion23 (talk) 22:52, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata Main page needs a banner and you can help!

Hi all,

As you may know, I'm currently working on planning and implementation of a new Main page for Wikidata. One idea to already come out of the redesign process is that the Main page should be more visually appealing.

To that end, I am wanting to get together an awesome banner (or choice of banners) for the top of the Main page and am inviting you all to share your ideas and submissions. We are looking for something that represents Wikidata and the idea behind the project; is eye-catching but also easily translatable; and is freely licensed CC-BY (or equivalent).

If you think you know how to communicate what Wikidata is through images or have an eye for graphic design, navigate over to Wikidata:Portal_Redesign/Banner where I've already started brainstorming designs and to learn more about the open call for submissions. Please add your proposal (or a link to it) to the talk page.

We hope to have our banner or banners ready for use on the new Main page in two weeks from now so please have all submissions in by 19:00 UTC on August 11th 2014. Feel free to leave questions here or on my talk page.

Cheers, -Thepwnco (talk) 19:03, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
ps. thanks to those who have already provided feedback on the Main page redesign—for those who haven't, there is still time to do so!

Be generous in what you accept...

When entering the value of a property, it should be possible to paste in one of these formats:

  • https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6942600
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Grenfell_(broadcaster)
  • Prince_of_Wales's_Own_Civil_Service_Rifles

and for the software to understand that, and convert it to canonical forms. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:37, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

We can't accept the last one because we have no idea where it is coming from. The other two would be nice to accept but to be honest right now we have much bigger fish to fry before we can get to things like this. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 19:05, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
I was thinking about the first one (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6942600) some time ago. That should be quite easy to do with a bit of javascript in the interface. Probably in the same block of code that takes "Q6942600" and shows the label and description to the user. Would love to have that. Lydia do you happen to know if we already have a bug open for that? Multichill (talk) 07:25, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
I don't think we do. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 07:37, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
@Lydia Pintscher (WMDE): I think you misunderstood; where we accept Prince of Wales's Own Civil Service Rifles (without underscores), we should accept Prince_of_Wales's_Own_Civil_Service_Rifles (with underscores). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:53, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Song Contests

I'm quite new to Wikidata, and find it really interesting! I have been working on different song contests, such as the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 (Q10162). Those contest should be about songs competing, but now the artists performing the songs are listed as participant (P710). How can both the song and the artist be structured under such a song contest? Example: Emmelie de Forest (Q3720656) performed the song Only Teardrops (Q3739483) during Eurovision Song Contest 2013 (Q10162). //Mippzon (talk) 21:07, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

You will need to use qualifiers for the other information about each participant. We have country (P17) and points for (P1358) but I don't think we have a property we can use for the song so you may need to propose a new property. New properties are more likely to be approved if you can show that they can be widely used.
Alternatively you could have 'Participant' link to the song and use performer (P175) to link to the singer, or propose a new property for competitions where the entrants are not people.
To search for existing properties put P: at the start of the search term or go here
Hope this helps Filceolaire (talk) 08:22, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
ESC's intention was to be a competition of composers and song writers. I agree that listing the performers as participants (which is the current state) is wrong. Formally, ESC can also be regarded more like a competition between the members of the European Broadcasting Union. However, just as there may be more than one composer of a song, there may be more than one broadcasting organization representing a country. Consequently, to me, it would make most sense to list the countries as participants and add all detailed information as qualifiers. Proposal:
STATEMENT: participant (P710): Denmark (Q35) / QUALIFIERS: represented by (or some already existing property I am unable to find once again): DR (Q1164334), represented by: TV 2 Danmark (Q1616154) (in my opinion, the broadcasting organizations would need to be listed as those may not be the same in every year), song (yet again unable to find a correct existing property): Only Teardrops (Q3739483) (that item should feature the composer), performer (P175): Emmelie de Forest (Q3720656)
One thing I noticed along the way is that from the item Only Teardrops (Q3739483) one could get the impression that it represents the specific combination of the composition with the performing artist (kind of saying "Emmelie de Forest's version of 'Only Teardrops'"). With such a schema, there would be no need to list the performing artist as qualifier above. However, since a composition might very well be performed by someone else as well, items should not feature specific combinations of song and artist (think of some Jazz-Standard having been performed by thousands of artists); (if Only Teardrops (Q3739483) is performed by some additional performer, (s)he should be listed in that item as performing artist as well.)
Okay, that would cover the most basic information. But what if you are asking for trouble and want to capture all the scores - the individual ones assigned by each country, not just the final scores? Well, then I would suggest to basically forget all the above and just use the following statement (which sounds quite ugly though):
STATEMENT: participant (P710): Dansk Melodi Grand Prix 2013 (Q4809098). (Alright, maybe there is a more appropriate property, but it is about finding such...)
Dansk Melodi Grand Prix 2013 (Q4809098) would act as container for all Denmark at the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 related information. Points, artist, song and whatever. In my opinion, that would be the most sane and flexible solution. Random knowledge donator (talk) 09:14, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, I think that structure with the country as participant (P710) is a good choice. Then it's easy to add appropriate qualifiers under each country. But is it not possible to add song (Q7366) as a qualifier? //Mippzon (talk) 10:45, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
The structure with the country looks good at first sight, but if you want to track all points, e.g. how many points Sweden awarded to Denmark, you run into trouble and the second solution - simply linking to a "container" item - would be far less of a hassle - the syntax is not as expressive and obvious though...
song (Q7366) is an item which can be used as value in statements. What we need is a property. There is a property audio (P51) which has an alias "song" - but that is of data type "Commons media file". We need a property of type "Item", so an item - Only Teardrops (Q3739483) - can be linked. Random knowledge donator (talk) 11:31, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
I have been experimenting on a structure in Eurovision Song Contest 1996 (Q207815). Should the property be something like "performed song"? Like Emmelie de Forest (Q3720656) has property "performed song" and all the songs she performed listed? //Mippzon (talk) 12:53, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Difference

I'm struggling to work out the subtle difference between divizion (Q4161240) and military division (Q169534), can anyone who speaks the languages help please? Thank you. 130.88.141.34 08:33, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

If you look at the Polish wikipedia (which has articles in both items) and apply google translate then divizion (Q4161240) translates as "Squadron - formation tactical troops in artillery and cavalry equivalent of a battalion of other types of forces." Filceolaire (talk) 03:55, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata @ Wikimania 2014

Hey everyone,

As per Lydia's request, I have compiled a list of all Wikidata-related events currently planned for Wikimania. With it, also includes a list of Wikimedia Deutschland staff going who work on Wikidata. Please go up to them, say hi and thank you for their awesome work! You can see the page at the Wikimania 2014 wiki. Thanks, John F. Lewis (talk) 22:46, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

User conduct policies RfC

I have just started a massive RfC here to attempt to overhaul some user conduct policies. Translators are also needed.--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:24, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I   strongly oppose the premises under which this RFC has been drafted. See a detailed explanation here: Let us talk.--Micru (talk) 12:35, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Alternative

@Jasper Deng: As an alternative to more rules, I would like to suggest to start something similar to the Teahouse to welcome new users, to encourage them to participate, and to help them integrate into our community. Better to welcome new friends with a cup of tea than with spiky laws and regulations! --Micru (talk) 14:15, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Strongly agree :) GerardM (talk) 16:24, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@Micru, GerardM: You two obviously don't understand. This RfC is intended only for experienced editors. And if even experienced editors can't agree on policies, then what should we tell new users?--Jasper Deng (talk) 17:28, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

From your response it seems obvious that I am not an experienced editor. Suffering a lack of communication is therefore the ticket.. ? Does it mean that only experienced editors may express an opinion ?? Can we have a teahouse, an IRC channel that is not special purpose ... where peole can ask and gain experience ... Once they have experience, these policies start to apply ... Right ?? Thanks, GerardM (talk) 20:08, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
Where did I say that? New editors will of course have to obey it, but it's the experienced editors that need these policies. Not that new editors won't have to follow them. And frankly, I don't get how a teahouse or IRC channel has anything to do with fixing this particular problem (not that they are bad ideas). --Jasper Deng (talk) 20:13, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
“ Cultivate weapons, and you will have war. Cultivate dialogue and the wish to understand each other's opinions, and you will have peace and harmony even when disagreeing. ”

—User:Micru, Wikidata:Project chat

@Jasper Deng: If it is for experienced good-intentioned editors, then it is even worse than I originally thought. Our goal to build a healthy community should be that everyone here can become best friends, not arch-enemies. Cultivate weapons, and you will have war. Cultivate dialogue and the wish to understand each other's opinions, and you will have peace and harmony even when disagreeing.
Yes, it is much easier to have a trigger that you pull and your problem sort-of-disappears, but it never works that way, it will start a dinamic of oppression and mistrust from which it will be very hard to escape. Have you heard about Wikipedia's editor decline and ever wondered why?
When asked to identify Wikipedia’s real problem, Moran cites the bureaucratic culture that has formed around the rules and guidelines on contributing, which have become labyrinthine over the years.
—The Decline of Wikipedia
On Wikimania last year there was also a very interesting talk by a Polish researcher: Collaborative or Conflict-Driven? Conflict Trajectories on Wikipedia (there is also a youtube video). Dariusz recommends to create the role of facilitators, users who help to bring perspective and peace, in order to avoid entrenchment and hate speech.
In Wikidata we should hear to wise advice and strive for community peace as the ultimate goal. If there is any policy that we should adopt, that is the friendly space policy (I recommend watching the whole video), so that if anyone feels hurt or under harassment there will be always someone to hear them. We should act as a shelter for all our members, no matter if they are sometimes right in some issue, or wrong, because our contributors are the most valuable jewel that we have.
That RFC speaks too much of edit warring and punishment, but too little of peace and conciliation. To learn the language of peace takes time and community effort, but the fruit that will give us is much sweeter and lasting. I kindly request that this RFC is stopped and instead we draft collaboratively one from scratch where everyone can feel represented. That will be more aligned with the wiki spirit.--Micru (talk) 21:18, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
If you feel like that's a problem, then add new sections about dispute resolution. And, I repeat, blocking is not a punishment. I don't like doing this RfC, but user conduct issues are neccessating it.--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:54, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
After reading your comment more, I also will say that the main problem with policies is an excess of rigid policies that the community neglects to amend over time. I only included the minimum number of policies necessary to solve the current disagreements; for example I have not formally proposed any policies on things like citing sources in this RfC. If you don't like the proposal, you can of course oppose it.--Jasper Deng (talk) 03:56, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
I question the legitimacy of a Rfc that has been framed as a support/oppose and not as consensus building. I also question the process by which this Rfc came into existence, right after there were some conflicts, when the animosity is still high, and without initial community input. For these reasons I abstain to participate.
In my opinion this RfC only addresses "surface problems", but not root causes. When we arrive to the situation of blocking an user, that is already too late. We should instead focus on how the problems arise, and address those situations first in a patient, and friendly manner. When that fails, ok to block, but admins already can do that, this is not a new feature, just a framework to "black-and-whiten" it when otherwise it would had been morally objectionable.--Micru (talk) 11:04, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
I didn't intend to frame it as anything but consensus building. Phase 1 is intended for the preliminary discussion. The root cause is our lack of written agreement on policies. This RfC in fact requires the collaboration of the community on agreeing on them. You have so far said many things saying that "rules are bad" but you have not given any evidence for how new policies could not possibly prevent further incidents. After all, content disputes are perennial parts of a wiki and I frankly do not get how a teahouse would help preventing any of them from getting out of control. You have not answered my basic question: What do we tell users in a dispute when conflicting advice likely would arise without agreed-upon policies?--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:18, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
@Micru: We have tried to be friendly and patient in the past. It just hasn't worked to resolve recent disputes and I see no reason why it would suddenly start to. Just search the AN archives. But it does not go without saying that I worded it as "administrators may" and not "administrators must". Administrators understand that warnings and other venues such as the one you proposed below should be tried first.--Jasper Deng (talk) 18:54, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
We didn't have that page in the past, so maybe we can experiment and see if it makes a difference. It is all up to us, if we want to focus on "good" and "bad" effects, or if we want to focus on what causes those bad effects. The web is very impersonal, and that already brings a disposition towards "bad effects", and to counter that we can only make it more personal and friendly.
Now we are planting the seeds, but it will be a long time before we can see the effects of using different dynamics. I ask for a bit of patience and ideas that each one of us can use to make our virtual environment more human-friendly.--Micru (talk) 10:50, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to see a successful RfC and a Teahouse. More policies, and a welcoming Teahouse. --AmaryllisGardener talk 17:48, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

re. an IRC channel; we have one - #wikidata. It is a channel ran by the community not the staff (sure, Lydia might be the channel contact) the chanops are all community members (mostly Rschen and I) and sure the development team piggy-back off their development part in the channel but that is because the development and community need to be one. The lack of user interaction in the channel is the communities fault for not using it. If we moved the development team into #wikidata-development, please tell me how that would boost interaction? It won't. John F. Lewis (talk) 20:18, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

John, you describe the status quo and then blame the community for not using it. Given the amount of work related traffic and given that answers to questions go unanswered, I find that I hardly ever use the IRC channel. Something new is happening all the time and it is hardly ever relevant to people not working on the Wikidata code.
When development uses its own channel and when admins talk about not so sensitive stuff in the open channel, we will get more relevant traffic to the users of Wikidata. Yes, you can BLAME others for not using the channel but now you know why. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 23:18, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
Administrators have a separate channel only for the purpose of discussing private matters such as revision deletions. We only use it for that and a way to communicate with other administrators asking for 2Os. Maybe Wikidata is a project which doesn't have to use IRC everyday then, that is fine. What is not fine is you always going around saying we don't have one. We have one, whether the community use it or not is their choice and their fault, not the development team's fault for using an empty channel instead of creating a new one. John F. Lewis (talk) 23:23, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
John, you are blaming the community again. You object to me having a point of view that is not yours. And, from my point of view the status quo is absolutely not fine. Why not have an other IRC channel how does it hurt? Call it an experiment and see what happens.. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 19:11, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
As I've said multiple times on here and on enwiki; the community can not refuse to use something, and then complain it is not there. Then when called on it, say 'it's not our fault, it's yours'. All I am going to say on the matter is, it is there. Use it, don't use it, I'm not really bothered. Just stop complaining it is not there when it is. John F. Lewis (talk) 19:15, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
I’m a bit weary of the RFC (even though I’ve translated more than half of it). I’ve barely come here and what I’m seeing is bugs and more bugs, and we’re discussing things like blocking people for reverts. If I can’t even be sure my edit is in the system how can blocks based on reverts be fair?—Al12si (talk) 02:28, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
  • It's a noble sentiment, and should be helpful for people of good faith dealing with each other — if one keeps carefully in mind the part about wish to understand each other's opinions. When taken naively it could have the same weakness as AGF, which puts those of good faith at a disadvantage when dealing with those of... less-good faith. Certainly Zhou Enlai went a bit too far the other way: "All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means." --Pi zero (talk) 22:07, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Participation requirements

How many people need to participate in this RFC (that I do not support at all) in order to be considered valid? And why is voting permitted when it has not even considered all the possible options and the preliminary discussion is not over yet?--Micru (talk) 10:53, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I was afraid to set a minimum because it would likely be arbitrary, but if one is needed, each should receive at least ten support votes if unopposed, or fifteen if opposed; at least 70% is required in each case. This would be enforced by the closer of the RfC.--Jasper Deng (talk) 18:54, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
Since often a piece of text isn’t really understood until it’s translated, I’ve been wondering about several things, and something that is kind of pertinent to translation is: When is the first stage considered started/finished? If anyone is going to depend on translations to make a decision, how can discussion/voting start (and looking at how much progress French is making maybe even finish) before translation is finished?
Sorry if this is a stupid question. It probably is but I am new here and things do look a bit opaque to me.—Al12si (talk) 03:04, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
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