Wikidata

Wikidata:Property proposal/alternative title

< Wikidata:Property proposal

alternative title edit

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Creative work

   Not done
Descriptiona title under which a work is also known as.
Representsalternative title (Q4736562)
Data typeMonolingual text
Domainitem
Example 1Duck, You Sucker! (Q510657) → A Fistful of Dynamite (English)
Example 2Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Q43361) → Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (English)
Example 3Messenger of Iscandar (Q107415899) → Messenger of Iscandar (English)
Expected completenessalways incomplete (Q21873886)
See also
  • title (P1476): published name of a work, such as a newspaper article, a literary work, piece of music, a website, or a performance work
  • name (P2561): name the subject is known by. If a more specific property is available, use that
  • alternative name (P4970): qualifier for alternative name(s), given for a subject in a database entry, or preserved in references (even these are no longer the preferred name)
Distinct-values constraintno
Wikidata projectWikiProject Anime and Manga

Motivation edit

  Notified participants of WikiProject Anime and Manga

Over at WikiProject Anime and Manga it was concluded that we could use a separate property for the title a work is known under, other than its actual or original title-Shisma (talk) 14:34, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion edit

  Support Can you add some examples where the alternative title is in a different language from the (main) title? @Shisma:--Trade (talk) 22:53, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  WikiProject Movies has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead. --Trade (talk) 22:54, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Trade here is a very complex example I pulled from anidb.
Fullmetal Alchemist (Q711257) title (P1476) 鋼の錬金術師
→ Fullmetal Alchemist (English) used in Eglish speaking countries, German speaking countries, Spanish speaking countries, and portuguese speaking countries
→ Fullmetal Alchemist - Hledání kamene mudrců (English/Czech) used in the Czech republic
→ Metalinis Alchemikas (Lithuanian) used in Lithuania
→ Ο Μεταλλικός Αλχημιστής (Greek) used in Greece
→ Стальной алхимик (Russian) used in Russian speaking countries
→ אלכימאי המתכת (Hebrew) used in Isreal
→ Fullmetal Alchemist - A Bölcsek kövének nyomában (English/Hungerian) used in Hungeria
→ Çelik Simyacı (Turkish) used in Turkey
→ แขนกลคนแปรธาตุ (Thai) used in Thailand
→ Челични алхемичар/Čelični alhemičar (Serbian) used in Serbia
→ 钢之炼金术师 (Simplified Chinese) used in China
→ 강철의 연금술사 (Korean) used in Korea
→ 鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST (Japanese/English) used on the official title card. In Japanese product design, English is often used as an ornament. So this is not necessarily the official title.
Anidb also lists 19 additional aliases but does not specify language or region:

Alchimistul de Oţel, El Alquimista de Acero, FMA2003, Full Matal Alchemist/Stalowy Alchemik, Full Metal Alchemist, Giả Kim Thuật, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi 2003, Metal Simyacı, O Alquimista de Aço, Ocelový alchymista, Pełno-metalowy alchemik, Железният Алхимик, Металният Алхимик, Напълно Металния Алхимист, Сталевий алхімік, Стоманеният алхимик, Суцільнометалевий алхімік, الخيميائي المعدني, 钢之炼金术士

--Shisma (talk) 10:37, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Anidb also lists Hagane no Renkinjutsushi (Japanese written in Latin) and はがねのれんきんじゅつし (Japanese written in kana). Since these are all transliterations of the main title, they should be qualifiers of title (P1476) NOT alternative titles. example --Shisma (talk) 10:52, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Comment Previous detractors to such a property have argued one of the following:
    • Use labels. This does not fly because there might be a mismatch between the language of the title and the language it is used in. For example, the movie Pirate Radio (Q856805) is called Good Morning England, an "English" title, in France. We thus need to have monolingual text datatype and relevant qualifiers.
    • Create items for each version, like we do for books. This is a possibility, but it’s just not the data modeling decision made by the relevant projects, like Anime & Manga, video games (though we may or may not change that Some Day™) and (as far as I know) Movies. Solving the issue by splitting items in 15 (like the Full Metal Alchemist example given above) does not seem like a good solution.
      • Thinking more about it, this especially does not fly for TV show episodes, which often have localized titles, but there is little point creating dozens of items for each. Jean-Fred (talk) 12:47, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Use alternative name (P4970). I mean, sure, but that rather raises the question, why do we have title (P1476) in the first place and we could not just use name (P2561).
      Jean-Fred (talk) 11:17, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Jean-Frédéric: Because a few folks at the time of those getting created probably didn't look deeply enough at all the qualifiers and properties, so redundancy crept in with new proposals. Which we should try to slow and take harder looks at new property proposals and be very careful and thorough. --Thadguidry (talk) 00:28, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Another solution is adding all to title (P1476) and set the original to preferred rank.--GZWDer (talk) 12:22, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but the same could have been said of alternative name (P4970) − just use name (P2561) with ranks. Jean-Fred (talk) 12:47, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Strong oppose "title" is merely "appellation" or "name". The English word "title" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/title has typically signified honor toward works, people, even sections of famous works, and is just a convenient, short way to verbosely say "Creative Work Name" while keeping a narrowing connotation for the Creative Works domain. title (P1476) is short, but it still just annotates "name" of "works" at the end of the day and doesn't annotate some "canonical title". That's where setting Preferred ranks on all the title (P1476) statements comes in to let the community bubble up those appropriately. Since "title" is just "name of work" semantically, I suggest title (P1476) be used with appropriate subclass or instance additionally to constrain to any of our "works" domains. I do understand that many folks in GLAM and elsewhere might want a direct "alternative title" property as proposed here to have a short convenient way to say "alternative name of work" but that in itself doesn't actually imply any constraints where an item MUST be a Creative Work subclass, you still have to always apply properties for subclass or instance on the Wikidata item.

So, simply stated...just use title (P1476) and set Preferred ranks and Normal ranks to as many alternative titles that you need to account for. Then the community consensus can even help judge and make changes to the ranks. You can set as many title (P1476) statements with ranks and usage of qualifiers beneath each to really drive semantic richness way beyond what your traditional GLAM cataloging tools even allow! We have over 296 qualifiers now, so use all of them as needed on your title (P1476) statements! You need some we don't have? Then propose a qualifier instead, or request that an existing property be used as a qualifier as well! :-)

If you are saying, but Thad, we want a direct property to use so we can map our database's "alternative title" field with this nice new specific proposed Wikidata property. Well, then I would say, we have you covered already with alternative name (P4970) and where again you can go crazy by using title (P1476) and then adding alternative name (P4970) as a qualifier or adding over 296 qualifying statements along with it or ask for more if those qualifiers don't cover all your needs!
-Thadguidry (talk) 00:11, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thadguidry simply using ranks would also have been my preferred model. I remodelled a few items like this. at least one of these edits have been instantly reverted, probably because @Máté: thought it looked weird?! 🤷 New properties on the other hand bring with it an instant legitimicy: the property exists so, perhaps the model is based on some level of community consentius. But creating an infinite number of redundant properties should not be done for the sole purpose or avoiding confrontation 🤣. --Loominade (talk) 11:08, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, I was just reinstating the item to the currently acceptable stance. If you want to do things differently than how they are done now, first discuss. I don't mind. This is supposed to be a community or something. But don't just assume that it had to do anything with my personal preferences. I most definitely had not. – Máté (talk) 11:20, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've given a bit of thought and that's probably inadequate, right? Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (Q17738) has had at least four different Hungarian titles so far (all given by Hungarian distributors). Now, one of those could be the preferred one. But then again all English language titles should be more preferred than any of those and one English title should be even more preferred. That just seems too many levels for two ranks. – Máté (talk) 11:29, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Máté I meant no offence mentioning you. I think the original title, or the title the work is best known for, or the title that most people agree upon should always be the preferred one. localised titles should have a normal rank. localised titles that are considered wrong or missleading should be deprecated. --Loominade (talk) 11:39, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Thadguidry for the input!
Jean-Fred (talk) 13:09, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I’ve just noticed that alternative name (P4970) has String datatype, so I don’t think anymore it could be a good fit, per my post above, I believe Monolingual text is required here. Jean-Fred (talk) 13:11, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Jean-Frédéric:Yes it's a qualifier, I've edited my statement above to be more clarifying.

Well, then I would say, we have you covered already with alternative name (P4970) and where again you can go crazy by using title (P1476) and then adding alternative name (P4970) as a qualifier or adding over 296 qualifying statements along with it or ask for more if those qualifiers don't cover all your needs!

--Thadguidry (talk) 16:42, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Comment 1: I don't think it's a good idea to use alternative name (P4970) for this or to add multiple qualifiers with the information to other statements. A separate statement will make it easier to reference or to retrieve the relevant reference. The qualifier was created for a different purpose. --- Jura 19:34, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Comment 2: The information is generally also in labels and aliases, but there needs to be structured way to include the information as statements with references. --- Jura 19:34, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Comment 3: Multiple statements for what is not the title in the original language with title (P1476) seems a break from existing practice. --- Jura 19:34, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Comment 4: While we currently use name (P2561) for work titles (also), this doesn't seem optimal. --- Jura 19:34, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Weak support In library cataloging land, alternate (or variant) title is definitely a different property from alternate (or variant) name. Resource Description and Access (Q1519318) actually has several different properties, depending on what type of entity is being described: has variant title of work would be used in work descriptions, whereas has variant title of manifestation is used in manifestation descriptions. While I sympathize with the arguments to just use the existing property alternative name (P4970), that property is currently very narrowly defined in an authority context: "qualifier for alternate names given for a subject in a database entry" and has aliases such as "used for" and "unused form". alternative name (P4970) would need a fairly significant revision if it is to be used outside of an authority record context. It isn't clear to me whether this proposed property is intended for use on both items for works (any variant title that a work may be known as) as well as items for particular manifestations (e.g. the title on the cover or spine of a book that differs from the title on the title page; parallel titles in other languages than the title proper). If this proposed property is meant for both kinds of items (works and manifestations), that would have to be very clear in the definition and the examples given. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 06:18, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Trade:@Jean-Frédéric:@Thadguidry:@Jura1:@UWashPrincipalCataloger:@Máté: If we can all agree, to use title (P1476) with   to indicate the original title, I would withdraw this proposal. --Shisma (talk) 06:47, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Trade:@Jean-Frédéric:@Thadguidry:@Jura1:@Máté: If there is a qualifier that could be used to indicate "preferred title" and "original title" that would be useful I think. Not all original titles are going to be the preferred title. For example, Shakespeare's work Hamlet has the preferred title "Hamlet" but its original title is "The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke". UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 14:37, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
UWashPrincipalCataloger sure, i'd use object has role (P3831) set to original title (Q1294573) or localised title (Q107410900) --Shisma (talk) 14:41, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Preferred by you, or me, or someone else?  :-) That is precisely why we have Ranks, to capture community consensus sometimes. It's lightweight and not concrete to allow capturing disputes (using good qualifiers), not avoid them entirely. Facts change over time, preferences are usually localized, and Wikidata's data model allows for all this flexibility. With Wikidata's data model, saying "first" or "original" can be akin to saying "ordinal 1". series ordinal (P1545) is the closest, and can be used for any logical series, but "naming" of works is not always series based, but time-series based (1st edition named "Thad", 2nd edition renamed to "Thad, the benefactor"). Is capturing editions at a Wikidata item level even necessary in Wikidata's data model or ideal? (my opinion is No). I like having a single Wikidata item for the concept of a unique Creative Work, your Hamlet (Q41567) example or Fullmetal Alchemist (Q711257). If that Creative Work goes through name changes (editions or otherwise), based on various criteria, over time, then I think we already have the properties and qualifiers that are necessary. I think Hamlet (Q41567) and Fullmetal Alchemist (Q711257) are great items to use to explore any gaps in qualifiers we might have? I encourage using those 2 items first to explore and discuss on their own discussion pages, instead of this proposal. I would encourage avoiding "preferred" in any property because of bias (even though it's part of the Rank lingo now). I think that "original" or "first" is something that then needs to be explored, but remember that "original" or "first" can be deduced simply by filling title (P1476) statements with start dates (but not always easy to do or the data available), but you know which one of the names or titles was "first" and perhaps just setting preferred Rank along with qualifier reason for preferred rank (P7452) with first (Q19269277) or lexeme sense first (L2)-S1 or lexeme sense original (L324785)-S2 might be the final agreement by all discussing here when dates are not easily available.

I'm not adverse to seeing usage of object has role (P3831) but the statements with it using object localised title (Q107410900) are not necessary at all because localization is already implied with the Language attribute we require as Mandatory on monolingual text strings. So someone is just adding redundant data objects in Fullmetal Alchemist (Q711257) on each title (P1476) statement.

Really this entire property proposal discussion should just move over into the many threads already in https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property_talk:P1476
--Thadguidry (talk) 16:07, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Don't forget about uniform title (Q1307840) which is fairly equivalent to "preferred title", that is, the title by which a work is best known by and which is used as the authorized title in authority records/databases. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 14:48, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
* @Shisma, Trade, Jean-Frédéric, Thadguidry, GZWDer, Loominade:, @Máté, Jura1, UWashPrincipalCataloger, Worldm99:   Not done: There is no consensus, over the past six months no one has spoken about the property. —MasterRus21thCentury (talk) 16:04, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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