Wikidata:Property proposal/electoral district number

electoral district number edit

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Generic

Done: electoral district number (P4565) (Talk and documentation)

Description	Number of the constituency/electoral district established by law. Only to be used if the number is established by law, regulation, or other legally-binding decision; not to be used for database identifier numbers which lack legal force, even if contained in a government database.
Data type	String
Template parameter	n/a
Domain	subclasses of electoral unit (Q192611)
Allowed values	no restriction, because different elections use different keys/numbers
Example	Neu-Ulm (Q1008451) is a federal electoral district of Germany (Q11703715) with constituency number (Wahlkreisnummer) 255. "Wahlkreis Chemnitz 3" Q2539878 is a Landtag electoral district (Q18226756) with constituency number 14, California's 53rd congressional district (Q5020115) has constituency number (congressional district number) 53
Format and edit filter validation	n/a
Source	for example List of constituencies
Planned use	election for the German Bundestag in September 2017, US congressional districts
Robot and gadget jobs	No.
See also	catalog code (P528) Wikidata:Property proposal/District

Motivation

For elections the territory will be divided in smaller parts. The electoral district will be identified by a unique key. For the election for the German Bundestag the subdivision is set in the Twenty-third Law amending the Federal Elections Act. For correct identifying the official key should be used. The new property will store this key. -Looniverse (talk) 20:19, 30 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Comment if it's just for Germany, you might want to add that at least in the English label or description.
--- Jura 05:39, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, this property is usable in various elections such as the Australian Federal Election (column DivisionID). --Looniverse (talk) 07:32, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- In that case, I'd go with catalog code (P528)
  --- Jura 11:04, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Looniverse I think there is a big difference between Australian "Division IDs" and the fact that California's 3rd congressional district (Q1002522) is number "3". As far as I am aware, the Australian "Division IDs" have no legal standing, they are simply arbitrary ID numbers in a government database; the Australian Electoral Commission (Q1658569) could move to a new database tomorrow, in which those "Division IDs" no longer exist or have different values. By contrast, the fact that Q1002522 has number "3" is actually legally defined, it couldn't be changed to a different number without a legal act (whether legislation, or a legally binding decision of an agency such as California Citizens Redistricting Commission (Q5020315)), whereas the AEC can change "Division IDs" at whim and that wouldn't be an act with legally relevant consequences. So, I don't like the idea of using this proposed property to mix up legally-established identifiers from what are merely arbitrary identifiers in a government database. Officially/legally established identifiers should be kept distinct from arbitrary database identifiers (even if the database is run by a government agency). SJK (talk) 08:12, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - SJK In Germany the IDs are set by a law whether it is a federal election, a country election or a communal election. The ID of the constituency is unique for the respective election. So the assign of the results is clearly. The name of the constituency is unique too, but its easier and clearer to use a number. But the ID is unique only in combination with the respective election (the ID #3 for instance is available for the federal election constituency for the Bundestag election Steinburg – Dithmarschen Süd (Q1008632), for the country election in Hamburg Q2539837, for the country election in Nordrhein-Westfalen Q1804267...these are different constituencies in different areas). Looniverse (talk) 11:26, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    - Looniverse I would argue the property description should be amended to say it is for legally-established numbers only. So if the law provides for a district to have a certain number, this property can be used. Whereas, if it is merely an arbitrary ID from a database, even a government-run database, this property should not be used. This would exclude its use with Australian DivisionIDs, but allow its use with US congressional district numbers. Since you tell me that the German identifiers are established by law (I am taking your word on that), it would be allowed to use this property with German identifier numbers too. My justification is it doesn't make sense to have a property whose values are a mix of legally-established values with values that lack any legal force. Do you agree with that? SJK (talk) 08:18, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      - SJK I agree with you. Would you please adjust the property description. Thanks. Looniverse (talk) 14:46, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        Looniverse I made some changes, are you okay with them? I haven't updated the German description, since I know very little German (almost but not quite zero), and while I could try with Google Translate, it would probably be wrong. I got rid of the use of the word ID and replaced it with number. I think that is better in that it sounds more like something that might be legally binding as opposed to just a possibly arbitrary database key. Since the German word being used is Nummer, I think that is better translated as number. (I realise you probably picked ID not number to reflect that Nummer is more restricted in meaning than Zahl, but the Nummer-Zahl distinction doesn't really exist in English–if the German word was Identifikationsnummer, then ID would be of course right – but in my searches I never see Identifikationsnummer used in conjunction with Wahlkreis, only ever Nummer, especially in the compound Wahlkreisnummer). SJK (talk) 21:09, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        SJK Thank you. Now its clearer. In this context the German word Nummer is correct. Looniverse (talk) 10:29, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment here in the US we have a complicated hierarchy of electoral districts, from congressional districts down to local precincts; at the congressional level they are numbered by state, and at the very local level they are I think numbered by town or county. It seems like it would be useful to have some sort of specialized property to identify these numbers with geographic locations (particularly now we can map them with the geoshape datatype!) but I suppose catalog code (P528) could do in a pinch. See en:Lists of electoral districts by nation for some differences between countries on this. ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:43, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support I support the proposal as it is at present. SJK (talk) 10:31, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment For consistency between the sample "Wahlkreis Chemnitz 3"=14 and "California's 53rd congressional district"=53 shouldn't "Chemnitz 3" have "3"?
--- Jura 10:47, 24 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Jura1 "Chemnitz 3" is for bigger cities when there is more then one constituency in this city. For Chemnitz there are actually the districts "Chemnitz 1", Chemnitz 2" and Chemnitz 3". As you can see in this wikipedia-list the number is changing between the elections. District "Chemnitz 3" was #14 at the election of the Saxonian Landtag 2004 and 2009; for the election 2014 the constituency got the #12. --Looniverse (talk) 12:48, 28 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - I think it might be better to limit this to Germany or use the generic series ordinal (P1545).
    --- Jura 05:59, 29 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 19:51, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2, Looniverse, SJK, ArthurPSmith, Jura1: Done Created as electoral district number (P4565). ChristianKl (✉) 15:46, 23 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]