Wikidata:Property proposal/string identifies

string identifies

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Generic

   Not done

Description	(qualifier) what does the string or URL value of the statement identify?
Data type	Item
Example 1	Katy Perry (Q42493)Twitter (X) username (P2002)katyperrystring identifiesKaty Perry Twitter account (Q65665844) OpenStreetMap (Q936)official website (P856)https://www.openstreetmap.org/string identifieswww.openstreetmap.org (Q110251495) Python (Q28865)official forum URL (P10027)https://discuss.python.org/string identifiesPython community forum (Q114756015)
Example 2	Wikidata (Q2013)IRC channel URL (P1613)irc://irc.libera.chat/wikidatastring identifies#matrix (Q0404) Wikidata (Q2013)Matrix channel#wikidata:matrix.orgstring identifies#matrix (Q0404)
Example 3	See above.
See also	statement is subject of (P805), ?item wdt:instance of (P31) wd:Wikidata qualifier to describe the object of a statement (Q115396176)

Motivation

The proposed qualifier allows us to do two things:

• stop misusing the statement is subject of (P805) qualifier for the statements shown in Example 1, see WikiProject Data Quality/Issues/P805 for an explanation of why using statement is subject of (P805) is wrong for these statements
• express that some IM channels are bridged to other IM channels, as shown in Example 2

Suggested English aliases:

• object identifies
• URL identifies
• value identifies
• string links to
• URL links to

--Push-f (talk) 09:41, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

• Hmm, I'm not sure I see the distinction you are making here. Barack Obama's presidency was not about that statement. I'd advocate for changing the label on statement is subject of (P805) to be clearer that item values refer to their concepts, not the wikidata or wikipedia page of the item. ArthurPSmith (talk) 18:54, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

  You are confusing presidency of Barack Obama (Q1379733) the data item with the concept it represents. The data item is very much about the subject that Obama was a POTUS. Note that this is not the case for my examples e.g. Katy Perry Twitter account (Q65665844) is not about Katy Perry having a specific Twitter username, instead it's about the Twitter account that is identified by said username. --Push-f (talk) 19:10, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

•  Comment I don't think OpenStreetMap (Q936)official website (P856)https://www.openstreetmap.org/statement is subject of (P805)www.openstreetmap.org (Q110251495) is wrong, I believe the label is confusing. This is how P805 has been used for as long as I've been here. -wd-Ryan (Talk/Edits) 17:12, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  Maybe "statement is subject of item" would be better, or something like that. The description already specifies its the item that the statement is the subject of. See Elizabeth II (Q9682)date of death (P570)8 September 2022statement is subject of (P805)death of Elizabeth II (Q113846055) -wd-Ryan (Talk/Edits) 17:14, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  I already interpret it as "statement is subject of item" but that still does not help for the examples of this proposal because "statement is subject of item" can very reasonably be interpreted as itemitem has subjectstatement.

  •  OK death of Elizabeth II (Q113846055)item has subjectstatement (Q2684591)subjectElizabeth II (Q9682)predicatedate of death (P570)object8 September 2022
  •  OK presidency of Barack Obama (Q1379733)item has subjectstatement (Q2684591)subjectBarack Obama (Q76)predicateposition held (P39)objectPresident of the United States (Q11696)
  •  OK Canada–United States border (Q119515)item has subjectstatement (Q2684591)subjectCanada (Q16)predicateshares border with (P47)objectCanada (Q16)
  •  Not OK www.openstreetmap.org (Q110251495)item has subjectstatement (Q2684591)subjectOpenStreetMap (Q936)predicateofficial website (P856)objecthttps://www.openstreetmap.org/
  •  Not OK Katy Perry Twitter account (Q65665844)item has subjectstatement (Q2684591)subjectKaty Perry (Q42493)predicateTwitter (X) username (P2002)objectkatyperry

  So I am afraid that the semantics are wrong and the fact that it has been misused for a long time does not change that.

  Xstatement is subject of (P805)Y is only meant to be used if the data item Y is about the fact expressed by the statement X. www.openstreetmap.org (Q110251495) and Katy Perry Twitter account (Q65665844) however are not about facts, they are about concrete existing entities.

  Sidenote: It just occured to me that we if we decide to create this new property to prevent this property misuse, we could create a property constraint that statement is subject of (P805) should not be used with values that are instances of websites or accounts. Ideally with an explanation to use the new property instead ... I think that should work well. --Push-f (talk) 07:16, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• WikiProject Properties has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead.
  julle (talk) wd-Ryan (talk/edits) Arlo Barnes (talk) WT20 (talk) Zblace (talk) applsdev RampantSpirit (talk)
  Notified participants of WikiProject Websites WikiProject Informatics has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead. I broadened the scope of this proposal to allow it also to be used to qualify objects of data type item, see Example 2. --Push-f (talk) 09:55, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
• Mixed vote:

 Support for the Example 1 use case, if constrained so that the data type of the main statement value must be a string, not a Wikidata item, and strongly suggest property name "string identifies" and aliases "string links to", "URL links to". The stricken suggestion was incorporated, so my support for this use is now unequivocal. Swpb (talk) 18:30, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

 Oppose for the Example 2 use case, which should use another property, maybe the "quality or property of" suggested on Wikidata:WikiProject Data Quality/Issues/P642. Trying to stretch the proposal to cover this use case compromises its effectiveness for all use cases. This part of my vote is no longer relevant as this use case has been removed from the proposal. Swpb (talk) 18:30, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

No opinion on the Example 3 Example 2 use case, which I don't have enough familiarity to assess. Swpb (talk) 19:44, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

• Thanks I have dropped the Example 2 use case from this proposal and relabeled the proposed property to "string identifies", like you suggested :) --Push-f (talk) 12:27, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! Swpb (talk) 18:30, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

•  Oppose the status quo works well. I'm open to changing the label to make it more clear. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 15:40, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

   Oppose ditto BrokenSegue (talk) 00:32, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

• @Push-f, BrokenSegue, Swpb, ChristianKl, ArthurPSmith: Closing as not done due to lack of consensus support. --99of9 (talk) 23:23, 28 May 2023 (UTC)