Wikidata:Property proposal/parliamentary group
parliamentary group edit
Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Organization
- Motivation
Parliamentary groups are very important in the organization of many parliaments, so it is relevant which groups the members of a parliament belongs to. member of political party (P102) cannot be used for this as the parliamentary groups for members of a parliament may not always correspond to their policical party. In the two examples in the proposal, the parliamentary group is not the same as the person's political party. For Mr. Pittella because the groups of the European Parliament are international, while the parties of the members are national. For Mr. Elbæk because he had just founded a new party (The Alternative (Q18042964)) which wasn't yet represented in Folketing (Q209151) in the indicated period. Best regards, Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 08:59, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- Discussion
Support At the moment this is expressed inconsistently across different legislatures (and often even within a single one). The two most common uses are currently member of political party (P102) and represents (P1268) (although both are technically outside the current allowable types) and it would be good to have a consistent approach. I worry slightly about making this specifically about Parliamentary Groups, however, as, whilst they are significantly more important than political parties within the legislative context of many countries, in others it's the reverse (or they don't really exist at all). I definitely agree that it's valuable to be able to express the affiliation on the position held (P39) rather than having to derive it from a different property on the person (as is usually the case with member of political party (P102)), but multi-country queries would become substantially more complex if the choice of "Member of Party" or "Member of Group", relied on detailed knowledge of each country to do comparative analysis. A slightly more generic name would make the simple case much simpler, and still allow for filtering on the instance of (P31) of the target item if you really only cared about one or the other. --Oravrattas (talk) 09:50, 24 March 2017 (UTC) (Also pinging @Andrew_Gray:, who I know has views on this too)
- @Oravrattas: I am open for a more generic name if you have any suggestions. Note that the proposal allows both items for parties and parlaliamentary groups to be used as values. Best regards, Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 11:54, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- By the way, it doesn't have to be just for members of parliaments. It could also allow for members of city councils and other assemblies. I just didn't find an item for member of an assembly when I made the proposal, but I may have overlooked it. Otherwise it can be created. Best regards, Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 12:12, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
- @Oravrattas, Dipsacus fullonum: I'd actually been writing up a separate proposal this week on this topic :-).
- My feeling is that this suggestion and member of political party (P102) are really trying to say the same thing - "political affiliation". member of political party (P102) is primarily about the person in their own capacity and this proposal is primarily about the elected office.
- So maybe what we want to do is keep using member of political party (P102) for people, but broaden the constraints beyond just "party", and have:
- on a person generally,
- membership of a political party, movement, parliamentary group, etc; or where appropriate broad concepts like anarchism (Q6199)
- as a qualifier to position held (P39),
- represents that political party, movement, parliamentary group, etc in this particular position (so they can represent X in one place and Y in another)
- In the case of the European Parliament, where people do have very definite party affiliations, I wonder if we can just keep those national parties. If every MEP from Democratic Party (Q47729) is automatically a member of Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (Q507343), and none of them are members of European People's Party group (Q635616), then we could define a parent-child relationship between the two parties, and say "show me everyone who is associated with a party which is part of this one", rather than adding the overall group to every MEP. This would also work for general party coalitions - so in India we can record a Lok Sabha member as from the Bharatiya Janata Party (Q10230) or the Republican Party of India (A) (Q7314647), both of which are part of the National Democratic Alliance (Q129815).
- So we could have
- Democratic Party (Q47729) : [parliamentary group] Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (Q507343)
- The People of Freedom (Q47720) : [parliamentary group] European People's Party group (Q635616)
- Bharatiya Janata Party (Q10230) : [parliamentary group] National Democratic Alliance (Q129815)
- Republican Party of India (A) (Q7314647) : [parliamentary group] National Democratic Alliance (Q129815)
- Thoughts? Or am I missing a subtle point here? (This is very possible...) Andrew Gray (talk) 10:51, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
- @Andrew Gray: I don't think it is a good idea to redefine member of political party (P102). It is used more than 200000 times, and the users currently are expecting the values to be political parties, and not movements or even ideologies. For these already exist member of (P463) and political ideology (P1142), which can be used for this.
- I don't know of any cases where members of the same national party have chosen different groups in the European Parliament, but I wouldn't be surprised if it has happened. I do know that national parties over time change parliamentary group, so it will be needed to consider the point of time to make a mapping from national party to parliamentary group in the European Parliament. I also do know that there are MEPs which don't belong to any national party, but are in parliamentary groups. I think it is better to state the MEPs' parliamentary group directly in a qualifier to position held (P39)member of the European Parliament (Q27169) to avoid these complications. Besides the national party can already be stated with member of political party (P102). Best regards, Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 19:40, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
- @Dipsacus fullonum: fair enough, I don't want to hijack your proposal :-)
- My worry is that for most countries, we're already using (or are planning to use) member of political party (P102) as a qualifier on position held (P39) to represent party affiliation in a given post - as Oravrattas says, member of political party (P102) on the main entry makes for really complicated queries, particularly if they change party (since you have to look at the dates on both P39 and P102 to figure out how they match up). So for many MEPs, we'd likely end up with both P102 and Pgroup qualifiers on position held (P39)member of the European Parliament (Q27169), which seems a bit complicated. I'll think some more about this. Andrew Gray (talk) 23:14, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- @Andrew Gray, Oravrattas: I understand the worry about different qualifiers being used for the same thing. It may be possible to change member of political party (P102) to also allow parliamentary groups which are not parties as values when it is used as qualifier for position held (P39). Besides the groups in the European Parliament, such groups may also exist in national and local parliaments and councils. For instance the Danish Folketing (Q209151) once had the group Frihed 2000 (Q12312965) which wasn't a party. It may though be a problem if the meaning of a property depends on if it is used as a qualifier or alone. I also think it can be a source of confusion and errors in cases where the parliamentary group and party are different, or when a MP is a member of a party but no parliamentary group or inverse. I would like hear more points of view on this.
- What is the procedure for changing an existing property? This may require changes to both member of political party (P102) and position held (P39). Best regards, Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 09:41, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
- If we can put them both under P102 qualifiers to P39, that would certainly seem to solve the problem of having two properties that almost-but-not-quite refer to the same thing. The first step is to leave a comment there, and I see you've done it :-) If people decide to go with that, then technically all we have to do is edit the qualifiers to add parliamentary groups as an allowed option, which should be simple enough.
- Another approach might be to keep P102 for "people's" membership in parties, and have the new property cover both parties and groups but only use it for qualifiers. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:49, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
Comment I added a few "see also" properties above.
--- Jura 04:25, 4 April 2017 (UTC)- @Dipsacus fullonum, Andrew Gray, Oravrattas:
Done Created as parliamentary group (P4100). ChristianKl (talk) 22:24, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
