Wikidata

Wikidata:Requests for comment/Image properties: many properties or many qualifiers

< Wikidata:Requests for comment
An editor has requested the community to provide input on "Image properties: many properties or many qualifiers" via the Requests for comment (RFC) process. This is the discussion page regarding the issue.

If you have an opinion regarding this issue, feel free to comment below. Thank you!


THIS RFC IS CLOSED. Please do NOT vote nor add comments.

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.

Consensus (6/2) is using qualifier "image depicts (item)" for most/all images. I will put some image properties to Rfd.--GZWDer (talk) 09:33, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This RfC aims to answer the question how many image properties should be created and what could be done with qualifiers. The discussion started at PfD Crew Photo and is a subset of the discussion on RfC: How to classify items. --Tobias1984 (talk) 12:54, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Examples edit

General example edit

Some items can potentially link to many images depicting different aspects of that item. Example:

  • Bear
  • Bear
  • Face of bear
  • Bear cub
  • Bear eating

The current approach is to use image (P18) for the general image and create special properties for the others. With our example it looks like this:

  • Bear

The problem is that we need an incredible amount of properties to deal with all the special images that we want to add to items. In my opinion it would be easier to deal with those cases with item-datatype qualifiers (mainly one qualifier). Our example would look like this:

  • Bear
  • image depicts = animal
  • image depicts = face
  • image depicts = cub
  • image depicts = eating

Spacecraft example edit

The Soyuz TMA-8 (Q1231148) mission spacecraft uses P623 (P623) (PfD Crew Photo) for the image of the crew. This could be also solved like this:

  • image = Soyuz TMA-8 crew.jpg

This approach would also allow us to add more details of the mission spacecraft. Example:

Existing and proposed examples edit

Existing edit

Proposed edit

  • image depicts = gene atlas image

Votes edit

Please add another headline if you have a different opinion (no hard feelings, I promise)

Using qualifier "image depicts (item)" for most/all images edit

  • In my still very basic understanding of semantic-web, it would increase our semantic approach to define all images with existing items, than to create hundreds of image properties that are not linked to any items (I don't think that property-item-links are a planned feature). "Depicts =" would be the equivalent of "subclass of"/"instance of" for images. I think Commons would have to start organizing their images like that too. It makes sense to repeat this at Wikidata because we are making a curated image choice instead of linking a category or a image search which both don't have good control over which images show up. (See plant cell example) --Tobias1984 (talk) 13:52, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your argument is valid from a semantics point of view, but the logical conclusion would be to delete almost all of your properties (e.g. such diverse properties as "founder", "headquarters location" and "industry" could all be replaced by a "related item" property with the appropriate term given as a qualifier). A minimalistic approach isn't always a good choice, though. Personally, I think Wikidata should not just try to achieve semantic perfection, that's more a long-term goal and could indeed be served by introducing property-item-links at some point in the future. Right now, we should also consider practical uses of the data and user interface concerns: Wikidata will catch on if it is reasonably easy to understand and use and serves practical needs. By allowing arbitrary terms as image qualifiers, a contributor would no longer get meaningful suggestions for properties, there would be a larger risk of inconsistent usage of terms - made worse by a lack of validation - and this in turn might lead to a less reliable coverage of image types that are actually useful for many applications. --Tobias K. (talk) 00:10, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  •  CommentChange from "image depicts" to "description", with multilingual datatype, and I would support this. This qualifier could then be used for other things besides images. Filceolaire (talk) 12:53, 23 July 2013 (UTC) Support this property with Item datatype. We should probably also have a property for the Caption/ALT text with multilingual datatype but thats a separate discussion. Filceolaire (talk) 20:59, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Question How to use this approach in infoboxes? For example person infobox, what image it must use? Some cases: item contains one P18 value without qualifier (typical case currently); item contains two values with same qualifier; item contains one value with unexpected qualifier. — Ivan A. Krestinin (talk) 13:36, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
One of the tools the developers are due to develop is Ranking. This will mean that where a property has multiple values one of these can be marked as the preferred value. For images this would be the image suggested for the infobox. Filceolaire (talk) 20:59, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Could you please give a link to the tool or description? P18 already massively used in infoboxes and we already have problems with multiple values and need solution. Another problem is images with unacceptable content for infoboxes. For example person item with image of his dog (and qualifier "dog" of cause), or some house photography and qualifier "place of birth". Both images are not acceptable for infoboxes, but I have no idea how to create algorithm that divide all possible qualifier values to accepted and rejected values. — Ivan A. Krestinin (talk) 03:47, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
 Support the only working approach. otherwise infoboxes need to cope with an increasing number of properties instead of just picking the image with the expected qualifier or an arbitrary one.  — Felix Reimann (talk) 22:00, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just link to the image and use media info there edit

  •  Support as far as I understand this site here, images would get a media info which could be queried as well. So we should describe the picture directly in it's media info, instead on items which are using the picture. Just a link to the image is enough, all other information should be stored within the picture. --Nightwish62 (talk) 19:09, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • My worry with your suggestion is that it would be like a image-search instead of a curated image. A lot of images could potentially say "crew photo of mission 123", but by explicitly choosing one of the images to be the default, we are doing something more than a image search can do (See eye-catching example). --Tobias1984 (talk) 20:10, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment Yeah, but the fact we link an image to an item already state that this picture is suitable to be used in wiki-articles. There is still no need to describe the content of the image on every item we're linking it again and again. We also can use rankings (later). --Nightwish62 (talk) 18:27, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think linking images to items would be a great way of expanding the ideas of semantic-web to pictures and Commons. If the link to the item should go with the image or the statement is probably another RfC with the Commons people included. --Tobias1984 (talk) 10:36, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A plant cell :)
and a plant cell :(

Use multiple well-defined properties edit

For example P18 only one item's object image, not "something related to"; flag image (P41) only for flag and etc. Property can not be used in infoboxes without strong definition. For all other images we already have Commons category (P373). — Ivan A. Krestinin (talk) 04:16, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments edit

  • I linked to that RfC at the very top. I made this RfC because I think it is easier to discuss and vote on this limited subject matter. Thanks for participating by the way ;). --Tobias1984 (talk) 20:00, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Images also have "Captions" and "ALT text". Should these be combined with "image depicts" in one property or should we have separate properties? Filceolaire (talk) 02:11, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Example: historical imagery edit

  • Good example. How about this:
Does this mean that historical images cannot be shown when only image (P18) and the qualifier "image depicts" are used? --Wylve (talk) 17:04, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that historical imagery would need start time (P580) and end time (P582) because it doesn't "expire" like an old flag does for example. I would use point in time (P585) for those images if you want to highlight the time it represents. But if Commons will adapt Wikidata properties then point in time (P585) will be stored with the images anyway and we don't have to add it to the Wikidata-statement. If you want to choose a specific image of London during the industrial revolution it could look like this:
Sorry, by "historical imagery", I meant old logos, flags, coat of arms, etc. --Wylve (talk) 19:26, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Semantic Web conventions for image annotation edit

I would encourage editors interested in describing images on Wikidata to read Image Annotation on the Semantic Web, a report from the W3C Multimedia Semantics Incubator Group. That document discusses use cases and possible Semantic Web-based solutions for describing images related to cultural heritage, images from NASA, and biomedical images, among other things. Those use cases are all relevant to image annotation on Wikidata. Emw (talk) 02:27, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While we are at it, maybe schema.org is more recent than this proposal, see image annotation format at schema.org. TomT0m (talk) 08:15, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Can you two please tell us how you think the reports you refer to apply to the particular case raised here. I have read these and it is not obvious to me. Remember that RFC's are for trying to arrive at a decision. Not for creating ever wider never ending discussions. Filceolaire (talk) 01:56, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I'm concerned I take those documents as possible inspiration on a close subjects, nothing more. TomT0m (talk) 08:45, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think these documents can be very useful for commons:Commons:Wikidata for media info, but I do not see clearly how they can apply here. --Zolo (talk) 09:48, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merge all Commons metadata into Wikidata edit

We should create a new item type F on wikidata for media files from commons and transfer all the semantic data from commons to wikidata, including adding these properties. That way the Image description would be attached to the image rather than having a different image description for each place the image is linked on wikidata.
Filceolaire (talk) 10:57, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Retrieved from "https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Wikidata:Requests_for_comment/Image_properties:_many_properties_or_many_qualifiers&oldid=604386946"