Wikidata:Requests for deletions/Archive/2021/07/06

An operational error when running SmartifyBot caused the addition of 297 exact duplicates of artworks for the Yale Center for British Art. It has been suggested that I merge the duplicates with the originals, but I think deletion is the better option, particularly since it might lead to 2 items linking to the same Wikimedia Commons item and general confusion. Here is an example of an original work Q106858732 and its duplicate Q106861614, identical except for YCBA and the accession number in the description.

The sparql query below identifies the duplicate items to be deleted. Or I can add 4 bulk deletion requests – I believe there is a limit of 90 items per request. Thanks for your help, and sorry for the screw up.

# Query to get Qids of duplicate YCBA artworks added in error
SELECT ?artwork WHERE {
  {
    # Subquery to get 297 YCBA accession numbers for
    # works added by SmartifyBot more than once
    SELECT ?acc WHERE {
        ?item wdt:P195 wd:Q6352575.
        ?item wdt:P973 ?desc.
        FILTER(CONTAINS(STR(?desc), "smartify")).
        ?item wdt:P217 ?acc.
    }
    GROUP BY ?acc
    HAVING(COUNT(?item) > 1)
  }
  ?artwork wdt:P195 wd:Q6352575.                   # Get artworks for YCBA
  ?artwork wdt:P217 ?accession.                    # Get accession number
  ?artwork wdt:P973 ?described.                    # Only get artworks
  FILTER(CONTAINS(STR(?described), "smartify")).   #  described at Smartify
  # NOTE: remove following 2 lines to see original
  #      work and duplicate on successive lines
  ?artwork schema:description ?description         # Only get duplicate work with YCBA and
  FILTER(CONTAINS(?description, "(YCBA")).         #   accession number added to description
  FILTER(?accession = ?acc).                       # Only consider 297 works from subquery
}
ORDER BY $accession

Try it!

Rob Lowe - Smartify (talk) 16:26, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Merge: @Rob Lowe - Smartify: Could you please clarify why you think merging would be inappropriate here? I don't understand why it "might lead to 2 items linking to the same Wikimedia Commons item and general confusion". Bovlb (talk) 16:37, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Bovlb: These duplicates are in a transitory state. They were created with a Commons compatible image available at URL (P4765) and in a second phase (that has not been completed) the JPEG would have been created as an entry in Wikimedia Commons, the P4765 deleted and an image (P18) added pointing to the Commons image. So what does merging actually mean? We don't want to put the P4765 on the original, because it already has a P18 linked Commons image. Nor do we want to create a proper P18 on the duplicate because we certainly don't want to create an identical image on Commons for it to point at. What if we point the duplicate at the existing Commons image referenced by the original? There we enter into some kind of unholy triangle. Say someone finds the duplicate Wikidata item clicks on the link to Commons and then clicks on the Commons link back to Wikidata - presumably they end up on a different Wikidata item - the original!

I don't believe these duplicates are sensible candidates for merging. They are not items created by separate users containing complementary information to merge. They were created by the bot in error and can't sensibly made to be do what was intended - link to a Commons image. Rob Lowe - Smartify (talk) 20:02, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

I still say merge. Deletion does not save database space, nor does it increase the supply of integers. The benefit of merging is that we can explicitly track the fact that two qids refer to the same concept; we really have no idea what external projects may already be using these ids. Once they're merged, one item becomes a redirect and won't be pointing at anything on Commons, so I don't understand that concern. Bovlb (talk) 19:49, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Done all being merged. Mahir256 (talk) 17:17, 6 July 2021 (UTC)