Wikidata:Tours/Statements
Welcome to the Statements Tour
Welcome back—glad you’re still with us! In this second tour, you’ll learn about more advanced editing on Wikidata and how to create statements for items.
Please note that the page in the background is only a replica of a real page—you can think of it as a sandbox for you to play in and try new things. Your changes won't appear on Wikidata so there's no need to worry while making edits in this space. Let's get started!
Statements
In the Items Tour you learned how to add labels and descriptions to items in order to identify, differentiate, and represent knowledge in Wikidata. While labels and descriptions are important, they are only the beginning—there’s much more data that can be added to items!
All this other data—what we know about concepts, topics, and objects—gets recorded in Wikidata with statements.
Statements are added to items, just like labels and descriptions. Let’s take a closer look at our item page for Earth and see how this is done.
Statements
All item pages have a Statements section which can include any number of rows containing different things—words, numbers, even image files. This may look complicated but it's fairly straightforward. Let's take a closer look at one of these rows now.
Properties and values
This row is a statement about Earth. The statement is made up of a category of data, shown on the left, and a matching entry for the category, shown on the right. In Wikidata we refer to a category of data as a property, while the data that describes an item for a given property is known as a value.
In this statement, the property of Earth is “highest point” and the value is “Mount Everest.”
Properties and values
Let's put this new understanding to use.
Which one the following do you think is a good example of a property-value pair for a planet?
- type of orbit - named after
- discovery date - 23 September 1846
- Solar System - Mount Everest
Click the arrow to find out the correct answer.
Properties and values
- type of orbit - named after
- discovery date - 23 September 1846
- Solar System - Mount Everest
23 September 1846 happens to be the time of discovery or invention (P575) of Neptune and is the only example of both a property and value.
More on properties
Here are some key things to keep in mind about properties:
- Properties usually have a single, distinct name, like "colour", "country of citizenship", and "sibling"
- Properties limit and define what kind of data values can be added to an item. For example, the “discovery date” property requires a date value and won’t accept just anything to be entered in like “blue” or “France”. These constraints also protect Wikidata from vandalism.
Got it? Now let's add our first statement to Earth.
Creating a statement
Let's add a statement that lets people know that Earth is part of the Solar System.
We'll need a new row, so first click on [add] at the bottom of the Statements section (in doing so, you'll also be taken to the next step).
Creating a statement
Let's now add the property part of. Wikidata provides auto-suggestion for properties via the Entity Suggester—start typing part of in the property field and it should appear in the drop-down menu. Select to add it to our statement, then click the arrow to continue.
Creating a statement
Now in the empty field beside your property, start typing Solar System. The drop-down menu will display all matching items in Wikidata. Click on the item that best matches what you're looking for (hint: it's not the song by the Beach Boys!). Click "publish" when done and your statement will be added to the page.
Congratulations!
Congratulations! You've completed the Statements Tour on advanced editing for items in Wikidata.
Want to keep editing? If you're ready to leave the sandbox and edit on the real site, the links below will get you started:
- Edit a random item
- Edit a showcase item
Want to keep learning? Click here to return to the tours portal.
Still have questions? Talk to someone over live chat on IRC #wikidataconnect or check out the following help pages: