Wikidata:WikiProject every politician/Political data model

Data Model for Politicians

This is an attempt to document best practices for modelling data about politicians and the offices they have held. Ideally data should modelled in as consistent a manner as possible across different countries, so that queries that work in one place will also work with minimal changes elsewhere. This is still a work in progress, and discussion on different/better approaches is always very welcome.

Holding Political Office

The core property for holding political office is position held (P39) (member of (P463) should not be used for this).

Several different approaches to position held (P39) statements are currently used, depending on the quality of data sources, and the richness of information required:

Approach 1

Uses a single standard membership property, e.g. member of the European Parliament (Q27169), and no qualifiers. This is very common when bulk-importing data on politicians, e.g. from Wikipedia Categories, and is very useful base information.

position held (P39)	member of the European Parliament (Q27169) edit ▼ 0 reference + add reference
		+ add value

[* NB: A list of the existing "Member of Country's Legislature" items can been seen on the List of National Legislatures page.]

Approach 2

The position held (P39) statement is qualified with start time (P580) and end time (P582). This is a substantial improvement on Approach 1, as it lets us know when someone held office, not simply that they did hold office.

position held (P39)	member of the European Parliament (Q27169) edit start time 20 July 2004 end time 21 October 2013 ▼ 0 reference + add reference
		+ add value

Approach 3

Similar to Approach 2, but where a specific item relating to the holding that office exists, and can hold extra information.

position held (P39)	President of the United States (Q11696) edit start time 20 January 2009 end time 20 January 2017 statement is subject of presidency of Barack Obama (Q1379733) ▼ 0 reference + add reference
		+ add value

Approach 4

Note: This approach may not be applicable in all scenarios, depending on the structure of a specific legislature and/or of existing data. It is generally advisable to start a discussion before converting data from one approach to another.

Separate position held (P39) statements for each mandate:

position held (P39)	member of the European Parliament (Q27169) edit parliamentary term Sixth European Parliament (Q4642661) start time 20 July 2004 end time 13 July 2009 elected in 2004 European Parliament election (Q1331918) ▼ 0 reference + add reference member of the European Parliament (Q27169) edit parliamentary term Seventh European Parliament (Q4644021) start time 14 July 2009 end time 21 October 2013 elected in 2009 European Parliament election (Q210152) ▼ 0 reference + add reference
		+ add value

Although slightly more complicated to enter, this form allows for much richer data that is usually easier to query. It is particularly suitable in the common scenario where a source only provides a list of members serving during a given legislative term, and does not provide individual dates of service, allowing parliamentary term (P2937) information to be added first, and more precise start time (P580) and end time (P582) to be sourced separately later. It's generally seen as incompatible with the format of Level 1/2.

Approach 5

A similar approach to number 4, utilised for the UK House of Commons and some other national legislatures, is to create discrete position items for each legislative term, each term-item being a subclass of a more general Q11765029 item. It assumes that the legislature defines the position on such a basis.

position held (P39)	Member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom (Q41582627) edit parliamentary term 51st United Kingdom Parliament (Q21084468) start time 9 April 1992 end time 8 April 1997 elected in 1992 United Kingdom general election (Q543609) ▼ 0 reference + add reference Member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom (Q36634044) edit parliamentary term 52nd United Kingdom Parliament (Q21084469) start time 1 May 1997 end time 14 May 2001 elected in 1997 United Kingdom general election (Q918503) ▼ 0 reference + add reference
		+ add value

Additional Qualifiers

Other highly recommended qualifiers on position held (P39) statements include:

• parliamentary group (P4100)
• electoral district (P768)
• end cause (P1534) is useful where applicable and known.
  • Common values include: <dissolution of parliament (Q741182)>, <leaving party (Q30580660)>, <exclusion from a political party (Q1787171)>, <death in office (Q5247364)> (see all end cause qualifiers currently in use)

Notes:

• elected in (P2715) should be set to novalue if the person was not elected (e.g. if they were co-opted or otherwise appointed)
• electoral district (P768) should be set to novalue where no constituency (Q192611) applies
• parliamentary term (P2937) should be set to novalue if the legislature isn't legislative term (Q15238777)-based
• parliamentary group (P4100) should be set to independent politician (Q327591) if not a member of any group
• end time (P582) should be omitted if the person is still in office, not set to novalue

Membership Items

Items for parliamentary "member of" (e.g. member of the Parliament of Finland (Q17592486)) should use properties:

Mandatory

country (P17) subclass of (P279) : member of parliament (Q486839) (or similar) part of (P361) : political body, eg House of Commons (Q11005) instance of (P31) : position (Q4164871) applies to jurisdiction (P1001) : country or subdivision topic's main category (P910) : category for members (parent category if subdivided)

As illustrated in the Level 3a example, above, in some countries, the preference is to use term-specific membership items, such as Member of the 16th Lok Sabha (Q42509248), Member of the 15th Lok Sabha (Q42509330), etc. This makes data easier to manipulate with some common tooling (such as QuickStatements and Listeria (Q24045615) that otherwise struggle with someone having held the same position more than once). Where this approach is used the subclass of (P279) for each such item must also be set to the non-term-specific item for that legislature (e.g. Member of Lok Sabha (Q16556694)), and each position held (P39) statement must also include a parliamentary term (P2937) qualifier, so that standardised queries can be constructed without needing to know which type of item is in place.

People

The politicians themselves should usually have the following data:

Mandatory	instance of (P31) : human (Q5) occupation (P106) : politician (Q82955)
Where known	<sex or gender (P21)> <country of citizenship (P27)> <date of birth (P569)> <date of death (P570)> (if deceased!) <given name (P735)> <family name (P734)>
Where appropriate	Nationally-specific authority properties such as <History of Parliament ID (P1614)> (UK) <Dutch Senate person ID (P1959)> (Netherlands) <senat.fr ID (P1808)> (France) (see a longer list at Wikidata:WikiProject Parliaments#For_members_of_parliament)

Legislative Branch

Information on modelling the legislatures themselves, as well as the legislative terms, and constituencies, can be found at Wikidata:WikiProject_Parliaments

Elections

Information on modelling elections can be found at Wikidata:WikiProject elections.

Executive Branch

Head of Government

• See Wikidata:WikiProject Heads of state and government

Cabinet

A parent class for the Cabinet itself (e.g. Cabinet of Wales (Q32859630)), with:

Mandatory

subclass of (P279) : cabinet (Q640506) applies to jurisdiction (P1001) : the country

Then, for each individual cabinet (e.g. Fourth Morgan ministry (Q27957662)):

Mandatory	instance of (P31) : the parent class (above) applies to jurisdiction (P1001) : the country inception (P571): date formed dissolved, abolished or demolished (P576): date abolished (omit if current) has part (P527): list of members (see below)
Preferable	replaces (P1365): preceding cabinet replaced by (P1366): following cabinet

Cabinet memberships

Each member should have a position held (P39) for the position:

< Rhodri Glyn Thomas (Q7321239)   > position held (P39) < Minister for Heritage (Q25713775)   >
start time (P580) < 2007-07-19 >
end time (P582) < 2008-07-18 >

Cabinet-Level Positions

e.g. Minister for Health and Social Services (Q6865862)

Mandatory

instance of (P31) : public office (Q294414) subclass of (P279) : minister (Q83307) or one or more suitable subclasses, e.g. health minister (Q3273722) applies to jurisdiction (P1001): the geographic scope, i.e. the country/state/province (e.g. Wales (Q25)) country (P17): the country (e.g. United Kingdom (Q145) — will be the same as applies to jurisdiction (P1001) for national-level positions) part of (P361): the cabinet (e.g. Cabinet of Wales (Q32859630)

Preferable

inception (P571): when office was created replaces (P1365): previous office(s) with similar remit (e.g. Secretary for Health & Social Services (Q32947381)) dissolved, abolished or demolished (P576): when office was abolished replaced by (P1366): successor office(s) with similar remit (e.g. Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being & Sport (Q32947395)) organization directed from the office or person (P2389): ministry for which responsible (e.g. NHS Wales (Q6954180))

Non-Cabinet Ministerial positions

Junior positions can be modelled following the pattern for Cabinet positions; however the part of (P361) qualifier of the position statement should point to the government - e.g. Welsh Government (Q3112646) - rather than to the cabinet.