Wikidata talk:Lexicographical data/Archive/2021/07

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Create language specific task force page?

Let's create task force pages in WD:Lexicographical data/English pagename format for coordination, discussion and maintenance of lexemes and labels. Right now only WD:Lexicographical data/Documentation/Languages exists which is not enough. The scope would be to cover both the Lexeme namespace data pertaining to the language as well as the labels of all 90 million Q items. Vis M (talk) 02:56, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
I created one /Malayalam. Main purpose is to invite others to contribute. Vis M (talk) 11:11, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

@Vis M: This is buried at the bottom of my TODO, but since you opened the topic, I would like to add some thoughts. This kind of page and its associated group of editors is usually called WikiProject. There are quite a few WikiProjects on Wikidata already. WikiProject Linguistics and WikiProject Languages deal with languages in bulk. Wikidata:Lexicographical data is technically also a WikiProject. Individual languages are handled by Language WikiProjects, but there are only a few of those at the moment. Since lexemes, item labels, and language-specific items tend to be edited together and by the same people (usually native speakers), we should probably rename Lexicographical data/Documentation/Languages subpages using pattern Wikidata:WikiProject English and categorize them under Category:Language WikiProjects. I would also recommend we drop Lexemes tab from Wikidata:Lexicographical data and replace it with Languages tab that would show Category:Language WikiProjects. This would increase visibility of language pages, provide clear guidance to new editors, and discourage siloing within Wikidata.

@VIGNERON, Mahir256, Lexicolover, So9q, Masssly, Joeykentin: @Nikki, Rua, ArthurPSmith, Bennylin, Afaz, Jsamwrites: @Iwan.Aucamp, MarcoSwart, KaMan, Ripunn, Iyumu, Sezgin İbiş: Comments?

@Kolja21, Helmoony: Wikidata:Lexicographical data/Documentation/Languages/ar and Wikidata:WikiProject Arabic would have to be merged.

— Robert Važan (talk) 00:17, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for the suggestions. We are new here on wikidata in fact. We will later create a page of Wikidata:Wikiproject Paiwan and follow up adding Category:Language WikiProjects on the pages of Paiwan lexemes. If there's something more we can do, please reach us. Thank you.Iyumu (talk) 01:19, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi y'all,

There is no definitive answer here, any group can create a project like they prefer to meet their need.

Here some suggestion, the name should reflect the scope. If a project is called "Wikidata:Wikiproject XXX" (XXX begin the lang), it's okay but it means the project work on all entities about the language XXX (lexemes but also a lot of items and property, for instance items about author and books of classic-literature of this language ; maybe even improve interwiki or translate the interface in this language) while a project called "Wikidata:Lexicographical data/XXX" is only focused on lexcicographic item (mostly lexemes and only a few items).

But, in the end, the name and scope doesn't matter too much. It's more important to avoid siloing but it can easily be done with links between projects, do redirects, communicate abot this project, and so on.

@Robert Važan: Iagree with the proposed replacement, and shouldn't we just delete Wikidata:Lists/lexemes and subpages? (it's historic page, not useful anymore).

Cheers, VIGNERON (talk) 07:17, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@VIGNERON: Category:Language WikiProjects can contain several WikiProjects for one language if necessary. I think the whole Wikidata:Lists needs cleanup, but progress there is blocked by T67626. I would just leave all the lists under Wikidata:Lists until query namespace is operational. If anyone has ideas and time for cleanup, then that would be useful of course. — Robert Važan (talk) 08:31, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

"..is usually called WikiProject". See w:WP:TASKFORCE; Wikidata already has a few of them. Vis M (talk) 10:29, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@Vis M: Thanks for the link. I wasn't aware that task forces are an established concept. Task force under Wikidata:Lexicographical data is indeed a better choice due to the low number of contributors (usually just one per language). The task forces would go beyond lexemes, but lexemes will still comprise most of the work (labels mostly mirror item for this sense (P5137)). Pages under Wikidata:Lexicographical data/Documentation/Languages could then stay where they are except that member list, resources, and queries (esp. maintenance queries) would be moved to task force page or its subpages. We will need a new category for task forces that will be shown on the new tab. — Robert Važan (talk) 02:16, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Ok, cheers. Vis M (talk) 13:23, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Which all grammatical features are preferred?

Of the grammatical features (Statistics/Count of forms by grammatical feature) currently in use, which all are preferred? Is grammatical gender (P5185):masculine inanimate (Q52943434) fine enough or should we use: "grammatical gender (P5185): masculine (Q499327) + has characteristic (P1552): animate (Q51927507)"?

Also, for common English inanimate nouns like glass (L1116), should they have a statement for "inanimacy" and grammatical gender? Vis M (talk) 21:49, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• @Vis M: Generally most grammatical features are not used in most languages; the particular selection of grammatical features that is useful for a language depends on the details of that language. Grammatical gender for example is of little use in English, but very important in French, German, etc. ArthurPSmith (talk) 00:45, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Ok, thanks. —Vis M (talk) 08:13, 22 July 2021 (UTC)