Wikidata talk:WikiProject Cultural venues

Venue and building: the conceptual distinction and the use of these classes in Wikidata

With regards to places in the performing arts domain there are two important complementary concepts: the building (Q41176) (and its subclass performing arts building (Q57660343)), which refers to an architectural structure, and the venue (Q17350442) (and its subclass event venue (Q18674739)), which refers to any place (within a building or outdoors) where activities are held. The two concepts are however often amalgamated in common usage. For example, people will commonly use the term "music venue" to designate both the building and the function of its main space. This doesn't represent a problem when a building is small and only has a single performance space. However, such conflation presents a problem as soon as a building is comprised of many individual spaces, each one with different functions, dimensions and capacities. It is not uncommon for a performing arts building to have a foyer (Q1431210), a main performance space, a secondary performance space, a conference room (Q3469909), a rehearsal room (Q1911008), etc. Each of these spaces is a suitable place for holding activities and can be considered venues. In order to be able to represent all facets of these spaces in Wikidata, it is a good practice to create one item for the architectural structure, the performing arts building (Q57660343), and individual items for each space. Individual spaces can then be linked to the larger building with has part(s) (P527) statements. Fjjulien (talk) 16:35, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

 Question Which class(es) should be used for P31 statements of individual performance spaces? venue (Q17350442), event venue (Q18674739), music venue (Q8719053)? The last two are subclasses of performing arts building (Q57660343): is this a problem? Fjjulien (talk) 16:43, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

 Info This question was discussed by the advisory committee of the CAPACOA/CQT project grant in March and April 2021. Participants generally agreed that event venue (Q18674739) was a good class item to denote individual performance spaces within a performing arts building (Q57660343). The suggestion was also made that auditorium (Q230752) could also serve this purpose. However, futher research on this item revealed authority notices and linked Wikipedia articles that define the auditorium as "the part of a public building where an audience sits, as distinct from the stage." Discussion and research notes are sumarized in this document. Fjjulien (talk) 19:58, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

 Info This question was revisited during a LODEPA Working Group meeting on December 9, 2021 (see the minutes). Working group members achieved further consensus on the following aspect:

• An event venue can be defined as any place or space that is regularly used for events: within a building or outdoors, man-made or natural, purpose-built or any alternative venue. Fjjulien (talk) 21:13, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

 Info This question was resolved at a LODEPA Working Group meeting on June 23, 2022 (see below). The decision was then made to create a new class item describing a performance hall (Q112688641), which can now be used in place of event venue (Q18674739). --Fjjulien (talk) 17:49, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Performance hall: a class to designate performance spaces within buildings

After much research, consultations and discussions, participants in this WikiProject and in the WikiProject Performing arts arrived at consensus on the need to create a new class to designate performance spaces within buildings. From now on, performance hall (Q112688641) should be used instead of event venue (Q18674739) to instantiate a "room intended for the presentation of live performances before an audience, generally comprising an audience space and a stage space".

The decision to create this class was made at an online meeting on June 23, 2022 (see the minutes). The rationale supporting the creation of this class item is documented in this Project chat discussion. --Fjjulien (talk) 15:49, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Clarification of the "event venue (Q18674739)" class

Conflictual labels, descriptions and site links

event venue (Q18674739) has conflictual labels and descriptions. Many describe a generic place for holding events, however many latin-based languages refer to performative spaces derived from the Latin spectaculum. If you wish to comment on this particular feature, please refer to the discussion page for this item. Fjjulien (talk) 22:02, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Call to action

Beat Estermann (talk) 22:21, 31 March 2017 (UTC) Beireke1 (talk) Beireke1 (talk) 12:07, 2 May 2017 (UTC) - collaborating with Romaine on Belgian data on performing arts venues. Affom (talk) 15:26, 12 May 2017 (UTC) Anvilaquarius (talk) 11:41, 15 September 2017 (UTC) PEAk99(talk) PEAK99 (talk) 20:32, 29 January 2019 (UTC) Boxomi (talk) 22:21, 24 September 2019 (UTC) Antoine2711 (talk) 00:19, 5 December 2019 (UTC) Fjjulien (talk) 21:15, 13 February 2020 (UTC) Vero Marino (talk) 21:15, 13 February 2020 (UTC) Bello Na'im (talk) 08:34, 24 September 2021 (UTC) Titanboo (talk) 17:23, 8 July 2022 (UTC) dlh28 (talk)18:21, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Notified participants of WikiProject Cultural venues

Beat Estermann
Affom
Vladimir Alexiev
Birk Weiberg
Smallison
Daniel Mietchen
Buccalon
Jneubert
Klaus Illmayer
Katikei
GiFontenelle
Antoine2711
Fjjulien
Youyouca
Vero Marino
Celloheidi
Beireke1
Anju A Singh
msoderi
Simon Villeneuve
VisbyStar
Gregory Saumier-Finch
Rhudson
DrThneed
Pakoire
Gabriel De Santis-Caron
Raffaela Siniscalchi
Aishik Rehman
YaniePorlier
SAPA bdc
Joalpe
bridgetannmac
Nehaoua dlh28
LiseHatt
Zblace
Bianca de Waal
MichifDorian

Notified participants of WikiProject Performing arts

The LODEPA WG6 needs help from the international community to achieve more clarity with the concept of event venue (Q18674739). This class item has conflicting labels, descriptions, interwiki links, and external links.

1. Please, check the label, description, interwiki link and external IDs from authority files for event venue (Q18674739) in your language.
   1. If the Wikipedia article clearly describes an entire building rather than performance spaces, please redirect the interwiki link to performing arts building (Q57660343) (see these instructions on how to edit incorrect interwiki links).
   2. Make sure that the label and description in your language do not refer to a building.
   3. If you see conflicting authority files IDs in the Wikipedia article and/or the Wikidata item, try to sort them out.

Please report on progress by replying to this message: you may report on changes you've made or simply confirm that everything looked good. For more information on this task, please see the minutes from the December 9, 2021 meeting. Fjjulien (talk) 22:03, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

NL: For nlwiki, I deleted the aliases on event venue (Q18674739) that referred to a building. The Wikipedia article it referred to was "evenementenhal" (in Dutch), which is in my opinion conceptually very close to convention center (Q1378975), despite each of them having a different Dutch Wikipedia article linked. I deleted the interwiki link from event venue (Q18674739), but as it seems not correct to me to link the previously linked article to performing arts building (Q57660343) and a Wikidata item can't be linked to two different Wikipedia articles in the same language, it transfers the problem to the Dutch Wikipedia community. I proposed on the talk pages of both Dutch Wikipedia articles involved to merge them because I think that the conceptual difference is not sufficient to have two distinct articles. Let's see if that triggers any reactions. Beireke1 (talk) 16:55, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

First reaction to my edit on nlwiki (Google Translate is your friend...). What do we think about an additional Wikidata item for an event hall (differs from event venue in being a building)? The fact that all three Wikipedia articles linked to event venue (Q18674739) clearly refer to a building, while that is exactly what we try to avoid, doesn't make it easier. Beireke1 (talk) 08:56, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

 Weak oppose I find the concept you describe to be quite granular, and I wonder if it is necessary or even risky to create a Wikidata item for a fine concept that is poorly described in authority files, terminology databases and other external sources. This being said, en.wikipedia has an article for Assembly_hall, which could be a close match to your dutch concept of Evenementenhal. Perhaps it is best to leave these other event-related concepts with the broader Wikimedia commmunity and focus on performing arts related spaces. Fjjulien (talk) 04:45, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

FR  Done:

• fr.wikipedia:Salle_de_spectacle site link is redirected.
• fr label in event venue (Q18674739) is changed from "salle de spectacle" to "lieu pour des événements".
• fr alias "salle de spectacle" added in performing arts building (Q57660343).
• All authority files for the term "salle de spectacle" are added to performing arts building (Q57660343) with subject named as (P1810) qualifiers.
• Rationale for the changes was documented in the French Wikidata bistro, and a link to this discussion was added to the talk page for fr:Salle_de_spectacle. Fjjulien (talk) 04:20, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Incorrect subclass relationship

event venue (Q18674739) is stated to be a subclass of (P279)building (Q41176), which would mean that all instances of event venue (Q18674739) are also instances of building (Q41176). Participants in the WikiProject Cultural venues discussed this matter on December 9, 2021 (see the minutes) and on June 23, 2022 (see the minutes). At both meetings participants agreed that event venues can be indoors or outdoors (such as a park suited to be a festival site). Since outdoor venues are not instances of building, therefore the statement event venue (Q18674739)subclass of (P279)building (Q41176) is incorrect. Fjjulien (talk) 02:31, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

 Done This statement was deprecated and descriptions were edited to indicate that event venues can be indoors or outdoors. Fjjulien (talk) 02:33, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Description of theatre building

I'd like to change the description of theatre building (Q24354), but apparently there was some kind of local consensus on this description, so I'm bringing the discussion here.

• Prior description: building designed for presentation of dramatic performances
• Proposed description: building for performances by actors

Reasons for change of phrase:

1. "Dramatic performances". This is ambiguous. While this phrase may be familiar to specialists, to many English readers an orchestral concert which evokes strong sadness would be a "dramatic performance". Similarly, drama fiction (Q21010853) is a genre which may confuse readers. Are comedic theatrical performances "dramatic performances"? In the sense I think you intend, the answer is yes, but this is not obvious to many English speakers because they have in mind drama fiction (Q21010853).
2. "Designed for". We can define buildings by intended use or actual use. On Wikidata, I usually find it best to stick to the shorter and admittedly ambiguous "for" rather than the more specific "designed for", "intended for", or "used for". How much renovation changes a space that wasn't designed for a purpose into one that is? Do we have any good sources for the intentions and design goals of most buildings? How much use for a particular purpose makes it a defining characteristic of the building? Best to not pretend we are being more precise in our ontology than we actually are.
3. "Presentation". movie theater (Q41253) is not a subclass of theatre building (Q24354). I presume theatre building (Q24354) is intended for live performances rather than recordings. Thus "performances" is better than "presentation of performances"
4. My proposal is shorter. A nice perk.

Daask (talk) 21:54, 22 May 2024 (UTC)