Wikidata talk:WikiProject Fictional universes

Move to Wikidata:WikiProject Fictional universes

I propose to move the task force to Wikidata:WikiProject Fictional universes per Wikidata:Project chat/Archive/2013/07#Rename "task forces" to "project". The fewer pages and backlinks it has, the simpler can it be moved. --Marsupium (talk) 07:37, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

@Marsupium:.  Done

First task

I am not sure that it is really the best solution to make 'fictional equivalents of real things', like 'fictional lion', 'fictional creative work', 'fictional jewellery' etc. I think the first task here would be to make a list and/or summary of previous discussions on this topic, for example Zolo's proposals for properties 'truth value' and 'is fictional'. Zolo's proposals were not really rejected, but there is no consensus for any solution brought up until now. Another solution would be to make fictional equivalents of the properties {{P|31|| (fictional instance of) and perhaps subclass of (P279). When there is such an overview, we could hopefully put a step forward and really build good practices. Bever (talk) 23:22, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

@Bever: I'm afraid this horse is dead, the property and the item are here. Truth value would mean we have to use a boolean on every query, this solution has not this problem and is clean. TomT0m (talk) 00:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

use of "fictional" items

It seems that the latest discussions was in favor of using items like Martinique Macaw (Q74575) to describe fictional items, but to what extent ? If a fictional character is said to be born in London, should we use "fictional London" ? Or should we only use fictional Xs for some key properties like instance of (P31) and subclass of (P279). Note that we cannot use them in non-item properties anyway. --Zolo (talk) 06:02, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm in favor to keep things consistent, it's easier to always create the fictional item imho, no question to ask yourself, easy answer to newbies, no particular cases when we want to automate something. Maybe things are a little more complex in the case of biographie or romanced true stories though. TomT0m (talk) 13:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

To ease the creation of a fictional item, maybe we could code a gadget ? TomT0m (talk)

(edit conflict) If I understand the property fictional or mythical analog of (P1074) properly we have to create a second item <fictional foo> for every item <foo> and add this property??? Double the 15.000.000 items by bot? The property documentation gives "classes item" as "suggested values". I do not understand why we should handle fictional classes and fictional instances differently. But I think that we will run into weird trouble even with classes only:

I shall not say

<cup of tea of John Doe in the story "Foo tales"> instance of (P31) <cup of tea>.

but

<cup of tea of John Doe in the story "Foo tales"> instance of (P31) <fictional cup of tea>.

<fictional cup of tea> fictional or mythical analog of (P1074) <cup of tea>. ?

In guess that it makes much more sense to state that each fictional cup of tea is an instance of a cup of tea/that the class of cups of tea has the real and fictional ones as tokens. I do not think this property is a good idea. It is even worse regarding the fact that fictional is relative. What about predictions about the future? What about historical novels? Those with only historical facts? Those with mostly historical facts? What about a satire about Barack Obama (Q76) with (naturally) false(=unreal=fictional) facts? Is it about a <fictional analog of Barack Obama>? The articles bundled by possible world (Q1088088) might be a good starting point for reading to discuss these questions. Using that expression I think our classes should be usable for all possible worlds including the fictional ones. For the moment I am quite sure that we should use our current classes as real and fictional ones unless somebody brings good arguments for the opposite. Regards, --Marsupium (talk) 13:46, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Your way of talking seems familiar, do we know each other ? Of course you are overdoing it kind of a lot, we will have only a fraction of fictional items, almost all of them won't have fictional analogs. The advantage of this solution is that we maintain a clear distinction beetween real world and fictional world object, so that fictional worls items will appear in queries only if someones want them. For the possible worlds question, please be clearer. TomT0m (talk) 14:26, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I apologise. I might have learned English too much on the street or use too much pluralis auctoris (Q280177) and did not plan to address especially you, but had an edit conflict.

• I fear I might not overdo. One would not only need such <fictional foo> classes for subclass of (P279)- and instance of (P31)-statements, but also for depicts (P180)-statements and similar ones for literature which will force require to double every class used for those statements. The more the Wikidata project and especially WD:WPVA will go on, the nearer will the ratio of needed <fictional foo> items get to 0.5 of the Wikidata items.
• That is necessary, of course, but I think that there is a better solution then: subclass of (P279) <fictional entity (Q14897293)> should be enough. It is then necessary to exclude them explicitly.

I would like to explain my thoughts better, though I only came here interrupting my Wikidata break I am currently on since I feared that fictional or mythical analog of (P1074) will lead to much work that might not be constructive. Every possible world is sort of a coherent (cf. coherentism (Q1778809)) description of a way the world could possibly be. Every coherent "fictional system" is a possible world. It might have some rules. Some stories by Thomas Mann (Q37030) might be in accordance with all physical law (Q214070). The "Harry Potter fictional system" might only be in accordance with parts of all physical law (Q214070). Regards, --Marsupium (talk) 15:51, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

What I find a little strange (well, not really) is that you are using (in a bad context) a concept I recently used to deal with inconsistencies in Wikidata. But I'll assume this is totally unrelated :) No problem wath ya talking Yo. The meaning is more confusing. TomT0m (talk) 16:03, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

About real people in fictional works, I have just seen Julius Caesar (Q3188509) about Julius Casesar as depicted in Asterix. He is clearly assimilated with the real Julius Casear though depicted in a humorous way. So should he be a "fictional analog" of Julius Caesar. In other works, the cutoff between fictional characters and real characters may indeed be more problematic, unless we decide that everything that appears in a fictional work is fictional. But then that does not sound really satisfying. For visual arts, should a 19th century painting of Alexander the Great be said to depict a fictional Alexander ? What about an official portrait of Napoleon ? --Zolo (talk) 20:48, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I suggest this way:

• <Julius Caesar in Asterix>: instance of (P31) -> character (Q95074) and fictional or mythical analog of (P1074) -> Julius Caesar (Q1048)
• <cup of tea of John Doe in the story "Foo tales">: instance of (P31) -> <fictional object> and fictional or mythical analog of (P1074) -> <cup of tea>
• <19th century painting of Alexander the Great>: instance of (P31) <artwork> (or something similar) and a property that tell us that describes <Alexander the Great>

--Paperoastro (talk) 23:33, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Fictional person and fictional human

So I think fictional person comprises fictional humans and various sorts of mythological creatures with a sort of human-like behavior (deities, hobbits, etc.), right ? There seems to be some edge cases though, like squib (Q6133514). --Zolo (talk) 06:06, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

We could use the instance instance of (P31) -> character (Q95074) for all fictional character (with Q95074 subclass of fictional entity (Q14897293)) and use fictional or mythical analog of (P1074) with human for human characters to maintain the connection with the "real world". Imho, squib (Q6133514) is a class and could be used in a hierarchy to classify the characters of the universe of Harry Potter. --Paperoastro (talk) 15:24, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I suppose the hierachy should be the same for fiction and non-fiction, but I think the main practical difference is that many fictional characters are not really humans (gods, monsters, etc.) So would that be ok to:

1. have fictional human (Q15632617) fictional or mythical analog of (P1074): human (Q5)
2. have person (Q215627) fictional or mythical analog of (P1074): person (Q215627)
3. move a good part of p31: person (Q215627) to p31: fictional human (Q15632617) ?

--Zolo (talk) 20:23, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

To avoid the creation of several items, I suggest for fictional people:

1. P31 -> character (Q95074)
2. fictional or mythical analog of (P1074) -> human (Q5) (as principal property, not qualifier).

The same for other kinds of characters (animals, objects, and so on...). In this manner, imho, we do not need to create items like fictional human (Q15632617). --Paperoastro (talk) 23:15, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

This would not be really satisfying, in fictions a lot of characters are non human and could be a person in broader sense. I think that fictional human is just a subclass of fictional characters. I think a few more items are really not a problem, one day you will wake up and they are likely to be there anyway :). TomT0m (talk) 10:40, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

What is the problem for other kind of characters? Mickey Mouse (Q11934): P31-> character (Q95074) and fictional or mythical analog of (P1074) -> house mouse (Q83310); Vulcan (Q1088708): P31 -> fictional object and fictional or mythical analog of (P1074) -> planet (Q634). --Paperoastro (talk) 22:10, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I would tend to think that Donald is a Toon :)

There are two fictional human items -> fictional human (Q15632617) and fictional human (Q15403010)

Other question about fictional persons

So I created Huey Duck (Q15698944) as a fictional duck. But he also sounds like a fictional person in the sense, that there is a human-like feel about him. Should I also ass "instance of fictional person" ? (I do not think that all fictional ducks can be considered as fictional "persons'). -Zolo (talk) 08:31, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

He can speak, he is intelligent … I think it's OK to say that if it match the definition of fiction person. he is also a toon, so if toons are fiction persons it's also OK to say that he is a toon and that toons are fiction persons, I have no strong opinion. TomT0m (talk) 15:56, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I suppose he is if a toon is just a character from a cartoon, but maybe not taking a more restrictive definition found on fr:Toon and elsewhere. Actually the fictional person subclass tree is strating to look interesting. --Zolo (talk) 07:51, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Fictional Taxons

(I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this proposal, so please tell me where I should go if I’m wrong here.) I’ve thought a bit about how to map fictional characters, especially if they belong to fictional species, and I think the most “structured” way would be to create “fictional taxons” analog to the “real”, biological taxons (taxon (Q16521)). So, for example, giraffe (Q15083) has the following properties:

• instance of (P31): taxon (Q16521)
• parent taxon (P171): Giraffa (Q862089)

And if there ever where a real, relevant giraffe, it would be tagged as instance of (P31) giraffe (Q15083). We do this already for humans: Albert Einstein (Q937) instance of (P31) human (Q5).

Now the proposal: We create a data object “fictional taxon” and tag it as follows:

• “fictional taxon” fictional or mythical analog of (P1074): taxon (Q16521)
• “fictional taxon” subclass of (P279): fictional entity (Q14897293)

And then we create our fictional taxonomy, so to tag Donald Duck (Q6550), we could create the taxon “fictional duck in the Disney universe” and set:

• “fictional duck in the Disney universe” instance of (P31): “fictional taxon”
• “fictional duck in the Disney universe” fictional or mythical analog of (P1074): duck (Q3736439) (debatable, since real ducks don’t speak, hoard money, etc.)
• Donald Duck (Q6550) instance of (P31): “fictional duck in the Disney universe”

Another example would be:

• muggle (Q154224) instance of (P31): “fictional taxon”
• muggle (Q154224) fictional or mythical analog of (P1074): human (Q5)
• muggle (Q154224) parent taxon (P171): “humans in the Harry Potter universe”
• wizard in the Harry Potter universe (Q15298259) instance of (P31): “fictional taxon”
• wizard in the Harry Potter universe (Q15298259) parent taxon (P171): “humans in the Harry Potter universe”

and then

• Harry Potter (Q3244512) instance of (P31): wizard in the Harry Potter universe (Q15298259)
• Vernon Dursley (Q11910388) instance of (P31): muggle (Q154224)

Problems/unsolved questions I have with this model:

1. You get a lot of fictional taxons.
2. A lot of universes include ducks. When do we create a new “fictional duck in universe X”-object and when does reuse of an existing “fictional duck”-object suffice?
3. Where do we draw the line between fictional and real taxons? Should we build up a whole fictional taxon tree for every fictional universe and then create parent taxon (P171)-relations between taxons as fit (which I think works best for large fictional taxons with a great independence from reality). Or should we try to directly refer fictional taxons to analog “real” taxons (which I think would be best for universes who only introduce a few new taxons).
4. What should the “root taxon” of a fictional taxonomy be? “lifeforms in the Harry Potter universe”?
5. In stories that don't introduce a fictional taxonomy at all, how should we map characters?

I’d love to hear your feedback on this! --mxmerz talk 14:43, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

• “fictional taxon” subclass of (P279): taxon (Q16521) just about this statement, don't use subclass of, use fictional analog of. We created this property such as we don't mix classification of fictional stuffs and real world things. Apart from that I don't think an analog of real world taxonomy is really insteresting. TomT0m (talk) 17:03, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks, I changed it. Could you define “interesting”? I agree that it wouldn’t make much of a difference for fictional universes which don’t introduce their own species or change much of our reality, but especially for large universes (Star Wars, Middle Earth,…), couldn’t fictional taxons be useful to describe the in-universe relations between species and their relation to “real” species? --mxmerz talk 17:50, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

• I'm not aware of a real universe with a real philogeny as in biological taxonomy, but why not. TomT0m (talk) 18:37, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Tree of fictional creatures/persons

We should work with this tree for some time. It seems like some nodes are superfluous, some are in wrong place (at least from Russian labels view). Infovarius (talk) 22:29, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Yep, items like list of Star Trek races (Q1700422)    are just silly with their french label Star Trek Ethnographia, which is not a class of fictional character, it's a classification by itself :) the english label is extraterrestrial from Star Trek, something totally different, with the label speces of humanoid alien from Star Trek which is yet something totally different.

I would propose to rename this class extraterrestrial creatures of Star Trek, such that Spoke is an instance of it, and to create a class Star Trek Species, such that

⟨ Spock (Q16341) ⟩ instance of (P31) ⟨ Vulcan (Q6497384)    ⟩

and

⟨ Vulcan (Q6497384) ⟩ instance of (P31) ⟨ Star Trek Species ⟩

And

⟨ Vulcan (Q6497384) ⟩ subclass of (P279) ⟨ extraterrestrial creatures of Star Trek ⟩

Same goes from character race (Q2607197)    which should not be in the subclass tree but more

⟨ Star Trek Species ⟩ subclass of (P279) ⟨ character race (Q2607197)    ⟩

All right ? TomT0m ^(talk) 10:15, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good. --Infovarius (talk) 20:37, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

What property to set the fictional universe for a work?

Hello,

I thought from narrative universe (P1080) would be the right property to indicate that a work is in a fictional universe (say for example, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Q43361) is a work in the universe Harry Potter universe (Q5410773)) but it seems that it is only for the fictional elements inside the book, so what would be the right property for the work itself? -Ash Crow (talk) 14:04, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

MaEr suggests to use part of (P361).

As I said on his talk page, to distinguish between the franchise elements and the fictional universe items could be interesting.

That would allow to generate a list of each items of a fictional universe, from an internal point of view.

But a quick review of the pertinence of part of should be done, to identify the cases were it's a little bit problematic to have several part of properties for a franchise element. --Dereckson (talk) 14:22, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

"Part of" is also supposed to be used for the magazine in which a short story is published, or so I guess if we want to be consistent with Help:Sources. It seems that this could cause some confusion. --Zolo (talk) 17:50, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

You use also "Part of" for a brother or sister of a sibship… "Part of" is a very generic property. --Harmonia Amanda ({https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata_talk:WikiProject_Fictional_universes#Need_another_property{int:Talkpagelinktext}}) 23:29, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Zolo and Harmonia Amanda — indeed, "part of" is very generic. According to Property talk:P361, it can link anything to anything.
Property talk:P1080 says that from narrative universe (P1080) links a fictional entity to a fictional universe. The property documentation says: domain = any under the subclass tree of fictional entity (Q14897293). This is also what the smaller blue box in Property talk:P1080 suggests. The language-dependant labels and descriptions, however, vary a bit, and aren't very clear. In some translations, they omit the information that both entity and universe should be fictional. --MaEr (talk) 09:50, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

So, I guess we should have a new property "Fictional universe of the work" (in French "univers de fiction de l'œuvre") to tell that a work uses this fictional universe? -Ash Crow (talk) 10:58, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Alternatively, we can change the constraints on from narrative universe (P1080) so that we can use it, but I am not sure it is a good idea because Harry Potte volume 1 p1043: Harry Potter seems to mean something like "Harrry Potter volume 1 is a book that exists only in the Harry Potter Wikiverse. @Dereckson: if you want to get a list of objects from the Harry Potter universe, you should add the condition that the item should be about a ficitonal entity anyway, so that you do not get items like "list of Harry Potter characters ([1]). -Zolo (talk) 14:58, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

We clearly need either a new property (the suggested "Fictional universe of the work") or to change the constraint on from narrative universe (P1080). I can understand the need for a purely in-universe property so I would support a new property which would be used only for the works in a fictional universe. The same property, but with an out-universe point of view. And we could then clarify the description of both properties. What do you think? --Harmonia Amanda (talk) 22:18, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Rather create a new property than change the existing one. The new property could be something like: (real-world literary work) describes (fictional universe). In the opposite direction, there could be the property: (fictional universe) is described by (real-world literary work). --MaEr (talk) 17:16, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

It seems good to me. (but the name you suggest seam a bit too generic for such a specific use, and « described by » would in French translate to « décrit par », which is already used by described by source (P1343)) -Ash Crow (talk) 20:08, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Thinking about the name: would "describes the fictional universe" and "described in the work" would fit ? It seems clear to me, not confusing with any other property. -Ash Crow (talk) 23:37, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree with these suggestions.--Harmonia Amanda (talk) 00:07, 23 July 2014 (UTC). Actually this link with the next section. We need these properties:

1. to link a fictional element to his fictional universe : from narrative universe (P1080)
2. to link a fictional element to the work in which it appears : "Part of"? A new one? (discussion next section)
3. to link a work with the fictional universe it describes : a new one (discussion here)

So if we speak of 3 here, I suggest "Fictional universe of the work" for this property, instead of "is described by" (like MaEr proposed; too generic) and of "described in the work" (like Ash Crow; which would fit better for 2). --Harmonia Amanda (talk) 17:43, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Actually, my proposal in this section is to create two new properties:

1. to link a work with the fictional universe it describes: <work> "describes the fictional universe:" <universe>
2. conversely, to link a fictional universe with a work that describes it: <universe> "described in the work:" <work>

"Fictional universe of the work" is not a really good property name as is does not fit in a <x> <property> <y> pattern. -Ash Crow (talk) 17:56, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

So it would be:

1. to link a fictional element to his fictional universe : from narrative universe (P1080)
2. to link a fictional element to the work in which it appears : "Part of"? A new one? "present in the work" / "mentionned in the work"? (discussion next section)
3. to link a work with the fictional universe it describes : a new one : <work> "describes the fictional universe:" <universe>
4. to link a fictional universe with a work that describes it: a new one : <universe> "described in the work:" <work>

3 and 4 being the reverse of one another. Ok, I approve the name suggestion.--Harmonia Amanda (talk) 18:04, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

@MaEr, Zolo, Dereckson, Harmonia_Amanda:: I made the proposals for the two properties discussed here. -Ash Crow (talk) 11:55, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

(The properties takes place in fictional universe (P1434) and fictional universe described in (P1445) were created shortly after this discussion, and the issue was resolved.) --Yair rand (talk) 21:04, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Need another property

Hello, I think we need another property “present in the (fictional) work” (in French: « apparaissant dans l'œuvre »). This property would indicate in which work of the item is present. It would be like Property:P1080 but for out-universe information. For exemple Elessar (Q3721872) <present in> The Lord of the Rings (Q15228), or Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets (Q15720826) <present in> Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Q47209).

Currently we use Property:P361 but it's so imprecise many contributors delete these, yet we need it for generating lists from a specific work and not a fictional universe. What do you think? --Harmonia Amanda (talk) 17:27, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd say <fictional element> "present in the work" <work> for characters actually present in the work, and <fictional element> "mentioned in the work" <work> for characters simply named (yes, I want two new properties here as well. Could help with long and complicated stories like A Song of Ice and Fire (Q45875), where we have characters that are mentioned in one novel and really present in the next one.) -Ash Crow (talk) 18:10, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I did the first demand ("present in work") Wikidata:Property_proposal/Creative_work. Should I make the second one too, @Ash Crow:?

Fictional stars, protostars, planets, moons, asteroids and such

Hello,

I'm trying to sort all the fictional astronomical object in the Serenityverse (Q17413155), and I'm not always sure about what instance of (P31) to set. Here are some comments/questions:

1. For fictional stars, there was an item star and-or planetary system described fictionally (Q3972970) with articles on en: and it:. I splitted it in two sub-items : fictional star (Q17424291) and fictional planetary system (Q17424312).
2. For fictional protostars, I'm not sure what to do? Either use fictional star (Q17424291) or create a fictional analog of protostar (Q204903)... Same question for fictional brown dwarves.
3. For fictional planets, no problem: fictional planet (Q2775969) already exists and is already in use (e.g. on the Star Wars planets)
4. For fictional moons: Endor (Q832100) uses fictional planet (Q2775969), but it looks like there is a mess in interwikis, as some Wikipedia articles are about the planet and not it's moon (at last es: who has Endor (Q12180673) for the moon). I guess it would be better to create a new "Fictional moon" item instead of using fictional planet (Q2775969). Am I right?
5. For everything else: I guess we have to create fictional analogs to comets, asteroids, galaxies. I wasn't able to find them if they already exist...

-Ash Crow (talk) 00:11, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

(Comment) How many items about non-existant stuff from Serenity... Are they all notable? --Infovarius (talk) 21:12, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

When to create fictional universe items?

I would guess that most fictional universes that have items for their component characters/entities/concepts do not have items themselves. Should all of them have items? If not, is there any other way to associate the fictional entity with the book/story/series? --Yair rand (talk) 13:37, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Good question. My answer would be when you need it. I guess any work who have a character item deserves a corresponding item anyway for the universe he belongs to for structural reasons per WD:N. TomT0m ^(talk) 14:03, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

To link with the book/series you use present in work (P1441), not from narrative universe (P1080) and you don't necessarily need a fictional universe item. And when you need it (several different works sharing the same universe for example), you create it. --Harmonia Amanda (talk) 14:21, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Join conversation at Property_talk:P144#Splitting_.22adapted_from.22_from_this_property

Hey All, I started a conversation about adaptation vs "based on" on P144's talk page please join the discussion, Sadads (talk)

Multiple timelines

The Star Trek universe (Q18043309) consists of three main timelines Prime Universe (Q47163964), Mirror Universe (Q674612), Kelvin Timeline (Q47164023) and several others that are less relevant.

how should we express in which of these timelines a narrative is set. I used narrative location (P840) but that should be used for locations. and different works can be set at the same location, but in different timelines and I don't like the idea of creating fictional locations for each timeline. I thought narrative location should be qualified with the timeline and I considered set in period (P2408) and that sounds appropriate at first, but then again, thats meant time periods.

I can't think of anther fictional universe that has multiple timelines (universe of The Legend of Zelda (Q1399781)?) so a new property is not justified. Is there a more general property we could use? any ideas? --Shisma (talk) 10:47, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

@Shisma: Could takes place in fictional universe (P1434) be an option for works? There remains the question how to qualify a certain statement to the timeline it applies to (like I've seen at Spock (Q16341)Q16341#P746). To use takes place in fictional universe (P1434) as a qualifier here seems odd to me. Maybe one could simply use of (DEPRECATED) (P642). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 16:51, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

@Valentina.Anitnelav: I like the idea of simply using of (DEPRECATED) (P642) in combination with a timeline. There should maybe be a timeline class --Shisma (talk) 16:45, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Items that are not only fictional universes

Running this query I come across a few problems. here is one:

Warcraft (Q815739)

instance of (P31)

fictional universe (Q559618)

video game series (Q7058673)

A thing cannot be a fictional universe and something else. Statements like Warcraft (Q815739) is fictional universe (Q559618) that runs on Microsoft Windows (Q1406) make no sense what so ever 😅. Let us resolve all those issues. Can someone query for things that are not only fictional universes? --Loominade (talk) 16:31, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Here is a query giving all fictional universes that are also instances of something else: query  – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Valentina.Anitnelav (talk • contribs).

I agree. In that particular case, we'd need 3 different items IMO: one for the video game series (Q7058673), one for the fictional universe (Q559618) that the games and related works take place in, as well as one for the media franchise (Q196600) which would include games, books, comics, the movie, etc. --Kam Solusar (talk) 12:44, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

And now I see that we already have an item for the franchise: Warcraft (Q6156907). And we have Warcraft universe (Q26181639). I'm not too familiar with Warcraft, but I thought the content of World of Warcraft was part of the overall Warcraft lore. And we have places in Warcraft (Q849468), which also has the statements instance of (P31)fictional universe (Q559618) part of (P361)Warcraft universe (Q26181639) and from narrative universe (P1080)Warcraft (Q815739). Warcraft universe (Q26181639) on the other hand also has the circular statement part of (P361)places in Warcraft (Q849468). That looks pretty chaotic. --Kam Solusar (talk) 13:13, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Mythologies and Fictional Universes

• Celtic mythology (Q1106575)
• Egyptian mythology (Q205740)
• Irish mythology (Q1471505)
• Chinese mythology (Q210677)
• Hawaiian mythology (Q3088838)
• Armenian mythology (Q684411)

is there anyone here who thinks these should be considered as fictional universes, linked in from narrative universe (P1080)? Lets make a new property, along the lines of from mythical canon and takes place in mythical canon. Thoughts?--Loominade (talk) 16:43, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

@Loominade: According to the constraints from narrative universe (P1080) can be used for mythologies, too, but the label does not express it and it is removed from mythical entities quite often (which I understand). There is a proposal on Property_talk:P1080 by Pharos to relabel from narrative universe (P1080) to be more inclusive, but this would need to be done in all languages (this would take some time and would probably cause some confusion). Maybe a new property would be better. We could name it "from mythical canon", like you proposed, but we could also name it (more inclusive) "from story cycle", like proposed by Pharos (from narrative universe (P1080) could be a subproperty of this new property, then). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:23, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Create/Import statements from Wikia

TomT0m Valentina.Anitnelav Shisma (talk) ElanHR Arlo Barnes (talk) Maria zaos (talk) EEMIV (talk) OmegaFallon (talk) Kurzov (talk) dseomn (talk) Natureshadow (talk)

Notified participants of WikiProject Fictional universes

I created a little tool that makes it easy to create statements from Wikia pages: wikia-data.user.js.

Installation and Usage-Instructions here. I hope you find it as useful as I do. Please give me feedback --Shisma (talk) 18:34, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Occupations of fictional characters

On Wikidata:WikiProject_Narration Wikidata_talk:WikiProject_Narration#fictional_occupations_that_are_real_occupations a discussion was started whether fictional characters' occupations should be indicated via fictional analogues of real occupations, if the occupation exists in the real world. (E.g. secretary (Q76451097) vs. secretary (Q80687)) - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 07:55, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Canon, Inconsistencies and Retconing

I personally find this a fascinating aspect of fictional universes and i'd like to represent aspects like the following in wikidata.

Sherlock Holmes Retcon

In 1893 Arthur Conan Doyle became sick of writing about Sherlock Holmess so he decided to kill him off in the short and unappealing story The Final Problem (Q228119) just to bring him back years later in The Adventure of the Empty House (Q1171427). Nicholas Meyer – a Sherlock Holmes Nerd – apparently did not like these stories and declared them deliberate fabrications produced by Dr Watson in his story The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (Q7763420). Here Sherlock decided to leave the world stage for personal reasons. So he moved Dr Watson to publish The Final Problem (Q228119) as a cover story for his disappearance.

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (Q7763420) is of course not considered to be a part of the canon of Sherlock Holmes (Q2316684).

Star Trek

Only Star Trek film (Q61283808) and Star Trek episode (Q61220733) are considered to be part of the Star Trek canon (Q3500963).

In fact there are so many Star Trek novel (Q72996181)s: no writer could possibly keep track of everything that ever happened in them and still could come up with a coherent story.

Among the first Star Trek novels with an original story was Spock Must Die! (Q7578767) from 1970. Here the Klingon Empire (Q10861987) is denied all future space travel by an omnipotent entity. This implicitly contradicts hundreds of books and episodes created later, where the klingons are still space faring. There is no explanation given and nobody ever felt the need to justify it. A subset of works published later could as well happen within the same universe because no Klingons show up in them or the narrative takes place earlier chronologically 🤷‍♂️

---

If you have more examples or similar cases feel free to summarize them here. My questions is how can we map this?

While the Nicolas Mayer universe can be basically described as a detour on the Holmes canon:

        "Detour"
     ╭────────────╮
━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━ Canon
            The Final Prblem
              happens here

Where Spock must Die is basically a dead end. Abandoned.

           "Dead end"
     ╭────────────
━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Canon
           Everything else
            happens here

If you map the situation like this, you could create an entity for every Timeline and connect this entity takes place in fictional universe (P1434) with the work and qualify every statement that is only valid in that universe with from narrative universe (P1080) more generally valid in place (P3005). if the statement not correct in the generally accepted canon, it should be set to deprecated.

Do you have a better idea on how to map this? Can you imagine situation where this model could not be applied?--Shisma (talk) 22:12, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Indicating animal breeds of fictional animals

Hello, I just stumbled on Harriet (Q92306814), a fictional poodle, that has both statements animal breed (P4743): poodle (Q38904) and instance of (P31): anthropomorphic dog (Q94167374). instance of (P31) was the property used to indicate the breed of a (fictional) animal before animal breed (P4743) existed. Now I'm thinking about using only animal breed (P4743) for the breed and using instance of (P31) for the species. This would reduce the number of (potentially needed) subclasses of fictional domesticated animal species, like fictional (anthropomorphic) cats and dogs.

I would propose to model the breeds of fictional animals as follows (using Trude as an example):

instance of (P31)anthropomorphic dog (Q88552181)

animal breed (P4743)poodle (Q38904)

If this is acceptable, I would start to clean up the items in a month or so, requesting the deletion of the fictional breed items (e.g. these and the anthropomorphic equivalents). Many of these items were created by me, but some of them also by Trade and Loominade: What do you think about this approach?  – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Valentina.Anitnelav (talk • contribs) at 18:47, 28. Jul. 2020 (UTC).

I forgot to sign so probably the people mentioned did not get a notification: @Trade, Loominade: (sorry for the noise if you already saw this section) - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 11:51, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Fine by me. Then it would also become easier to clean up anthropomorphic animal (Q2369882)--Trade (talk) 12:12, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

 Done (but I only checked cats, dogs and horses) - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 14:32, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Siamese twins

What would be the correct way to model a fictional siamese twin where each 'head' have their own characteristics (given name, hair/eye color, voice actor, love interest) and etc. @Valentina.Anitnelav:--Trade (talk) 21:06, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

I think we should just follow the model for real siamese twins (e.g. Chang and Eng Bunker (Q660581)); you can create a new item <fictional siamese twins> (i'm surprised that there is none, yet), one for the couple and one for each character and link them via has part(s) (P527)/part of (P361)/sibling (P3373). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 15:12, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@Valentina.Anitnelav: I looked at the Bunkers' items and I'm not sure they are yet a good exemplar; most of the individuals' biographical details should be on their respective items, with the item for the pair of them mostly just serving to link to / collect their own entities. Arlo Barnes (talk) 20:15, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Mythical Creatures — Lexemes Party 🎉

TomT0m Valentina.Anitnelav Shisma (talk) ElanHR Arlo Barnes (talk) Maria zaos (talk) EEMIV (talk) OmegaFallon (talk) Kurzov (talk) dseomn (talk) Natureshadow (talk)

Notified participants of WikiProject Fictional universes

WikiProject Fictional universes has participants who speak English, Spanish, French and German (more?). Let us complete Lexemes about Fictional universes in those languages!

Mythical Creatures — Lexemes Party

As a showcase lexeme I somewhat enriched dwarf (L22936). Translate these words into your favorite language! Ask, if you don't know how. Have fun! ✊ --Shisma (talk) 15:49, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

The conlang -- Láadan (Q35757) -- which I've been adding lexemes for as part of the weekly Lexeme Challenge also hosted on Dicare Tools (Q108275558) does not have words for any of those things; however, I added dedidewoth (L619219), "myth", in the spirit of your Party. Perhaps it could be added to the list for others to check their languages against? Arlo Barnes (talk) 20:12, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

better with subclasses (I was bold to change the link). --user:Infovarius 11:35, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Duplicates or incorrectly classified in Pokémons?

What is the difference between items water (Q25588649) and water-type Pokémon (Q25930495)? I want to say: water-type Pokémon (Q25930495) seems only the description of water (Q25588649). I think that all this pair of items should be merged with each other, where water (Q25588649) is the label and water-type Pokémon (Q25930495) is the description. The objection would be that perhaps one of the two refers to a Pokémon concept, in which case one of the two is not classified correctly.

The point is the same for all types of Pokémons. --Fantastoria (talk) 17:36, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Airon90 Julián L. Páez MGChecker Tris T7 ^{TT me} Tris T7 (talk) OmegaFallon Lewis Hulbert (talk) Benpiano800 ...

Notified participants of WikiProject Pokémon - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 09:52, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. Not only pokemon, but also moves are classified by type. Therefore, I have adjusted the statements accordingly. Of course, this would need to be done for all types. See also water-type Pokémon move (Q26001210). --MGChecker (talk) 13:13, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

P5102 and player choices

Let's say a game have two endings, one where a character dies and one where he lives. Is nature of statement (P5102) > optional (Q59864995) the right choice for death-related statements? I can't see what else to use. @Valentina.Anitnelav: --Trade (talk) 21:20, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

@Trade: I like nature of statement (P5102) > optional (Q59864995). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:55, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Exhaustive list and subclasses

1.- I try to have an exhaustive list of character (Q95074) according to the type of work:

• historical character (Q3375731) (or only for literature?)
• literary character (Q3658341)
  • comics character (Q1114461)
    • manga character (Q87576284)
    • webcomic character (Q111011320)
  • theatrical character (Q3375722)
    • musical theatre character (Q63975020)
      • operatic character (Q50386450)
• animated character (Q15711870)
  • anime character (Q80447738)
• puppet character (Q89349965)
• audiovisual work character (pending)
  • video game character (Q1569167)
  • television character (Q15773317)
  • film character (Q15773347)
    • horror film character (Q15780329)
    • superhero film character (Q63998451)
    • adventure film character (Q66808903)
    • musical film character (pending)
  • music video character (Q65115256)
• musical character (pending or equal to fictional character in a musical work (Q100708514))
  • musical theatre character (Q63975020)
    • operatic character (Q50386450)
  • fictional character in a musical work (Q100708514) (or song character => pending)
  • musical film character (pending)

Would any be missing?

2.- On the other hand:

• Would theatrical character (Q3375722) be a subclass of literary character (Q3658341)? Currently operatic character (Q50386450) is a subclass of musical theatre character (Q63975020), itself a subclass of theatrical character (Q3375722).
• Would video game character (Q1569167), television character (Q15773317) and film character (Q15773347) be subclasses of «audiovisual work character», itself a subclass of character (Q95074)?

Thanks and regards.

Pd. I don't know if I have been able to explain the points.

Just one short comment, for now: I think instead of theatrical character (Q16830339) you mean theatrical character (Q3375722) (it seems that the English label of the former item was misleading - for this reason I deleted it. I'm not sure about the right English term for de:Fach/fr:emploi...) theatrical character (Q16830339) is rather about a set of roles, not about specific fictional characters. It is closer to stock character (Q636497) - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 19:05, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. I have already made the changes in my comment above. I have also taken the opportunity to add those that I have discovered since then. --Fantastoria (talk) 08:43, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• legendary figure (Q13002315) - J. R. "Bob" Dobbs (Q6106806)
• human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568) - Odysseus (Q47231)

Bluerasberry (talk) 19:16, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

We may lack one for puppets like Guignol (Q4179)    or The Muppets (Q108273055)   . author  TomT0m / talk page 19:24, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Comments:

• Currently, legendary figure (Q13002315) is a subclass of human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568), which is in turn a subclass of hypothetical entity (Q18706315). From the description, it seems that it transcends the idea of ​​a fictional character, I dare to say as a mythical character (they are now siblings and direct descendants of human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568)). I don't think we could put them as subclasses of character (Q95074), properly.
• In the same idea, as an idiomatic doubt, are there differences between the meanings of «fictional» and «fictitious»? In Spanish, both are translated the same the vast majority of the time, so I'm not sure. I think that legendary character/figure (and mythical character) is closer to a fictitious character than a fictional character, from what I am able to deduce from the descriptions and labels.
• Guignol (Q4179) or puppetry character (not puppet itself): character from puppetry (Q588750). Perhaps a subclass of theater character? The Muppets seem to me to be a particular case of puppetry character (in line with other parallel cases, e.g. The Avengers/comics character?).

Thanks to both and regards. --Fantastoria (talk) 12:20, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

There already exists puppet character (Q89349965), we have also animated character (Q15711870) - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 13:24, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

We lacked a metaclass for those classes, so I created type of fictional character (Q112265308). author  TomT0m / talk page 14:04, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Is it different from stock character (Q636497)? --Infovarius (talk) 19:04, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

@Infovarius Yes. Your item is about stereotyped characters, like « the good guy », « the bad guy » or « the cowboy » in a fiction. « Ernst Stravo Blofeld » would be « The bad guy » in James bond. It would be a movie or a novel character with my item. author  TomT0m / talk page 19:56, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

@TomT0m: How should we use this class?:

• comics character (Q1114461)instance of (P31)type of fictional character (Q112265308), or
• comics character (Q1114461)subclass of (P279)type of fictional character (Q112265308)

--Fantastoria (talk) 16:24, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Comments:

• The description of puppet character (Q89349965) doesn't make it clear whether it refers only to puppets in works of puppets (as expected) or to all puppets in general, because there is puppet (Q1913135) that does refer to all puppets (no matter where they appear), so I am able to deduce from the instances of each one. Instead, it emphasizes its difference from anthropomorphic puppet (Q88594927), which appears to be a subclass of puppet (Q1913135), rather than fictional puppet (Q37146376).
• I add puppet character (Q89349965) and animated character (Q15711870) to the list.

Thanks and regards. --Fantastoria (talk) 08:22, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

puppet character (Q89349965) is for fictional characters, not for real puppets embodying a character (which could be found in a museum, for example). E.g. Kermit the Frog (Q1107971) is about the fictional character which could be embodied by several (real) puppets controlled by a puppeteer. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 14:16, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

I think that's what I wanted to say, but I said it in that weird way. What happens is that I continue to emphasize that the descriptions are as precise and clear as possible to the idea of what the item is. Simplifying, puppet character (Q89349965) is the one I have added to the list at hand. --Fantastoria (talk) 16:24, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

PS:

• historical character (Q3375731), music video character (Q65115256), fictional character in a musical work (Q100708514)?
• At one or two lower levels?: manga character (Q87576284), webcomic character (Q111011320), anime character (Q80447738), horror film character (Q15780329), superhero film character (Q63998451), adventure film character (Q66808903).
• In parallel to musical theatre character (Q63975020), there is no musical film character (e.g. Mary Poppins (Q3735317)).

--Fantastoria (talk) 12:08, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

At this point, I think I have the exhaustive list and the classification. I list it in my first comment and implement it. Thank you all. --Fantastoria (talk) 09:54, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Multiple items for the same objects?

I ask because I don't know the Ninja Turtles universe. We have the following:

• Triceraton Homeworlds (Q80219052), Triceraton Homeworld (Q106575086), Triceraton Homeworld (Q111628641).
• Technodrome (Q2553295), Technodrome (Q83894228), Technodrome (Q106565990), Technodrome (Q106531274), Technodrome (Q100268353).
• Technodrome (Q83984454), Technodrome (Q83984508).
• Dimension X (Q2330842), Dimension X (Q83893879), Dimension X (Q106565804), Dimension X (Q106530281), Dimension X (Q106530295), Dimension X (Q106531566).

Aren't they each the same except for their appearance in different series of the same franchise? Merge? --Fantastoria (talk) 07:45, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

@J_1982: What do you think? - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 13:12, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

USS Enterprise (Q834003) and USS Enterprise (Q3547394) are the same thing at different times. The french Wikipedia has an article for both 🤷 – Shisma (talk) 17:06, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

plus: USS Enterprise-D (Q3547392) vs. USS Enterprise-D (Q845684). This time it is french and korean – Shisma (talk) 17:07, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Could we use permanent duplicated item (P2959) and the values of instance of (P31): permanent duplicated item (Q107183688) or Wikimedia duplicated page (Q17362920) or Wikimedia permanent duplicate item (Q21286738)? But, in the cases I have found, there are not even Wikipedia articles or they are not duplicates. --Fantastoria (talk) 07:59, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Customizable values

Considering that many open world games allows you to customize the sex, hair/eye color, ethnicity and etc. of player characters how do we indicate this? And how do we differentiate these values from the default appearance? Trade (talk) 17:35, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi, @Trade:

There is default value (Q281782). Perhaps it could be used as a qualifier. For instance: applies to part (P518) ==> default value (Q281782). We have modding (Q1087043) too, although I am not sure if it is what you are looking for. --Fantastoria (talk) 09:28, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Trade, hi Fantastoria, I like using default value (Q281782) as a qualifier value. As qualifier property one could also use object of statement has role (P3831). For optional values one could use nature of statement (P5102) ==> optional (Q59864995). Maybe one could give the default appearance a preferred rank. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 09:58, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Talking about video games with customizable player characters, not modding. @Fantastoria:--Trade (talk) 18:03, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Trade: That is why I said I was not sure!

I agree with Valentina.Anitnelav, although it seems that optional (Q59864995) does not have the sense of customizable. Perhaps we need a new item to give the meaning that is sought.

If preferred rank is used, the qualifier could be reason for preferred rank (P7452) ==> default value (Q281782).

--Fantastoria (talk) 09:25, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

The problem is that characters like The Last Dragonborn (Q114962186) does not show up in queries looking for female video game characters. --Trade (talk) 13:51, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

The Last Dragonborn (Q114962186) is missing the statement that it is (possibly) female. With "normal" queries you only find the best ("truthy") statements - in this case that it is a Nords (Q112597485). Other statements (e.g. that it is a game character) are omitted.

You could 1) add the statement subclass of (P279) video game character (Q1569167) to the Nords (Q112597485) character or 2) give also the statement that it is a video game character (Q1569167) a preferred rank

To find all characters that are video game characters (also those, that don't have instance of (P31) video game character (Q1569167) (or any subclass thereof) as their best value) you should replace wdt:P31 by p:P31/ps:P31 (this finds all statements).

example query:

SELECT ?item ?itemLabel WHERE {
    #does only find one character
    #?item wdt:P31 wd:Q112597485; wdt:P31 wd:Q1569167
  
    #finds all (two) characters, including the Last Dragonborn
    #?item wdt:P31 wd:Q112597485; p:P31/ps:P31 wd:Q1569167
    
    #finds all characteres, excludes those with a deprecated rank
    ?item wdt:P31 wd:Q112597485; p:P31 ?st. ?st ps:P31 wd:Q1569167.
    MINUS{?st wikibase:rank wikibase:DeprecatedRank}
    SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
    }

Try it!

- Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:59, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Tried a quick solution on The Last Dragonborn (Q114962186)--Trade (talk) 23:56, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the label - could we label it something like "custom value", corresponding to "default value"? - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 15:13, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Enemy Countries

Beyond the characters, fictional countries can also be enemies. What property or qualifier could indicate that? Thanks. --Fantastoria (talk) 09:04, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Fantastoria, I think we can just use enemy (P7047) unless someone disagrees (if not I would just broaden the constraints to include fictional countries). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:41, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

It's the first thing I used, but since the "warning" said «it couldn't be done», I thought there would be another way to do it. I will then apply the constrain to be able to use it. Saludos. --Fantastoria (talk) 09:29, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Archive of Our Own not interested in working with Wikidata

I contacted the Open Doors project of this hugh fan fiction site, and after 2 weeks got a brush off. See https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Talk:Q27764876#Not_interested_in_working_with_wikidata Vicarage (talk) 05:58, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity: what did you ask them, exactly? The last sentence "Documentation on the GitHub site also contains instructions for [...] proposing new features, which would include any wikidata-related suggestions" implies to me that they are asking for more specific suggestions (after you or we looked into the possibilities a bit closer). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:43, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

I asked them (through a web form, so no copy of exact text) if they were interested working with wikidata. The 2 week delay and form response suggested no enthusiasm on their part, which would be required for me to work with them Vicarage (talk) 08:58, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

I understand your disappointment but I would not take their lack of enthusiasm too seriously or personally. They are also just people with a certain workload and maybe they have currently no idea how they could make use of Wikidata's data (hence they ask for more specific suggestions). If there should be a concrete idea how they could integrate the data in Wikidata we could reach out, again, in my opinion. Anyway: thank you for your initiative! - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 09:10, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

classes of imaginary entities as classes undetermined as to if their instances are mythical or fictional

During the last month classes of imaginary characters / animals were introduced. These are meant as intermediary classes above the fictional and the mythological (e.g. imaginary horse (Q115252411) and imaginary mammal (Q115257598)) and may be used to serve as "umbrella classes" (see also the related talk at Talk:Q115252411). They should differ from classes like "mythical horse" and "fictional horse" in that they make no claim as to their status in a community's or societies belief system (e.g. Harry Potter is purely fictional - this character is introduced in a work called a novel without claiming that any such person really existed - while Zeus is mythological - there were quite probably people who believed in him / this concept was used to relate certain natural and social phenomena). Besides these two there are many levels - there are folklore characters that people may or may not (have) believe(d) in (e.g. Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny), there are hoaxes, there are entities in conspiracy theories (e.g. Reptilian (Q13114416)) and similar things. All these things could also be subsumed under the imaginary.

The use of classes of imaginary entities seems to stem from the French Wikipedia, if I understand it correctly.

Now I ask myself if we should embrace the use of these classes (there are advantages) or if we should discourage it (there are also disadvantages).

What would be the advantages of having this kind of class?

1) Potentially fewer classes: One advantage of having a class that is undetermined if its instances are purely fictional or mythical / legendary / religious / a hoax is that we don't have to create two items, one for the mythical entity and one for the fictional - we can just create one class for the imaginary. E.g. there would be only one class <imaginary duck> instead of one class <mythical duck> and one class <fictional duck>. Now we can determine if an entity is fictional or mythical or legendary or a hoax on an instance level.

2) More flexibility: There could be more flexibility to express the status of an entity on an instance level - we don't have to decide if this character from German or French folklore is fictional or mythological via the subclass and can just make it "imaginary x" + "folklore character". We don't have to shoehorn every character in one of two classes (fictional or mythical) just by calling it a dragon.

3) Possibly easier queries: It may be easier to query to all items about duck characters (from myth and fiction) with an umbrella class.

Example: monster (Q276453)

To have an example I created imaginary character (Q115537581). I made it a superclass of character (Q95074), mythical character (Q4271324), legendary figure (Q13002315), imaginary mammal (Q115257598) (this already existed) and monster (Q276453) (if you disagree with using the concept of imaginary entities it may be still deleted).

monster (Q276453) has been an item used a lot on items for fictional characters but that was defined as mythical. I deleted the corresponding statement and made it a subclass of imaginary character (Q115537581). Now, if an item is made an instance of monster (Q276453) it is left unclear if this entity is actually mythical or fictional.

To make explicit that this item is fictional you have to add instance of (P31) character (Q95074) (see King Kong (Q216810)).

To make explicit that this item is legendary you have to add mythical creature (Q2239243) (e.g. Mongolian death worm (Q272149))

What would be the disadvantages of having this kind of class?

1) Potentially a lot of cleanup and disruption of the current model: We already have a lot of classes for both fictional and mythical entities. To introduce this model consistently this would include a lot of cleanup and connected decisions: E.g. I created a lot of classes for mythical entites in fictional works (e.g. fictional dragon (Q30170627)). Should we merge them, again, into the original item and make this a subclass of "imaginary"? How should we express that this concept stems from myth without making it a subclass of the mythological / mythical? Apart from this arises the question if we should declare all fictional character classes as "imaginary" (as many of them are already used on mythical characters) to make clear that they are meant to be used both for mythical and fictional (and legendary and folklore and ...) entities?

2) Potentially more classes: Arising from the first part of point 1); We already have a lot of classes for both fictional and mythical entities. If we don't merge them we end up with three classes for fictional / mythical entities + imaginary entities.

3) Ensuring consistent use: One of the first questions that might arise is probably "What is the difference to just calling it "fictional""? Even the distinction between the fictional and the mythical is sometimes difficult to maintain. Different notions exist of what it means to be "fictional" or "mythical", these seem to differ from language to language and probably also within languages between fields of interest. While some people see no issue with categorizing a god or some person from mythology as a "fictional x" others find it inaccurate. It may be even more difficult to relate the difference between "imaginary" and "fictional" and to ensure the consistent use of items.

4) May be superfluous as an umbrella class: As to queries one could get all duck characters from myth, folklore and fiction by utilizing fictional or mythical analog of (P1074) duck (Q3736439) if both the class of mythical ducks and the class of fictional ducks link to duck (Q3736439) via fictional or mythical analog of (P1074). So an umbrella class would not be needed.

Even though I created an item imaginary character (Q115537581) as an example I'm really not sure as to my opion towards these items. With respect to monster (Q276453) it seemed like a good idea. It seemed also like a good idea to have a superclass above the mythical, the fictional, the legendary and folklore without being simplistic. I also like the idea to be more flexible as to if a character is mythical, fictional or legendary and not to have to shoehorn all in one of two classes ("fictional" or "mythical") just by declaring it a bird or a dragon. But I'm not sure if it is a good idea in the long run or if we just produce more noise that would be even harder to maintain and comprehend.

@Infovarius, Tsaag Valren: pinging you as participants in the previous discussion. I'm really sorry for the long read - thanks for any opinion about this matter. :) Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 19:13, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

See https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Property_proposal/subclass_of_with_uncertain_existance Vicarage (talk) 22:50, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

I answered there but I will also put it here a bit more lengthy and explicitly with respect to fictional / mythical / legendary things. The property proposal is not really about fictional entities so I don't want to overload the property proposal discussion:

Some time ago there has been a proposal for a property Wikidata:Property_proposal/Fictional_instance_of_real_object. One could phrase it something like "described as instance of" and use it for any kind of thing - scientific hypotheses, mythical entities, hoaxes, fictional entities, etc. For fictional entities and mythical entities one could even think of having a property "described as subclass of" to express specialization (for our winged lions, unicorns and other mythical beings that might be described as a type of lion or horse). I think there are advantages of this approach. But this would mean a complete overhaul of the model that is now (successfully and quite consistently) used for many years here. It would be quite disruptive and come up with a completely different model. We have to make sure that people follow the new model and stop using the old one. There are also some open questions that would need to be discussed with people involved in actually modelling fictional universes. E.g. should the use of subclass of (P279) be generally discouraged for mythical / fictional legendary entities and should they use only <described as subclass of>? Should we delete all existing classes of fictional analogs of real world entities (unless there is a Wikipedia article or this is used somehow else)? If we still allow subclass of (P279) for classes of fictional entities: should fictional characters also use <described as instance of> even if the class is already a class of fictional things (e.g. anthropomorphic duck (Q88569700)? We really need to make sure that everybody involved is aware of the change and most approve more or less. And probably we would also need to take some well modeled domain with many classes of fictional entities (Harry Potter or Star Trek or Tolkien's universe) and analyze which problems and unclarities might arise.

This is a lot of work given that the modelling of fiction actually works quite well in Wikidata (at least the last time a looked closely :) ). What gets unclear are the borders (mythical, legendary, hypothetical, alleged, etc.). I think it is likely that people involved in modelling fiction will stay with the current model (creating new classes for fictional analogs). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 11:57, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

is an individual of taxon (P10241) and our current approach to modelling fictional instances of species

Now there exists individual of taxon (P10241) and may be used to model fictional entities. There are currently 70 instances using this property query. How should we use it and how should we proceed with the already existing items for fictional analogues of taxa (e.g. fictional tiger (Q27229763))? As a first idea I think we could replace fictional analogue items for concrete species (species (Q7432)) like tiger (Q19939) (fictional tiger (Q27229763)), lion (Q140) (fictional lion (Q27267085)), etc., but we should keep the items for rather general or vague ideas of animals (e.g. if a character is presented as a spider but it is not clear which species of spider it is we should use fictional spider (Q1056850)).

What are your thoughts about this property and how we should include it in the current approach of modelling fictional animal characters? - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 13:19, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

The way I see it, we should keep fictional items separate from real ones. A fictional tiger will belong to the fictional tiger taxon and not to the tiger taxon. The less interference there is between one set of items and another, the more orderly and coherent the system will be.

I would withdraw all its appearances for now until an agreement was reached on what to do (interference vs. non-interference), here or, if there were not enough contributions, in the Project Chat. Although it seems to me a rather unnecessary property in a fictional item. What does it really contribute? Isn't it enough to say that it is an instance of a fictional tiger?

--Fantastoria (talk) 09:01, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I thinkg it is a continuation of policy that real organisms are not P31 but P102451 of a particular taxon. Except Q5. --Infovarius (talk) 17:48, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Date in fictional universes

I once saw that there was a way to add a date when it was a fictional universe item, but I don't remember now where I saw it. Could you tell me how it was done? For example, to give dates on items in Tolkien's universe. Thank you. --Fantastoria (talk) 18:34, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi Fantastoria, time index (P4895) is the property you are looking for, I think. You just need an appropriate time unit (there is Valian years (Q2467002), for instance). Kind regards, - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 18:49, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

I have used it at Eorl (Q2475930). Would you be so kind as to review the item? I'm trying to complete it with as much information as I can (including the withdrawal of notices) for reference. --Fantastoria (talk) 07:25, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! In my opinion the dates (birth date, death date and others) should use <unknown value> (some value) instead of <no value>; <no value> implies that he was never born (and never died) but I think you want to express that there is a date but we are not able to express it ("Unknown value may also mean the value is actually a known object, but there's currently no Wikidata item about the object.", Help:Statements#Unknown_or_no_values).

I'm also not sure if English is the appropriate language tag for his name in native language as his native language is said to be Rohanese (or Rohirric). There exists the mis language tag for cases in which there is no language code (I found it here: Help:Wikimedia_language_codes/lists/all). You could add native label (P1705) for the name in English as English is the original language of Tolkien's books, if you think it is useful. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 18:08, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Some additional thoughts: I found Q2475930#P6249, you could also express this using age of subject at event (P3629) as a qualifier to his death date. And if you know the work in which he was 60 years old you could add this via applies to work (P10663).

I find your use of time index (P4895) as a full statement interesting (Q2475930#P4895). I have to think about this - but I have no better idea, currently :). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 18:15, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

• I have corrected the dates. Actually, I used those properties because it suggested them to me when adding cause of death (P509). It was not mandatory, but my idea is that there were no notices or warnings. One thing leads to another and, thanks to that, there is now more complete information.
• I added the age at death before knowing how the dates of birth and death could be entered, so perhaps it is a piece of information that was not needed now that we have a satisfactory solution. However, I understand age of subject at event (P3629) and significant event (P793) as something 'external' to the subject, so I would not understand death itself as an event. Yes, if it were the death of another subject: at the death of A, B was so old. I also don't know if there is an alternative to indicate the age someone was when they died when their birth and death dates are not known (or if this case is possible in reality, not in fiction).
• There are dates that cannot be put in any other way, it seems to me. In this case, those related to the beginnings (and endings) of a mandate. My least favorite thing is the qualifiers, but I couldn't think of better ones.

• Regarding name in native language (P1559), I wanted to see how to express the name in different languages: the fictional ones and the real one (the latter being English, which is the original language of the work). Perhaps language of work or name (P407) could be used for the fictional native language, but it would be incomplete because you would have to say what that name was; that is, a way of saying that it refers to 'Eorl' in its fictional context. In fact, 'Eorl' is not the best example to illustrate the idea. Of course, I didn't know the unknown language code existed. This is more interesting because we can add a qualifier that specifies what language it is. I have already changed the data.
• What would be missing would be to specify different names in different languages and the aliases. It seems to me that 'Eorl' had neither one nor the other ('Young' is not exactly an alias or a nickname).

• There are other properties that I have not added that could be done. The most obvious cases are the places of birth and death. Putting 'unknown' seems to me like it would make little sense because that's what happens for most characters, although in some it could be determined in a general way (most or all Númenoréans were born in Númenór; the same for Gondorians). Others like mother and spouse seem more remarkable to me because the names of the mothers and female spouses are rarely known, although they 'had to exist'.

• 'Eorl' is not suitable for film or television counterparts, but, in that case, is all the information added in the same item or is it split into different items?

I would like that eventually we could have some tables on the main page of the project with the properties and qualifiers for the types of characters, places and objects, both recommended and optional. Different possibilities for the values and example items according to the cases. Ambitious? Yes, but there is no delivery date :). --Fantastoria (talk) 09:39, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

I very much support your plan to expand the property and qualifier tables for this project (but no pressure, of course :) ).

• I had a look with which properties age of subject at event (P3629) is currently used and date of death (P570) is with 11502 items the second leading property: query. Denisova 11 (Q56233289) is one example (query for all items with date of death qualified with age of subject at event).
• As to "Young": I think it is a generational suffix (P8017). (along with the Younger (Q19838173) (here is a list of all properties related to names: query). see additional comment below
• If you set statements about places of birth and death to <unknown> you make it clear that it is really unknown, e.g. you express that Tolkien never specified it (as far as you know, of course). No statements could also mean that simply nobody bothered to add the places.
• I think it is useful to add a statement spouse <unknown value> (some value) - it indicates that he was married.
• It is up to you if you split up Eorl into several items or add all information to one. I expressed some thoughts about the two options here: Wikidata:WikiProject_Narration/Questions#Characters_appearing_in_multiple_works_(adaptations,_spin-offs)_with_different_characteristics. If you keep all versions of Eorl in one item you can use applies to work (P10663) to make clear to which works a statement applies. But if versions significantly differ I would advise you to split up the item (otherwise it may get quite messy). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 18:33, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
• One could express time index (P4895)2,510 Third Age yearrelative to (P2210)king of Rohan (Q7468941) using significant event (P793): significant event (P793)royal inauguration (Q1905393)time index (P4895)2,510 Third Age year. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 18:52, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
• Maybe "the Young" is not really a generational suffix, but rather a byname. There is epithet (P8822) to indicate these - but we would need a suiting item. There is no "the Young", currently (I only found the Younger (Q19838173)). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 19:26, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ As many ideas began to accumulate, I created a subpage to organize them there. The original table seems insufficient to me, although I only have a preliminary idea of what to show in the table: the property, how to use it, (mandatory, recommended, optional)?, qualifiers, comments. I have also opened the talk page with some general ideas. --Fantastoria (talk) 08:56, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Fictional government forms

Trade pointed out at my talk page that there are some fictional-analog-items (fictional republic (Q106485190), fictional dictatorship (Q120200559) and fictional transitional government (Q120200577) as examples) that may be superfluous: we could just use basic form of government (P122) along with "real" item (republic (Q7270), dictatorship (Q317), transitional government (Q59281)) to indicate that a certain fictional country is a republic, e.g. Sao Rico (Q3091514)instance of (P31)fictional country (Q1145276), basic form of government (P122)republic (Q7270) (instead of Sao Rico (Q3091514)instance of (P31)fictional republic (Q106485190)).

Did I miss something why it is still useful to have these? I noticed that some of the fictional republic items (also?) represent a government body, not (only?) a country (e.g. Galactic Republic (Q733195)). I'm not sure if this could be modeled using basic form of government (P122). Pinging contributors to these and related items: @J 1982, Fantastoria, BB-9E Droid:. Thanks for your input! - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 14:38, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Although we are talking about fictional countries, I think we can understand that terms like 'republic' or 'kingdom' in the name of a country are only part of its name (a part that describes its internal functioning). The same country can go from being a republic to a kingdom or a dictatorship without ceasing to be the same country. I agree that we shouldn't 'bring' the instance value below 'fictional country'.

As for Galactic Republic (Q733195), I seem to remember (I speak from memory) that it is more of a confederation (Q170156) of countries (or planets, I'm not sure) that includes countries with different types of government. For example, there is Naboo that seems to me to be a principality (at least it is ruled by a princess).

--Fantastoria (talk) 08:37, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I have started by substituting fictional kingdom (Q96196475). --Fantastoria (talk) 12:05, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

In the event that another user recovers the value, what reason could be given to discontinue it? --Fantastoria (talk) 12:14, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

I'd argue that we want to avoid the creation of unnecessary items and redundancy. Probably we should set up a page for the modelling of fictional administrative entities (just like we have the page Properties for fictional characters for characters). This should follow the general model for administrative entities closely, but there may be peculiarities of fictional administrative entities that may be discussed/documented there. -- Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 15:27, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

It seems to me that I have already replaced most of them. In many cases, it was redundant because the items were already instances of fictional country (Q1145276) and had basic form of government (P122). I've also created a warning to discourage the use of those values as instances. --Fantastoria (talk) 06:59, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Ps. I have created the value applies to entities of another class (Q121462401) as reason for deprecated rank (P2241) because I have seen that from time to time there are uses of fictional country (Q1145276) that do not conform to works of fiction (see Bookland (Q669741) and Belgorod People's Republic (Q118629252)). --Fantastoria (talk) 10:45, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

There is also magocracy (Q3843396), which is an actual fictional form of government. It is a currently an instance of form of government (Q1307214), which is obviously not right but is it worth making a "fictional form of government" item and so on, or is there a better way? —Xezbeth (talk) 11:39, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

In a first quick approach to the problem, we could consider magocracy (Q3843396) as a particular case (or subclass) of oligarchy (Q79751) (on the level of fiction, of course), so that we would deinstantiate the former, and use the latter as the value of basic form of government (P122) for the cases involved and look for a way to relate it to magocracy (Q3843396) through qualifiers. --Fantastoria (talk) 10:53, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

character from a certain fictional universe

There is character from a certain fictional universe (Q112242467) as a super class for classes of entities restricted to a certain fictional universe (e.g. werewolf in Twilight (Q3831861)). Some of its sub classes are classes in the form of "character from work/universe/franchise x", used to express that a character is from a certain work or universe. This use is often redundant: we have present in work (P1441), media franchise (P8345) and from narrative universe (P1080) for this. Simba (Q1649583)instance of (P31)Q111889741 does not carry any more information than Simba (Q1649583)present in work (P1441)The Lion King (Q36479), media franchise (P8345)The Lion King (Q2901452), from narrative universe (P1080)The Lion King universe (Q73544451).

I propose to

1. Discourage the use of P31 to express that a character appears in a certain work / is part of a certain fictional universe or media franchise
2. Delete all "character from x" classes, after the information has been moved to other properties like present in work (P1441) or from narrative universe (P1080), media franchise (P8345) unless there is a) a sitelink or b) it is already in wide use in Wikidata or by a dedicated Wikidata project (Star Wars character, A Song of Ice and Fire character, Star Trek character)

I'd start with all smaller "character from x" classes (<50 instances) that are only about characters from a certain film (series), book or franchise: Q111889741, Q111836280, Q119767999, Q115672082 and similar. Does somebody disagree? - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 12:03, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

@Valentina.Anitnelav: It seems quite reasonable. However, I have a doubt: for the exceptions that you propose, will it be possible to continue using those classes with P31 or will their use also be discouraged as indicated in point 1? --Fantastoria (talk) 12:13, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I think in these (limited number of) cases they may continue to use P31 <character from x> as an established practice. There are 8 <character from x> classes with more than 100 instances, currently (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles character (Q73502689), character from Star Wars (Q33125444), A Song of Ice and Fire character (Q20086260), Star Trek character (Q73502569), list of James Bond characters (Q4359230), Scooby-Doo character (Q111819966), Game of Thrones character (Q20086263), Mario franchise character (Q33093124)). I would leave them alone, even though I support the discontinuation of P31 <character from x> also in these cases. If people editing these universes decide to discontinue the use of P31 <character from x> themselves, they may do so, of course. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 15:17, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Thus, we would have an asymmetric system in which, depending on the number of instances, the "characters of X" could be maintained (who says characters, says werewolf, elf, etc.)... for now, depending on the interest of a particular Wikiproject. I am also in favor of the most strict position, but I support that we start with the cases with fewer items. Could we have a query that would provide us with the list of the instances in question? Greetings. --Fantastoria (talk) 12:03, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Here is a query for direct subclasses of character from a certain fictional universe (Q112242467), their number of sitelinks and (direct and indirect) instances: query. Not all of them follow the pattern <character from ...>.

Of course, I only consider the subclasses following the patterns <character from ...>, <... character> and similar for deletion; Paragon (Q96187632) is ok as this carries more information than just to express that a certain character appears in a certain universe/work/franchise. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 15:22, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Parallelism: As with characters, so with locations (eg Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles location (Q108059638), Star Trek location (Q99281788), Star Wars location (Q108059698); going down in classification: astronomical location from the Star Wars universe (Q108059912), Star Trek planet (Q108059718), wizard school in Harry Potter universe (Q117379143)). What do these items contribute that do not present in work (P1441) or from narrative universe (P1080) with the corresponding generic fictional places as instance? --Fantastoria (talk) 10:41, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

I started with deletion requests part 1: All items for characters from a certain universe without any sitelinks and not in use (Wikidata:Requests_for_deletions#Q3375883 and the 3 following proposals). Regards, - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 11:35, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Only seeing this section now. I fully agree with this, items like Q17478752 or Mario franchise character (Q33093124) have been bothering me for a long time now. Thank you for opening up the discussion. Jean-Fred (talk) 12:30, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree, I think its a poor trend to have where all franchises need to have their own character items.StarTrekker (talk) 20:02, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Fictional races and P31

Quick slightly tangential question: as I noticed the P31 change on Zelda characters, I noticed that we have Midna (Q1200192)instance of (P31)Twili (Q29586504). My understanding was to better change that to -ethnic group (P172)Twili (Q29586504) and tried instead -instance of (P31)character (Q95074), however this triggered a constraint violation as "too broad". I went for fictional creature (Q2593744) but that’s hardly less broad… Usually I use fictional human (Q15632617), but these are not humans so not sure what to use there (I guess there is video game character (Q1569167) but I dislike such items, these characters might show up in half-a-dozen work type (manga, anime, game, TV show, board game…), and I think this is better expressed with present in work (P1441). Jean-Fred (talk) 10:38, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

A fictional race, especially one that is non-human, is not an ethnic group or a culture or even a "race", despite using the same word. In my opinion Midna (Q1200192) should be an instance of Twili (Q29586504) and video game character (Q1569167), with Twili (Q29586504) being a subclass of fictional humanoid (Q28020127) or a similar item that is more correct. —Xezbeth (talk) 07:47, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Use of individual of taxon (P10241) is also possible.StarTrekker (talk) 20:48, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm quite sympathetic towards this idea, but the current practice is to use instance of (P31) for taxa of fictional characters and there is no consensus to use individual of taxon (P10241), which would be quite a change to the current model (see see discussion from December 2022). Before endorsing the use of individual of taxon (P10241) we should revise our model, in my opinion, to avoid inconsistent modelling. A lot of items we keep due to "structural need" would be superfluous, then: That a character is a fictional lion could be expressed using instance of (P31)character (Q95074) individual of taxon (P10241)lion (Q140), no need for fictional lion (Q27267085). It would be nice to have more people interested in this topic joining the discussion mentioned above. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 09:09, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks all for chiming in. Clearly I was wrong to conclude that fictional races go to P172 rather than P31, and will not edit in that direction anymore. My general sense of this is that I don’t like much any modeling scheme that involves drilling down the P31/P279 tree (as in, Twili is so far down the tree that some querying is made really hard) ; but that’s not a debate for today :) Jean-Fred (talk) 09:32, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Doubt with classification

We currently have the following:

fictional human settlement (Q108078133)

fictional neighborhood (Q60644691)

fictional ghost town (Q63040328)

fictional farm (Q70130710)

fictional suburb (Q96270074)

fictional locality (Q108059277)

fictional city (Q1964689)

fictional lost city (Q17004377)

fictional city-state (Q65630486)

fictional underground city (Q80196698)

fictional capital city (Q96146366)

fictional planned capital city (Q91338528)

Middle-earth locality (Q20671864)

fictional village (Q82551957)

fictional municipality (Q101497842)

fictional commune (Q106541075)

fictional town (Q106921111)

fictional hamlet (Q107642546)

fictional settlement (Q112117312)

It strikes me that fictional settlement (Q112117312) is a subclass of fictional human settlement (Q108078133). Wouldn't it be more appropriate for fictional settlement (Q112117312) to be the parent class of this classification and for fictional human settlement (Q108078133) to be just a subclass of fictional settlement (Q112117312)? --Fantastoria (talk) 16:00, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, of course. Infovarius (talk) 22:49, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

 Done --Fantastoria (talk) 07:15, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Fictional Entity vs Fictional Object

Are there fictional entities that are not fictional objects? From the definitions of its real analogues, I understand that the separation into two items is unnecessary in fiction: one is everything and the other everything that something can interact with. What can't something interact with in fiction? I propose that we merge them. --Fantastoria (talk) 12:32, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

That would depend on what universe something is in. I wouldn't support a merg personally.StarTrekker (talk) 15:52, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

What about subjects? Or essences from parallel universe? Or a MacGuffin (Q488733)? --Infovarius (talk) 20:30, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Are there fictional entities that are not fictional objects? Certainly. Offhand I can think of fictional religions, fictional folk stories, fictional colors... there are plenty of intangible entities in fiction. Omphalographer (talk) 20:31, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

kinship to subject

How should i model the kinship between Mojo Jojo (Q3253091) and his "children" Butch (Q99603780), Brick (Q99604021) and Boomer (Q99603515)? I know adopted son (Q20746725) is a thing but i'm not sure if that's appropriate in this case Trade (talk) 18:17, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

For anyone who haven't watched the show, read here for context--Trade (talk) 18:17, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

I had a look at Pinocchio (Q6502703): here we used relative (P1038)Geppetto (Q1428120)kinship to subject (P1039)foster father (Q20747105) and significant person (P3342)Geppetto (Q1428120)object of statement has role (P3831)creator (Q2500638). Maybe the relationship between Mojo Jojo and his "children" may be modelled similarly. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 14:19, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Personally I'm inclined to use the usual parent properties in cases like these. A qualifier like non-biological father (Q108759243) is what I would use.StarTrekker (talk) 21:12, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Characters hundreds or thousands of years old

Some characters die at hundreds or thousands of years old. However, there is a restriction that warns that the value of age of subject at event is greater than 135. How could we set an exception for these cases? E.g. Elros. --Fantastoria (talk) 09:56, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

• Good question. Is this propert restricted to humans? Because there are quite a few animals that can live longer than that.StarTrekker (talk) 12:49, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I added it to Project chat. --Fantastoria (talk) 09:08, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I asked in Project chat and they told me that exceptions had to be made one by one. However, I don't know how to do that (my attempt was unsuccessful). Could you tell me how I can do it? Thank you. --Fantastoria (talk) 10:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I had a look at date of death (P570) and I think you added the exception correctly. Not sure why it does not have any effect. Maybe because this property is used as a qualifier? To be honest: I would not worry about it too much. The constraint is marked as a "suggestion constraint".

Btw: how did you get the link to a specific claim? - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 16:28, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@Valentina.Anitnelav: Sorry, I don't understand your question.

Otherwise, that was the only way to implement the exception that occurred to me, but it didn't work. I know it's a suggestion, but I'm trying to find a way to 'overcome' them, both the required and the suggested ones, so that no warning appears in the item. --Fantastoria (talk) 11:22, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

@Fantastoria: I mean: How did you get this link: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P3629#P3629$0F8B83BF-7132-464A-9675-1DC2B6DC6EA6 (a link to a specific statement). Or: how did you get the "identifier" for the specific statement (0F8B83BF-7132-464A-9675-1DC2B6DC6EA6, in this case). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 12:51, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

@Valentina.Anitnelav: Ok. In the Elros item I clicked on the warning flag. That caused a notice (pop-up?) to appear. I clicked where it says 'range constraint' and copied the link :). --Fantastoria (talk) 09:23, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Real vs Fictional

I am with the case of monarchs, but I think it can be extended to all cases. For the value of occupation (P106), do we use the real value (monarch (Q116)) or the fictional value (fictional monarch (Q112245172))? Do we use real or fictional values? --Fantastoria (talk) 10:14, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't know, maybe it depends on if the fictional person is based on a real figure or rules a real country?StarTrekker (talk) 13:54, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

• In my opinion we should use monarch (Q116). fictional monarch (Q112245172) may be useful to group titles in fiction (e.g. King of Númenor (Q18729869), Emperor of Cragmites (Q116807366)) but it should not be used in statements about individual fictional characters. For a related discussion see Wikidata_talk:WikiProject_Narration#fictional_occupations_that_are_real_occupations. Kind regards, - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 21:26, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

According to the discussion, I think there is some consensus to use real items as values when they exist instead of the fictional analogues. I have added it to the discussion of Table of characters. --Fantastoria (talk) 09:05, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Whose idea was it to add dozens of "fictional version of occupation" items to Wikidata? Because i would frankly rather see them gone Trade (talk) 23:51, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

@Trade:, without going any further, I added fictional monarch (Q112245172) and fictional emperor (Q112245130) and I don't think they should go anywhere because they serve to structure the tree of fictional entities. I agree with you that we should delete any fictional profession analogous to a real one that does not have a structuring function in the class tree. --Fantastoria (talk) 12:05, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I’m not sure I understand your answer ; you’re saying that fictional monarch (Q112245172) is useful because we can have King of Númenor (Q18729869)subclass of (P279)fictional king (Q16658189)subclass of (P279)fictional monarch (Q112245172)? But surely, we could skip that one and go straight to fictional head of state (Q70716623)? Jean-Fred (talk) 21:25, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Jean-Frédéric: actually, I haven't say exactly what you mentioned. I initially asked which was preferable: real values or fictional values. Established that real ones are preferable, I justified the existence of these 'fictional values' in structural utility, not as simple links between classes or between classes and items. Here is the classification of fictional head of state (Q70716623) as it stands now:

fictional head of state (Q70716623)

fictional president (Q112245149)

fictional President of the United States (Q73374532)

fictional President of the Confederate States of America (Q96377891)

fictional monarch (Q112245172)

fictional king (Q16658189)

King under the Mountain (Q3930941)

king of Rohan (Q7468941)

King of the Reunited Kingdom (Q16594772)

King of Númenor (Q18729869)

King of Arthedain (Q33134464)

King of Arnor (Q33134656)

king of Gondor (Q35623773)

King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men (Q61811086)

fictional queen (Q16658194)

fictional emperor (Q112245130)

Padishah Emperor (Q4342084)

Emperor of the Reigning Dynasty (Q108456873)

Emperor of Cragmites (Q116807366)

I admit that I didn't explain myself in depth, but I justify myself by saying that it was just a simple response to a simple statement. I don't want to go into too much detail either because it wasn't the reason for this chat. I will say that, of course we can go to fictional head of state (Q70716623), but we can also go over it since it is still a fictional profession (regardless of whether we call it king or president, for example). Therefore, my explanation is that these classes group other classes of the same type and level and have structural utility as seen above. --Fantastoria (talk) 10:15, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Personification

I have come across personification (Q207174) which links the classifications of fictional entities and mythological entities. I think we should have both classifications separate. However, after a while the only thing I can think of is that this item is not a subclass of fictional humanoid (Q28020127), since there are deities (thus, mythological entities) that are instances of personification (Q207174). On the other hand, there are fictional characters that are personifications. Would the latter justify the creation of 'fictional personification'? In my opinion, yes. What do you think? --Fantastoria (talk) 13:20, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Does a personification have to be humanoid?StarTrekker (talk) 20:01, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@StarTrekker: a personification must be (I would say by definition) a humanoid, but that is not what I am suggesting. The idea is whether the classification of what is real and the classification of what is fictional have to be separated from each other or not. In fact and indirectly, establish this position as one of the objectives of this Wkiproject. Hence I propose the creation of this 'fictional personification' item. And, if I did it, it is because I had some doubts, but I have now cleared them up and I will create it in the next few days when I review the classification. --Fantastoria (talk) 10:27, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree to separate the concept of personification as a device from the concept of a personification as a class of characters. I would suggest to make it a direct subclass of imaginary character (Q115537581) and use it for characters from all types of origin, be it myth, folk belief, legend, fantasy novels, etc. To mark a character as fictional or mythical you can add an additional statement instance of (P31)character (Q95074). To make own items <fictional personification>, <mythical personification>, <legendary personification> ... does not scale well. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 16:40, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

But that solution depends on us implementing or developing the idea of 'imaginary entity' or 'fictitious entity' (to generalize beyond characters). I read your presentation on this matter in a previous chat and, although I agree with much of what you say there, I fear that in the long run we would have an overclassification. I think, for the moment, that it is preferable to maintain independent classifications for fictional or mythological entities rather than having a mixed, half-constructed system. (For characters yes, but places?; depending on the type of characters.) However, I am open to developing the idea because there are entities that are simply imaginary: neither fictional nor mythological. --Fantastoria (talk) 11:47, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Finally I have depreciated fictional humanoid (Q28020127) as value of subclass of (P279) into personification (Q207174) and have not created a fictional analogue of this because there is no direct subclass related to fictional. --Fantastoria (talk) 09:44, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Superhero film characters et al

instance of (P31) currently has a none-of constraint (Q52558054) for superhero film character (Q63998451) and similar items, but is there a discussion of that somewhere? I don't have anything to link to upon being reverted besides offering my own opinion, and I remember reading a discussion about this or something similar. —Xezbeth (talk) 05:11, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The constraint suggests to use character type (P9071) instead. I can't remember a serious discussion about using character type (P9071) over instance of (P31), but I'm in favour to use instance of (P31) only for basic classes (e.g. fictional, literary, mythical etc. character) and use other properties if possible. Do you see an issue with using character type (P9071)superhero film character (Q63998451)? Kind regards, - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 16:07, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

BTW: Do we need superhero film character (Q63998451) at all? Isn't instance of (P31)film character (Q15773347) character type (P9071)superhero (Q188784) enough? - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 16:10, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Just realised that I didn't explain myself properly. I was changing it to film character (Q15773347) on various items and was reverted on Kingpin (Q1753322). My preference is to not use them at all. character type (P9071) works for most superhero film characters but it wouldn't for say action film character (Q116984649). I don't think any of them are useful, Jack O'Neill (Q719661) for example just looks wrong. —Xezbeth (talk) 17:56, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Those items "action film character", "adventure film character" etc. without sitelinks should be deleted in my opinion (see also my comment at Wikidata_talk:WikiProject_Narration#adventure_film_character_(Q66808903)). We can preserve information by using genre (P136)action fiction (Q1762165). @Infovarius: Is it ok with you, too, or do you disagree? - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 10:09, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Are you sure that P136=Q1762165 would not violate some constraint? --Infovarius (talk) 21:44, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

If fictional characters are not allowed subjects of P136, yet, I'd broaden its domain to include them. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 10:18, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the solutions proposed in this topic. Nothing would stop us from continuing to refine the system with Marvel superhero movie character and the like as is already done with literary works. Perhaps we need firm guidelines (not guidelines chiseled in stone) that guide us and recommend optimal ways to orderly disaggregate the same information present in those "compact" items.

Kingpin (Q1753322) is film character (Q15773347) and fictional human (Q15632617), appears in superhero film (Q1535153) and is part of Marvel Cinematic Universe (Q642878), limiting ourselves to the proposed example. I think the same can be done with all fictional characters. --Fantastoria (talk) 09:55, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I didn't realize there was also Jack O'Neill. Jack O'Neill (Q719661) is film character (Q15773347) and fictional human (Q15632617), appears in action film (Q188473) and adventure film (Q319221) and is part of Stargate (Q11927). --Fantastoria (talk) 10:08, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Just to be sure I'd point out that to express that Kingpin (Q1753322) appears in superhero film (Q1535153) we should use genre (P136), not present in work (P1441). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 10:22, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

present in work (P1441) is ruled out because superhero film (Q1535153) is not a work but a genre. I agree. On the other hand, we could add the new usage to use genre (P136), as you said... or propose the creation of a new specific property for this case: present in works of genre. Whichever is most feasible. --Fantastoria (talk) 08:05, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Heterochromia and stuff

So I've been on and off for a while. Was adding a few characters today for the Touhou Project sub-project (mouthful of a name, huh). One of these characters is Kogasa Tatara (Q127233340), a tsukumogami youkai who seems to have heterochromia. Her left eye is red, her right eye is teal/turquoise. (Would have asked that subgroup but it only consists of myself and Arlo right now so this was the fallback.)

Two questions:

1, I looked for any way to differentiate the two eye color statements (between left and right eyes) but found no such qualifier/statement for this. Does it exist?

2, I assume just tagging Kogasa with "medical condition: heterochromia iridum" (as I have done, with the "sourcing circumstances" qualifier as "presumed" given that it is never actually said directly and is based off her character design) is more or less SOP? Kurzov (talk) 21:18, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

@Kurzov: I think you can add two statements with qualifier applies to part (P518)right eye (Q41890532)/applies to part (P518)left eye (Q41890544). I think it is ok to add this as a medical condition with qualifier "presumed". - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 15:12, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

That's what I did for Artemis Fowl II (Q778059)eye color (P1340). Arlo Barnes (talk) 18:18, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Notability criteria for fictional universes

Hi,

there is a discussion about the deletion of Q100658686:

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Requests_for_deletions#Q100658686

The discussion is already a bit stale but I think that we should consider introducing notability criteria for fictional universes. According to this query there are currently 349 fictional universes, that are described by only one work. Among them is Romeo + Juliet universe (Q124325720) representing the fictional universe of the 1996 Romeo and Juliet adaption. I think that having a fictional universe for every work is neither necessary nor desirable.

As a first draft I'd propose these criteria for notability of a fictional universe:

To be notable, an item about a fictional universe must meet at least one of the following criteria:

1. There are at least two works set in this universe
2. The universe itself is named and described in secondary sources

Please feel free to comment on this proposal (are there some reasons for inclusion I forgot?). Or on the idea of notability criteria for fictional universes quite general.

Thank you!

TomT0m Valentina.Anitnelav Shisma (talk) ElanHR Arlo Barnes (talk) Maria zaos (talk) EEMIV (talk) OmegaFallon (talk) Kurzov (talk) dseomn (talk) Natureshadow (talk)

Notified participants of WikiProject Fictional_universes

Valentina.Anitnelav Thierry Caro Shisma Arlo Barnes Tsaorin SilentSpike Maxime জয়শ্রীরাম সরকার Wolverène Rampant Spirit Rtnf dseomn lijil

Notified participants of WikiProject Narration @Trade, J 1982: - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 18:13, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

The first suggested criterion makes sense, but the second is likely tricky since rarely is a story world described as separate from the stories that compose it. Arlo Barnes (talk) 18:16, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I think the second criteria is a nod to WD:N 2nd criteria. Let’s imagine that Tolkien had ended up only writing The Hobbit but that we still have the mountain of academic discourse on his Tolkien's legendarium (Q81738) − the item should still be notable. Jean-Fred (talk) 19:55, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

There is no reason for narrative universes to have "names" because let's face it. If you look up fictional characters, then the reader likely already knows what universe they belong to making explicit naming redundant. Whatever universes have names are more often than enough just a nickname used by fans Trade (talk) 02:45, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Sure, that’s not a requirement ; but plenty of universes do have canonical names (see some examples at en:List of fantasy worlds). I think the point is that it is fairly likely that if a fictional universe is described in secondary sources, then it will be named in some fashion. Would you know of any counter-examples? We can also drop the name requirement from criterion 2 ; but anyways, can we think of any universe which would fail criterion 1 but pass criterion 2? (Searching around, Spira (Q2704368) was a close-call, perhaps Vana'diel (Q3554443)?) Jean-Fred (talk) 08:42, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

 Comment I’m glad to see this discussion − I have been meaning for a while now to start a similar one. I saw more and more fictional universes created around video games (although not only), and I share some of the concerns raised in the deletion discussion. How much of a universe are we talking about, which is not ours? It’s clear to me that there is a universe for, say, Lord of the Rings or Star Wars ; but I don’t think that there is a Baywatch universe (Q124214604) − as far as I know, Baywatch (Q223320) simply takes place in "our" universe. Between these two, there is a gradient of works (of alternate history I guess) where I am unsure. Should we have Indiana Jones universe (Q98039362) or Hill Valley fictive universe (Q98298155) − since there are no time-travelling cars or compasses in our universe (that I know of at least)?

(Also, out of the 349 universes with only one work, there are 156 that are video game series (which presumably have more than one work [although not always >_>])

Your proposed criteria are modest but, I think, non-controversial. I think we might need some guidance on what counts as a work: a game + its expansion pack should not qualify in my opinion ; a bunch of manga volume (Q125632018) (or manga chapter (Q53460949)) should not be enough either. Jean-Fred (talk) 19:55, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

 Comment How would we define "work"? There are lots of fan fictions written in specific fictional universes that are only established in one traditionally published novel or video game. A game I recently played that has an incredibly rich fictional universe only presented in that one game is I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (Q113622732), which has 250 or so fan fictions set in the universe on Archive of Our Own (Q27764876). I would imagine there are other fictional universes that would fail the two notability criteria you propose but that have even livelier fan fiction and fan art communities. Also, the focus on "works" would mean that if I publish a series of two books in a fictional universe called Gazooks that are read by three people Gazooks is notable, whereas the Exocolonist world - or the world of Colossal Cave Adventure (Q379904) or Ronja, the Robber's Daughter (Q1144655) - is not? (Or would Ronja Røverdatter's world would be notable because there are movie adaptations of the novel? Do they count as separate works?) Lijil (talk) 06:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Probably the standard should be based on if a professional wrote about it in a professional medium. Otherwise every single slightly discussed fictional setting would qualify as a "fictional universe" simply because some fan of the story wrote a Reddit post about it once. If you want an example my mom was super into Little House on the Prairie when I was growing up. Say she wrote a short story about it and posted on some fanfic site. So what? Why does that suddenly make it take place in a fictional prairie universe? But if there's off-shot stories based on characters or settings from by professional writers and/or that are discussed in reputable sources fine. Create an entry on Wikidata for it. I don't think one is justified outside of that though. One reason being my fan faction universe is inherently different then yours. So what exactly would we be talking about to begin with in regards to a "fictional universe" based purely on fan fiction? BTW, I almost think you could justify a "Little House on the Prairie Universe" entry because of the differences between the books and television show. That's despite my mom's fan-fiction though. Not because of it. --Adamant1 (talk) 10:32, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you all for your input so far! I agree with you that both the first and the second criterion could be improved.

As to the first criterion: I think of it as a clarification of when there is a "structural need" of an item for a fictional universe. It does not reflect the importance of a fictional universe. I think there is a structural need of a universe item if there are at least two works set in the same universe not being part of a greater work, e.g. a TV series (because them being part of a greater work somehow implies that they are set in the same universe). This is about works having an item in Wikidata. If there are two fan fictions that are notable enough to be included in Wikidata there is a structural need of an item for the universe, I think.

As to the second criterion: Jean-Fred is right: it is a nod to the second criterion of Wikidata:Notability. I put the "is named" in it because, strictly speaking, every secondary source about the story of a work and its elements (e.g. characters, locations, etc.) is somehow about the fictional universe. I thought that the secondary source (or parts of it) should be explicitly about the universe. This is still quite vague and is probably not even needed.

Now I think that we can drop the second criterion and just develop a rule for the question when there is a structural need for a fictional universe. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 17:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

It's sort of tangential but what makes a work of fan fiction notable enough to be included in Wikidata? --Adamant1 (talk) 00:27, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

There is Old Friends and New Fancies (Q18752812), for example. If a work of fan fiction is published or discussed in an academic paper it is notable for Wikidata, I think. As to Old Friends and New Fancies (Q18752812): please don't ask how to model this in terms of fictional universes (is there a "Jane Austen universe"? Or should this be handled as a work set in the universe of Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park, etc. which are just said to be the same by Old Friends and New Fancies (Q18752812)? I'd leave this up to other people to decide and would focus on the question when there is a structural need of an item for a universe.- Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 16:08, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Imho a universe only needs to exist when a franchise has more than one of them (different timelines/continuities etc), or a universe is populated by several franchises/series.StarTrekker (talk) 16:41, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

In all the drama I missed that comment. It’s quite radical but I think I agree with that. (with only the caveat that it’s not clear to me whether timelines/continuities should be captured through P1434). Thanks for formulating it so concisely! Jean-Fred (talk) 15:10, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think I'd call Old Friends and New Fancies (Q18752812) fan fiction in regards to how we are discussing it here. I forget the exact authors now, but there's been several famous ones who died before completing a series and it was continued by a family member or other author. I wouldn't necessarily consider something that or your example "fan fiction." Even if both would maybe technically qualify as such. Or like Disney's OZ movies versus the original books by L. Frank Baum. Your kind of stretching the term to near uselessness at that point. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:27, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I think there is a structural need of a universe item if there are at least two works set in the same universe not being part of a greater work, e.g. a TV series (because them being part of a greater work somehow implies that they are set in the same universe)

I think this is very much on point. From a pure structural need standpoint (ie, without arguing about “what is even a universe” like I did above), I am not sure I see the point of creating a universe item if it redundant with other properties. Like, sure, all works part of the Bleach (Q904) media franchise take place in the Bleach universe (Q435261) − that is somewhat obvious and redundant. Conversely, I created Trineverse (Q99446033) because I wanted to express that Nine Parchments (Q31088149) takes places in the same universe as the games from the Trine (Q32512828) series.

(The counter-point to that is that if we assume that all works in a franchise (or games in a series, which is a subcase) belong to the same universe − what does that mean when that is not the case? For example, each game in the Final Fantasy (Q12391356) franchise typically take place in separate universes (ignoring Final Fantasy universe (Q99415917) for now then >_>), except exceptions like Ivalice (Q2472618) or Spira (Q2704368). Would we then to create universe-items for each throwaway universe of the early FF-games? that does not sound like a better situation)

Tangentially − another confusing thing for me is the relationship between fictional universe and continuity (Q2141130)/reboot (Q1343020). For example, the Tomb Raider (Q111328790) franchise games take place in three distinct continuities − is that something that should be captured using takes place in fictional universe (P1434)? That seems to be done for Gundam (Q732120) works at least, with Universal Century (Q2713151)/Ad Stella (Q119947235)/Anno Domini (Q120527119) etc. Jean-Fred (talk) 20:11, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Several months late to the conversation and have not done much of anything with WD lately due to being busy and/or sidetracked with other things, but yeah. I... could see that being necessary. Most of the earlier discussion already takes care of what I would have brought up. However we may want to iron out what "works" means.

As an example, Touhou Project would be one where a narrow "work" definition might throw a wrench into things. Touhou's been around since the late '90s, effectively got a reset back in 2002/2003 with EoSD, and it's quite expansive. However it only appears *in* the series of the same name, across the video games, manga, novels, music CDs with plot/story in the liner notes, etc. All the other "X Project" (Seihou, Len'en, etc) series that launched later on are distinctly separate from Touhou and are their own things by completely different people (Seihou has a few Touhou characters in the first and second games, ZUN (Touhou creator) explicitly gave the approval for them being there, but the Seihou series is considered totally separate from Touhou and it's not entirely clear whether these characters appearing in Seihou is considered canon in Touhou).

The tangential fanfiction notability discussion may also be relevant / worth additional discussion, separately from the universe notability/structural requirements thing.

Touhou Project is a series where there were waves and waves of fanfiction and other fan-made creations (which are often lumped together into one big "fan works" category by the community) - especially in the Western world during the mid to late 2000s and early 2010s - but a lot of it probably wouldn't meet the level of being "notable", in the sense of how that word is used around here. There were some big fanworks where you can tell it changed how future Touhou fanworks were made, but they never got newspaper articles or anything like that. And no Touhou fan work has ever been officially declared part of Touhou canon, as far as I'm aware. Kurzov (talk) 19:27, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Both you and @Jean-Frédéric: bring up an interesting thing about how a "fictional universe" is different from a series, which there are already established items and properties for. Like with Gundam, I'm sure the various things related to it could be labeled as "instance of: Television series", "instance of: Manga series", Etc. Etc. It's kind of inherent to the thing that anything having to do with Gundam takes place in the "Gundam universe." So I don't really see the point in creating an entry for "Gundam manga series universe" or whatever. Aside from the fact that it would just be super redundant. Is anyone seriously going to argue that there needs to be specific "universe" entries for the Gundam television shows though? The whole thing is kind of treating users like their dumb and might think there's something other then Gundam that takes place in the "Gundam universe." The whole thing just creates a bunch of pointless duplication anyway. "the Harry Potter books take place in the 'Harry Potter' universe." No really? The books and movies can be separated through "instance of" items for books and movie series in the meantime. So I really don't see the point in having a separate "universe" item for it. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:30, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Since we are discussing franchises, and in case you have not seen it before, I would suggest reading Wikidata:Property proposal/media franchise, where I explained why I thought we needed media franchise (P8345), and how it was an overlapping but ultimately orthogonal concept to fictional universe. I also recommend Relationships among video games: Existing standards and new definitions (Q50180192) which discusses both concepts. On the example of Gundam, I don’t think it is accurate to say “anything having to do with Gundam takes place in the "Gundam universe."” − but you don’t have to take my word for it: the paper The Representation of a Multimedia Franchise as a Single Entity: Contrasting Existing Bibliographic Entities With Web-Based Superwork Portrayals (Q65038127) states that “The Gundam franchise consists of numerous distinct series, –[…] which differ based on timelines, universes, characters, etc” ; Reconceptualizing superwork for improved access to popular cultural objects (Q65038126) states that “Gundam Seed takes place in a different fictional universe with a cast of different fictional characters and remarks on some different narrative themes. […] Similarly, Gundam Wing differs not only with respect to fictional universe and characters but also with plot” Jean-Fred (talk) 14:09, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

@Jean-Frédéric: Just to be clear, I don't disagree that there are different "universes" in Gundam or whatever. Your getting way to lost in the weeds and losing the plot while doing it if your creating items based purely on a single obscure academic essay though. Essentially any decision can be justified that way. But at the end of the day this needs to be done in a way that's understandable and usable by most users outside of a small group of people who have doctorate degrees in Gundam lore or whatever. 99% of the time if you have to write or read an academic essay to explain or understand something then it's probably not worth doing. Otherwise your just creating complexity for it's own sake and are going to completely lose people on the front end of it. That's literally all this is to BTW. A huge exercise in naval gazing by people who are to in the weeds about it to realize what their doing is redundant and just over complicates things. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:22, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Well it’s good if you don’t disagree that are different universes in Gundam, given how literally one message above you stated that “anything having to do with Gundam takes place in the "Gundam universe.". I certainly don’t have a degree in Gundam lore (if you want to know, my interest in that franchise sums up to having watched a handful of the numerous TV shows years ago), and frankly this comes across as attempting to reduce my thoughts to “fanboy talk” or whatever, which would be unbecoming. I took Gundam as an example because it is an often-discussed example, and certainly not only online by people passionate with the topic, but in actual academic discourse too. But then again, reducing peer-reviewed research papers to “obscure academic essays”, certainly gives a “this project has had enough of experts” vibe. Jean-Fred (talk) 07:08, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Well it’s good if you don’t disagree that are different universes in Gundam Well sure, but I think you have to separate your own opinion and ego about this from what the average person using Wikidata will know or care about. They aren't the same thing. Just because you can get two people on a talk page for a Wikiproject specifically having to do with "fictional universes" to agree that there's a "Gundam universe" it doesn't then automatically follow that there should be a Wikidata item for it or any other "fictional universe." That's not how this works.

This comes across as attempting to reduce my thoughts to “fanboy talk” or whatever That's not my intent per se, but it wouldn't be that ridiculous to conclude people who are a members of a "fictional universe" Wikiproject probably have more interest in and knowledge about the subject then the average user. Your can call that an attempt to reduce your thoughts to "fanboy talk" or whatever. I just call it reading the room. Regardless, the conversation is about notability criteria for fictional universes. Not if you've personally watched Gundam or not before or to what degree either one of us thinks it's a fictional universe. So lets not make this personal. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:58, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

@Jean-Frédéric: BTW, I read through the essay. Nowhere in there from what I can see does the author advocate for arbitrarily labeling media franchise as "universes." Just to quote from it "the Gundam franchise consists of numerous distinct series, for example Gundam Wing, Gundam SEED, Gundam Unicorn, which differ based on timelines, universes, characters, etc., but have the common theme of the featuring giant robots referred to as Gundam." You'd have to agree it would be a little ridiculous to have an overarching "Gundam universe" Wikidata item when Gundam takes place in different "universes." That's kind of what I was trying to get at in my message above this. Gundam stories take place in different "universes." That doesn't mean there's a "Gundam universe" or even that there are different universes in Gundam though. So having an overarching "Gundam universe" Wikidata item wouldn't make any sense. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:07, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

You'd have to agree it would be a little ridiculous to have an overarching "Gundam universe" Wikidata item when Gundam takes place in different "universes." − I never argued for such an item, and I don’t think anyone did.

Re-reading your earlier message, I get now that you seemed to oppose the idea of creating separate universe-items per work-type − but no-one suggested that either (both franchises and universes span different work types).

As for not making this personal, sure thing ; I’d suggest you take your own advice: you’re the one talking about other’s “ego”, labelling other people’s ideas as “naval gazing” and assessing the worthiness of people’s thoughts based on their supposed membership to this WikiProject (of which I’m not a member by the way). Also, one of us is actually bringing sources to the table, so it’s not very nice to dismiss what I say as merely “what I think”.

Anyways, I agree this conversation has been derailed enough from the initial topic of notability criteria for universes. Unless I missed it, I have not seen your own opinion of the proposal put forward by Valentina.Anitnelav. Let’s get back to that. Jean-Fred (talk) 08:47, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

We could differentiate the franchise from the fictional universe in the following way:

• Franchise. It could refer to the commercial product that is part of the same name or brand. For example, books, movies... but also merchandising.
• Fictional universe. It could refer to the shared narrative space that has rules, characters and coherent settings through multiple independent stories (not necessarily multiple, but independent).

I don't see any redundancy in having one item for the franchise and another item for the fictional universe. In fact, to be more specific, I don't think that the books belong to the fictional universe. The Lord of the Rings is part of the "Tolkienian franchise" because it describes the Tolkienian fictional universe, but it is not part of it.

On the other hand, and in reference to the fictional universes of a single work, I think that, instead of establishing a universal criterion, we could review them case by case. Some universes we would conclude have "notability" and others not. --Fantastoria (talk) 10:45, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's a difference that anyone outside of you guys will really understand or care about. No one IRL refers to fictional settings as "universes." The only place I can think of where they do is the Marvel Cinematic Universe and even in that case most people still call it a "media franchise." The term "universe" has always been a synonym of "franchise" though and there doesn't need to be unique properties or items for synonyms. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:22, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

While it’s true that everyday conversations might use "franchise" and "universe" interchangeably, especially with well-known examples like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are significant differences that matter when we analyze these concepts on a larger scale. A franchise is a commercial construct—a brand that spans various media forms (movies, books, video games, etc.). A universe, on the other hand, is a narrative construct—an interconnected world with its own rules, characters, and lore that can exist across multiple franchises or independent works.

Take Star Wars as an example. It is a media franchise, but it also contains a vast fictional universe that is expanded by films, TV shows, books, and comics. The "Star Wars" franchise refers to the entire marketing and media property, but the "Star Wars universe" refers specifically to the internal logic, the characters, and the world within which the stories take place. In many cases, universes even cross franchises. For example, the Cthulhu Mythos created by H.P. Lovecraft exists across countless adaptations, yet it is not confined to a single franchise. By separating these terms, we can avoid redundancies and create a cleaner structure for cataloging fictional worlds.

Finally, while it may seem like a synonym in casual conversation, in databases like Wikidata, precise terms help enhance searchability, organization, and the integrity of information. The goal is not to redefine the way people talk about media, but to ensure that the underlying data is logically and functionally sound.--Fantastoria (talk) 13:23, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

In databases like Wikidata, precise terms help enhance searchability, organization, and the integrity of information. Sure, but those precise terms should be based on actual reality. Not just made concepts that don't even apply to what your talking about and there is no "universe" in most or all of the instances where I've seen it being used. There is no "CSI universe." Q110918424. All the item has to do with is the CSI media franchise. I don't care if you or anyone else wants to call it a "universe" as a personal naval gazing exercise to analyze the concepts in CSI on a larger scale or whatever, but Wikidata items have to be based on actual, real world exiting concepts and there's already Q264198 for the CSI franchise. Be my guest and write a blog entry make a fan site about the "CSI universe" though. I could really care less, but your clearly just needlessly encouraging pointless duplication part of a personal project here. There's no reason CSI can't already be analyzed on a larger scale with Q264198. Otherwise "Also known as" exists for a reason. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:05, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm lost. What kind of argument is this? Be my guest and write a blog entry make a fan site about the "CSI universe" though. I could really care less Ignoring the fact that I have never stated any intentions to do such a thing (?), here is my argument on the matter again: On the other hand, and in reference to the fictional universes of a single work, I think that, instead of establishing a universal criterion, we could review them case by case. Some universes we would conclude have "notability" and others not. An argument that can be extended to any fictional universe of more than one work; that is, to any fictional universe. I think it is clear that for me the existence of any fictional universe is not valid, so your clearly just needlessly encouraging pointless duplication part of a personal project here is false and aims at a personal attack (like the rest of your intervention). Of course, I don't agree with you that a fictional universe and a media franchise are the same thing. --Fantastoria (talk) 15:15, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Ignoring the fact that I have never stated any intentions to do such a thing (?) Obviously, your the one saying that it's worth creating and using a "fictional universe" for media franchises regardless of if it's an actual concept or there's any sources referring to the specific franchises as that simply because you think it helps people "analyze these concepts on a larger scale." My point is that if you want to "analyze these concepts on a larger scale" through calling the franchise a "fictional universe" regardless of it actually is or not, then do it in a blog post or on a personal website. You can't say that every media franchise is a fictional universe or that all media franchise on here should or can be labeled with Q559618 simply because you have a personal opinion that "fictional universes" are a concept or that Q559618 helps people analyze those franchises on a larger scale though. That's not how this works and it's just going to lead to a lot of needless deletion requests. As I've said, this discussion is about notability criteria. Your acting like there shouldn't be any simply because someone wrote an essay about the overall concept and you think Q559618 is useful. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:14, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

At this point, I’m really not sure what you are arguing for. If it’s only that we should not create items like CSI universe (Q110918424) (or Baywatch universe (Q124214604) as another one I used above), then we are in agreement on that. If it’s that franchise and universe are concepts that can always be used interchangeably, then this is simply not true, as I explained (at the risk of repeating myself) when I first proposed Wikidata:Property proposal/media franchise, as others here have argued, and yes, how stated in published research papers − because, you know, we like to have sources around here (you might want to show yours). (By the way, part of the reason for all these fictional-setting-as-universe items might be the universe-related properties predate the franchise property by 4 years). Jean-Fred (talk) 08:12, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

If it’s that franchise and universe are concepts that can always be used interchangeably, then this is simply not true I haven't seen evidence that it isn't true. The paper that was linked to above certainly uses them interchangeably. The actual term for what your trying to get at here in the paper is "superwork." Nowhere does the author of the paper say that "fictional universe" should be used for the totality of a franchise. "In this paper, a Superwork is meant to represent a franchise in its totality, free of single series or medium-specific context. In its most basic form, a Superwork can be seen as an entity that is the center of a number of whole/part relationships." Anyway, franchises are and/or can be "fictional universes." But what we're actually talking about in this discussion is a "superwork." Your just to into your own opinion and need to be right to realize it.

Because, you know, we like to have sources around here And your own source doesn't even say what your claiming it does. Regardless, my point is that "fictional universes" aren't an actual, generally used or agreed on concept in most or all cases. I can't provide sources for something that doesn't exist, obviously. It's on you to provide sources that it does and you haven't done that. All you've done is provide a link to a single paper that has to do with "superworks." My feeling is that you didn't even read the paper to begin with though. At the end of the day this will probably have to be resolved through deletion requests. Since even if "fictional universes" were a thing that doesn't mean any of the entries for "fictional universes" belong on Wikidata to begin with. I think your just trying to make this about the wider concept to distract from the fact that it's not a thing for the franchises that you've created fictional universe wikidata items for. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:14, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I can't provide sources for something that doesn't exist, obviously. I don’t know, I would have assumed that if a concept mainstream enough to have a Wikipedia article in 36 languages would not actually be a thing, there would be sources to debunk it. But fair enough, point taken.

I think your just trying to make this about the wider concept to distract from the fact that it's not a thing for the franchises that you've created fictional universe wikidata items for. That would be a Procès d'intention and is unwelcome, please don’t do that. (Also, it is patently untrue, as by my count in all my years on Wikidata I have created a mere 3 'fictional universe' items, none of which have an associated media franchise item).

All you've done is provide a link to a single paper that has to do with "superworks." You may want to read again, I linked to three papers. The first one, Q50180192, does establish “universe” and “franchise” as separate “grouping entity types” for video games.
I quoted the other two papers (Q65038127 and Q65038126, which are indeed about superworks) only to your claim that “anything having to do with Gundam takes place in the "Gundam universe."” − as one counter-example to the idea that franchise=universe in all cases (there are other potential counter-examples, eg Final Fantasy or Ghost in the Shell). I stand by my interpretation, and I really do not understand your statement above that Gundam stories take place in different "universes." That doesn't mean […] there are different universes in Gundam though. At this point, it does not seem you are likely (or willing) to change your mind on that topic, so there is little sense continuing debating this. Perhaps we are talking past each other because we are talking about slightly different things.

Besides Fantastoria’s points on the formal difference between franchise and universe, a practical aspect for Wikidata: a Star Wars-branded theme park or pinball table certainly belongs to the Star Wars franchise, but it would be a stretch to use either takes place in fictional universe (P1434) or from narrative universe (P1080) on them ; conversely, a Star Wars fictional character or location certainly does belong to the Star Wars universe, but as discussed for example on Property_talk:P8345, there’s no clear consensus yet whether media franchise (P8345) should be used on them. (This is not to say that we should nilly-willy create universe-items, at least certainly not for me).

The funny thing is, I think we are in agreement on a lot (although it’s hard to say, as you decline to say where you agree with me, which makes the conversation quite frustrating): I do agree that fictional universes can be a bit of a fuzzy concept (again, I said so in and that was part of my reasoning for Wikidata:Property proposal/media franchise), and I do agree that a media franchise (or any collection of works) does not magically make a fictional universe (not in general, and specifically not to create a Wikidata item for it). I just noticed your recent deletion requests for some Q559618-items and I certainly don’t disagree with binning Q110940895 or Q64861227 or Q110918424 (although starting these DRs in parallel to this criteria discussion feels a bit off).

I certainly don’t need to be right. I never pretended I have all the answers here − in my first two posts in this thread I expressed how it was clear to me that some/many universe items are indeed either non-notable or redundant, but also how I was unsure where to draw the notability line, whether continuities should be expressed via P1434 or not at all, etc. Elsewhere on Property talk:P8345, I was very transparent that I did not know what to make of some uses of that property. I also don’t know what’s the best way to deal with spin-offs, crossovers, etc. That’s quite in contrast to you who barges in WikiProject:Fictional universes to state that "fictional universes" aren't an actual, generally used or agreed on concept in most or all cases − although at some level, I must say I am impressed by the self-confidence.

Anyways, let’s close this discussion thread as it’s unlikely to lead anywhere. Twice now you have reminded us that this is a discussion is about notability criteria − may I ask again, what you think of the criteria put forward by Valentina.Anitnelav? Or would you have an alternative proposal? Jean-Fred (talk) 15:08, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I don’t know, I would have assumed that if a concept mainstream enough to have a Wikipedia article in 36 languages would not actually be a thing And just to repeat myself for like the fifth time since you seem to be ignoring me about it, I've never claimed here or anywhere else that there aren't "fictional universes." What I'm saying is that the Wikidata for them is being used in a lot cases where the thing it's used on isn't actually a fictional universe. I'm sure you get the difference. Your just being disingenuous.

That would be a procès d'intention You mean like how your treating me as if I don't think "fictional universes" exist when I've told you several times that they do? Be my guest and don't use sophismist arguments if your that against them.

It's you who barges in WikiProject:Fictional universes My bad, I didn't know this was an exclusive club for fictional universe nerds. Here I thought anyone could contribute to Wikidata. Apparently only people who agree with you are allowed to participate in the conversation though. Go figure. Anyway, I've actually spent a lot of time researching this and least with the items I looked at that were created using Q559618 they aren't "fictional universes" per se. I'm sure some people refer to some media franchises as "fictional universes." But this conversation is about notability criteria for Q559618. Not waxing poetic about the grand meaning of media or whatever.

what you think of the criteria put forward by Valentina.Anitnelav? Or would you have an alternative proposal? I disagree their proposal. Q559618 should only be used to create entries for media where serious and publicly available references discussing it as a "fictional universe." Otherwise your just going to have a bunch of unreferenced, meaningless items that were created purely based on the user's personal opinion at the time. If there's serious and publicly available references referring to something as a "fictional universe", then be my guest and create a fictional universe item for it. Otherwise don't. I think it's only standard that actually works, follows the guidelines, and won't just lead to a bunch of deletion requests though. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:58, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I've never claimed here or anywhere else that there aren't "fictional universes." What I'm saying is that the Wikidata for them is being used in a lot cases where the thing it's used on isn't actually a fictional universe. You may not believe me, but based on your posts I really understood that it was what you were arguing. Thanks for clarifying. Jean-Fred (talk) 07:48, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

The last time I checked this is a discussion for "Notability criteria for fictional universes." Maybe it's just me, but I tend to assume if someone is participating in a conversation about "notability criteria for X" that they believe "X" exists. Otherwise it kind of defeats the purpose of the thing. It's ridiculous that I have to say this to begin with, but there obviously can't be notability criteria for a non-exiting concept.

Regardless, there's absolutely no reason what-so-ever that I should have had to preface every single sentence I wrote with "I think fictional universes are real" just so you wouldn't repeatedly use it as an imaginary counter argument. You just don't want there to be notability criteria to begin with. So your making it about me and my personal opinion as an easy strawman to derail the discussion. How much have we actually talked about notability criteria here though? Essentially none because you wanted to make this all about defending "fictional universes" when no one was saying they aren't real. I certainly wasn't. Your just boxing ghosts to divert the conversation away from notability. Well done though. Really. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:37, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

You just don't want there to be notability criteria to begin with. Yes, I do. Please stop telling people what they supposedly want. My first post in this whole thread included « Your ([Valentina’s]) proposed criteria are modest but, I think, non-controversial. » Jean-Fred (talk) 07:49, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

So what would be your standard for notability then? Essentially Valentina’s? --Adamant1 (talk) 01:35, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Jean-Frédéric and Fantastoria as to the franchise - fictional universe distinction and I think enough arguments have been given for this. It seems to me that there are disagreements as to what "fictional universe" means. "Fictional universe" can be used in a very broad sense as referring to the world in which a work of fiction is set in (and that may be shared by several works). This world does not need to be too distinct from ours. In this meaning it corresponds to the term "fictional world" used in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's "Fiction" entry by Fred Kroon and Alberto Voltolini ("Fictional worlds present themselves as realms, created by authors and generally incomplete and sometimes inconsistent, that are more or less distant from the real world but despite the distance are at least partially accessible from the real world (thus, we can know about Holmes and admire him from a distance, even if we can’t help him solve crimes).", https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fiction/). In this reading every fiction writer creates a fictional world/universe and Sherlock Holme's stories are set in the fictional world or universe of Sherlock Holmes. Another reading is the one of a constructed world sufficiently different from ours, which was created through a process of deliberate world building and is interesting enough to be described on its own (think of Tolkien's universe). In this reading it may be at least dubious to say there is a "Sherlock-Holmes-Universe".

While the latter reading is not wrong and useful in many contexts, the first reading is the one used in Wikidata when speaking about items for fictional universes being notable because they fulfil notability criterion 3 (structural need). The purpose of properties like from narrative universe (P1080), takes place in fictional universe (P1434) and its inverse is not only to link to well established fictional universes but also to indicate that two characters are from the same story world ("narrative universe" / "fictional universe" / "fictional world"), even though they do not appear in the same book / film / video game or that two works are set in the same story world ("narrative universe" / "fictional universe" / "fictional world") even though they are not directly linked (e.g. by a series, think of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings"). These fictional universe items may not be interesting in themselves, but useful. In the case of a single world set in the same universe we have present in work (P1441) and from narrative universe (P1080) is not needed (no additional information is added). But this is not (always) the case with universes spanning more than one work. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 17:08, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Note that a new topic was started at Wikidata:Project_chat#Question_about_notability_criteria_in_Wikidata:Notability. Multichill (talk) 14:30, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

@Multichill: The two conversations weren't really related. Fictional universes was just the example that came to mind at the time, but the Project chat discussion was more meant to be more general. Since the issue doesn't exist purely with fictional universes. Thanks though. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:30, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

• If we look at Romeo + Juliet universe (Q124325720) it's currently used in items for the fictional characters in that universe. If we have items for eleven protagonists in the universe as we currently do, it makes sense to have an item for the universe as well. I think you can make a good argument that the items for those eleven protagonists aren't notable but I think it's important to talk about that.

Note that fictional universe described in (P1445) goes from the item of the universe to the item of the work. That means that the existence of a work does not produce a structural need for the item of the universe to exist. On the other hand the item of a fictional character does link to the universe with from narrative universe (P1080) which results in fictional characters producing a structural need for having an item about the universe. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 17:36, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

A fictional character would only produce a structural need for an item representing the universe it appears in if it was required for a fictional character to have a from narrative universe (P1080) statement. This is not the case: it is completely ok for a character not to have a from narrative universe (P1080) statement. We have present in work (P1441) to link to the work and this is usually sufficient. BTW: we have takes place in fictional universe (P1434) which would, following your argument, produce a structural need of a universe for every work in wikidata. I don't think that we want that. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 19:37, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Any thoughts as to what should be done with Final Fantasy universe (Q99415917)? Final Fantasy games are not connected to each other, and the ones that are actual connected universes already exist (Final Fantasy VII universe (Q3269066), Spira (Q2704368), Ivalice (Q2472618)). —Xezbeth (talk) 12:59, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Like half the games have Chocobo. So I assume at least by the standards of people here it would qualify as a fictional universe. Although only certain games in the series, but I don't think any cares. Which is part of the issue with this whole thing. It's both totally nonsensical to have a "fictional universe" entry for certain games in the series and not others just because they have Chocobo regardless of it's the same universe or not, but then it's also totally fine to do that going by the current standards. You could probably create a "Chocobo universe" item just because of the cross over and everyone here would nod their heads in agreement that it's totally valid and worth having because it helps "analyze these concepts on a larger scale" or some nonsense. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:46, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

If there isn't a shared narrative universe this item should be deleted. I don't know these works enough to judge. I would discuss it with the item creator and try to involve other people working on Final Fantasy items (is there a dedicated group? A project?), maybe I would also ask the WikiProject Videogames. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 16:30, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

This is related to Xezbeth's point but I will put it in a distinct section: Not all parts in a series take place in a shared universe. There are anthology series with independent stories (think of Black Mirror (Q558112)). So it is not valid to infer from works being part of the same series that they are also part of the same universe or story world. Two possibilities to deal with it come to my mind 1) Keep creating narrative universe items for series, 2) find some different solution (e.g. use has characteristic (P1552)set in the same universe). I don't have a strong opinion about this. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 16:30, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

This discussion seems to be stale. I'd insert the minimal "structural need" criterium for fictional universes (at least two works in Wikidata that are set in the same story world) during the next week into the project page. We can still improve on that. Fictional universes with only one work described as such in secondary sources are still notable by notability criterium 2, of course. I'm not going to request the deletion of all fictional universes described by only one work. But if somebody requests their deletion I will not defend them either. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:43, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

undead in a work of fiction (Q30061600) and Death-related properties

Let's say a character died of natural causes, came back as an undead and was killed a second time by the protagonist, How do you model this with Wikidata property to describe the death of the subject (Q115456034)? Trade (talk) 20:58, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

@Trade: I'm not sure about that. Did you find a solution? - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:45, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Not really Trade (talk) 09:02, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

futanari (Q123479538)

Anyone mind if i undo the merger? As far as i am aware those are two completely different concepts Trade (talk) 00:33, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

What makes them different?StarTrekker (talk) 16:44, 14 September 2024 (UTC)