Wikidata talk:WikiProject Organizations

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Since properties nowadays are suggested and listed at other pages, I cleaned this page up from property suggestions. Ok? Please revert or move the suggestions to other pages if needed. Mange01 (talk) 22:59, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I think this is the proper page where to list the properties we need, as identified by a map with external schemes such as infoboxes. The list of current properties is Wikidata:Property proposal/Organization. Nemo 18:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

new tabs

I've added a new tab menu to add multiple pages to this project. I use the responsive template, already used on Wikidata:WikiProject France. --PAC2 (talk) 06:05, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

New template for item documentation

I've been developing {{TP organization}} and I propose to include this new model in {{Item documentation}}. See Template_talk:Item_documentation#Proposal_to_add_subtemplate_for_organization for the discussion.

Suggestions to improve {{TP organization}} are welcome. PAC2 (talk) 19:39, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Organizations founded and dissolved

Hi! I'm working on a small upload of organizations. Some of them were started, then dissolved, then started again. How do I best cover this in Wikidata? Tanzania (talk) 14:41, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

@Tanzania is this too late to answer? Only see this now :-)

I would threat them separately if they were only active when registered as active (so as state would recognize them as different entities), exception would be if they are mostly informal and only sometimes register, but even then I would create one main and others as sub-ordinate as legal entities. Curious to know what you did and how. --Zblace (talk) 09:49, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Defunct organization

I am working on a historic project with organizations, informal groups and venues that were once notable, but no longer in operation. How to best model the fact that an organization is no longer operational, especially in case the date of dissolution is not known. I see two options, both are used in wikidata, I am not sure which one is better. One would be to make the item's instance of (P31) to former entity (Q15893266) or one of its subclasses, the other to set dissolved, abolished or demolished date (P576) to unknown value. Which one is preferred? Any other solutions? Tdombos (talk) 13:30, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Multiple locations over time

I am working on a historic project with venues that moved their location several times, so their coordinate location (P625), street address (P6375), located on street (P669), house number (P670) changed. This info could be added either directly under these properties with the relevant start time (P580) and end time (P582), or added under location (P276) as qualifier. The second option has the benefit that the start time (P580) and end time (P582) have to be set only once, and the changes appear together neatly one after the other. But in this case the data is recorded differntly for current and old locations, which is counterintuitive. Which is the preferred method? Any other solutions? Tdombos (talk) 13:51, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

@Tdombos: Many organizations (businesses at least) use headquarters location (P159) with qualifiers as their main location statement, so it seems fine to me to do what you propose as the second option here, and the present location could be entered similarly - that is, if this isn't already covered by headquarters location (P159) approach. ArthurPSmith (talk) 22:04, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Request comment on Wikimedia Foundation as a financial model and test case

• Talk:Q180#Wikimedia_Foundation_as_model_for_nonprofit_finances

Bluerasberry (talk) 19:20, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Implementing the W3C Organization Ontology in Wikidata

At the Data Modelling Days 2023, there was a fascinating discussion entitled "Wikidata Challenges in the semantic web community". Over the course of this session, the organization ontology was brought up and I cited the W3C Organization Ontology as a good reference ontology for modelling the relationships between different parts of an organization. This idea seemed attractive to @ArthurPSmith and a few others. I do not have the bandwidth to facilitate this discussion at present, but I wanted to keep a record of this online discussion here. You may find more information in the etherpad notes. Fjjulien (talk) 17:28, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

I think the biggest impact of adopting this would mean treating organizations more like the way we treat humans. All organizations becomes instances of one (or a very small number) of classes, rather than huge variety of organization classes we have now. Then the for-profit, nonprofit, incorporated, governmental, educational etc. nature of an organization are handled via properties, similar to the way we have properties to describe gender, citizenship, occupation etc. for people. I think some of these properties already exist, but some new ones will likely be needed too. ArthurPSmith (talk) 15:27, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm looking forward to the Video recording of this session. But everything that helps to handle the chaos of different classes for Organizations and the double entries of class and legal form would be very welcome. Newt713 (talk) 11:53, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I watched the videos and tried to read through the W3C Ontology. To be honest, the ontology was too much for my non-programmer/scientist brain.

But I really see the point of radically reducing the complexity of instance of (P31). For organizations, I would propose to reduce it to business (Q4830453), nonprofit organization (Q163740) and government organization (Q2659904) (as used i.e. by the UN classification system). Perhaps there is the need for a fourth class informal organization (Q646293) for something like Mafia-Groups or non-formal social movements. Of course it could be done with just organization (Q43229), but I think that would not be intuitive when creating new properties. Unlike the concept of "humans", most people don't have a concept of organization in their mind.

Everything else should be done with industry (P452), legal form (P1454), stock exchange (P414)...

Some examples:

• Apple (Q312) -> public company (Q891723): It would be enough to have business (Q4830453) and stock exchange (P414) -> Nasdaq (Q82059), since every business listed on a stock exchange is a public company.
• World Wide Fund for Nature (Q117892) -> environmental organization (Q1785733): It would be enough to have nonprofit organization (Q163740) and industry (P452) -> environmental protection (Q832237), since every nonprofit in the "environmental protection" "industry" is a environmental organization
• The Coca-Cola Company (Q3295867) -> food manufacturer (Q1252971): It would be enough to have business (Q4830453) and industry (P452) -> food industry (Q540912)

...

As @ArthurPSmith: states, there might be the need to create further properties (I just proposed Nonprofit Status) and more structure in concepts like "industry" (I proposed ICNPO for NPO-Classification). But it would be a great start for an easier to use wikidata. And I guess, sometimes it's okay to have a 2nd instance of (P31) i.e. for a hospital hospital (Q16917) in addition to business.

Question would be where to discuss this further (

Newt713 (talk) Bogger (talk) PantherStrix (talk) PKM (talk) Jklamo (talk) Nw520 (talk) Olyammon (talk) 03:46, 2 August 2022 (UTC) Saiphani02 (talk) Jeanne Noiraud (talk) 20:34, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Notified participants of WikiProject Nonprofit Organizations,

MD Imtiaz Ahammad Kopiersperre Jklamo ArthurPSmith S.K. Givegivetake fnielsen rjlabs ChristianKl Vladimir Alexiev Parikan User:Cardinha00 MB-one User:Simonmarch User:Jneubert Mathieudu68 User:Kippelboy User:Datawiki30 User:PKM User:RollTide882071 Andber08 Sidpark SilentSpike Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) User:Johanricher User:Celead User:Finnusertop cdo256 Mathieu Kappler RShigapov User:So9q User:1-Byte pmt Rtnf econterms Dollarsign8 User:Izolight maiki c960657 User:Automotom applsdev Bubalina Fordaemdur DaxServer

Notified participants of WikiProject Companies) and how to implement parts of this. Best Newt713 (talk) 17:34, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I really like the suggestions here and support this change.--So9q (talk) 18:12, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I also support simplifications!

@Newt713:

• W3C Org is IMHO not complex. There is also RegOrg that adds a few details (legal name, legal status). We used both and further extended in the euBusinessGraph project, see thsi paper: http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/content/eubusinessgraph-ontology-lightweight-ontology-harmonizing-basic-company-information-0
• But I think the organization landscape is not so simple. Consider temporary or shared orgs (joint ventures, collaborative research centers, projects); corporate offshoots (branches, subsidiaries), semi-informal but sometimes formal (musical bands, sports teams), regional orgs (schools, cities), government-owned companies (or private but government-controlled), etc etc
• Yes, in the normal case "stock exchange" implies "public company". But very often WD knows an org is a "public company" without knowing the "stock exchange". Or the stock listing may be inactive/historical
• The class hierarchy of Organization on schema.org https://schema.org/docs/full.html may provide insights

Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 12:47, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the complexity of real life organziations cannot be underestimated :) But I would be really happy to find a simpler way for 80/90 % of organizations. I think in most cases problems can be solved with more than one instance of (P31). Like my example of hospitals, a school could be a school and a nonprofit or a school and a governing body or just a school because it is not a formal legal organization in itself. Newt713 (talk) 14:46, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I think this proprosal has merit and I would support these changes. Can we address this via a task force under this project? - PKM (talk) 22:49, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

@PKM I'm not sure how task force are created or managed, but I would be happy to follow your lead. Fjjulien (talk) 03:45, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

@ArthurPSmith I agree that the Wikidata ontology ascribes too much importance to the different classes of organizations. But my interest in the W3C Organization lies more particularly in the properties describing the relationships between organizations, regardless of their particular subclasses. Promoting the use of very generic organization properties may help Wikidata contributors understand that companies, non-profits and government organizations are all different flavours of the concept "organization". Here is what I observed about organization to organization and organization to organizational unit relationships in W3C vs Wikidata.

Organization to Organization relationships are fairly well implemented in Wikidata already:

• org:subOrganizationOf and the inverse property org:hasSubOrganization are already implemented quite closely in Wikidata with parent organization (P749) and the inverse property has subsidiary (P355):
  • The labels may not be exactly the same, but the definitions are fairly equivalent.
    • Note: Interestingly P355 used to be labelled "parent company" but the label was changed to encourage a less restricted use of the property.
  • The scope is similar : Wikidata property for items about organizations (Q18608993)
  • The domains/ranges are fairly aligned, but they would need some cleanup: some classes denoting activities and events are out of place (the relationship between a recurring event (Q15275719) and an organization can be expressed with organizer (P664)).

However, organization to unit relationship are neither accurately nor fully implemented in Wikidata:

• One the other hand, business division (P199) is not well aligned with org:hasUnit and org:unitOf is not implemented at all.
  • P199's description is conceptually almost the same as org:hasUnit, but...
  • P199's label, scope, and domain are narrower than org:hasUnit.

If the Wikidata community sees value in aligning the Wikidata ontology with the W3C ontology, there are two options to consider regarding Organization to Unit relationships:

1. Broaden business division (P199) to encourage its use for any kind of organization, not just companies/businesses.
2. Propose a new property that would be a close equivalent to org:hasUnit, and state P199 a subproperty of this new property.

In addition, in either scenario, we would need to introduce a new property equivalent to org:unitOf. Fjjulien (talk) 03:35, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I've just discovered the whole discussion and I agree that we need to find a way to simplify the ontology of organization. The radical way would be to use only "organization" as a value for all organisations (businesses, non profits, governmental agencies, etc.). A less radical position would be to define a small set of labels.

How can we go further in the discussion? I propose to launch a request for comments, summarise the debate, propose some options and see what the community gives as feedback.

What do you think? PAC2 (talk) 21:13, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

It seems like we need to do a number of things: propose, discuss, and agree to a new (simplified) ontology; identify properties for organizations; propose any missing properties; create queries and lists to track migration to the new structure. Typically WikiProjects address these tasks. I am not sure an RFC is needed, but I don’t think we’re at that stage yet in any case. What I’d want to see first is a straw man proposal of the new ontology (which would be very like a draft RFC) that project members can discuss and propose changes to. I would suggest doing this work under a new set of tabs within this WikiProject (and announcing the new effort on Project Chat to make sure all interested editors can participate). - PKM (talk) 05:40, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. So we can create the page Wikidata:WikiProject Organizations/Ontology and document the main issues. PAC2 (talk) 20:51, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

@PKM I agree that most of the work can and should be done within the WikiProject and with all your other suggestions. As initial step, I imported and adapted a property table from the WikiProject Performing arts. Before we "propose any missing properties", I will initiate a new discussion thread to achieve consensus on the top classes for organization items. Fjjulien (talk) 18:34, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

How to document membership statuses when uploading (and re-uploading) a membership organization's dataset to Wikidata

See Good practices for qualifying and and referencing “member of” statements in the context of a membership organization. Fjjulien (talk) 03:34, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Top classes for organization items

As an initial step for improving the Wikidata ontology for organizations, I believe we should strive to establish a consensus on the higher-level classes to instantiate for organization-related items.

I think organization (Q43229) is already the object of a wide consensus as the highest-level class. It is stated to be equivalent class (P1709) to clearly defined concepts in multiple external ontologies, including the W3C Organization Ontology.

There's however not a consensus on what class should constitute the equivalent class to org:OrganizationalUnit. organizational subdivision (Q9261468), division (Q334453) and organizational unit (Q679206) are said to be same as one another. While their labels and descriptions differ slightly, they appear to me as being the exact same concept. I therefore propose that we merge all three items into one.

PAC2 (talk) Newt713 (talk) (Focus on Non-profit-Organizations) ArthurPSmith (talk)

Notified participants of WikiProject Organizations

This is a necessary first step to have a meaningful discussion regarding properties for describing the relationship between organizations and their organizational units. Fjjulien (talk) 19:06, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

•  Support @Fjjulien: however division (Q334453) and organizational unit (Q679206) have separate dewiki entries so at least one language seems to disagree. But more philosophically, is a subdivision of an organization not still also itself an organization? How does one decide where "organization" vs "subdivision" applies for massively hierarchical organizations like the US federal government? ArthurPSmith (talk) 02:18, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

  @ArthurPSmith The de.wiki articles for division (Q334453) and organizational unit (Q679206) describe a similar concept in every aspect except for one aspect: the former only applies to multipersonal organizational units, whereas the latter admits unipersonal organizational unit as long as this position is the only position assigned to a given field of work (for example, if an organization has a single information technician, this position could be deemed an organizational unit). organizational unit (Q679206) is therefore a broader concept than division (Q334453): every instance of division (Q334453) is also an instance of organization (Q43229) (based on the definition of the W3C Ontology), but some instances of organizational unit (Q679206) (unipersonal organizational units) may not be an instance of organization (Q43229). In other words, division (Q334453) is a subclass of organization (Q43229), but organizational unit (Q679206) isn't. They should therefore not be merged.

  This being said, I do not see any conceptual difference between division (Q334453) and the third concept: organizational subdivision (Q9261468). I recommend their merger. The description of the merged entity would need some discussion, though. For example, I do not see any value in describing a division/unit as 'large' part of an organization. 'large' is subjective and not useful for determining if an entity can be instantiated under that class. The current definition for Q9261468 - "organization that is a part of a larger organization" - offers a good starting point, but it should be expanded to exclude instances of subsidiary (Q658255) (a legally distinct organization that is owned by another organization).

  Should we organize an online meetup to discuss details prior to proceeding with any merger and rewrite of descriptions? Fjjulien (talk) 12:29, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

•  Support having organization (Q43229) as instance of (P31), especially instead of anything that belongs to legal form (P1454) or industry (P452). I also agree with ArthurPSmith, there is no clear separation between an organization and an organizational unit, at least in the matter of states. Arpyia (talk) 18:23, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Arpyia The organization and the organization unit are indeed similar in that they are both collective agents, but they differ in one aspect: the organization can be juridical person with a legal form (P1454) statement, whereas the organization unit can not exist as a distinct juridical person.

  Besides, many structural needs can justify the creation of distinct Wikidata items for an organization and its units: they can have different field of work, industry, or inception date statements; they may have distinct external identifiers; some units may have an operator (P137) role in relation to a facility; some other units may play an organizer (P664) role in relation to an event, etc.

  As a Wikidata user, when I'm looking at organization item, I want to know of it's a juridical person that should have legal form and a business number or if it's a unit within a larger organization (with a legal name that might be quite different from the unit name). Similarly, when importing a dataset that includes a mix of organizations and organization units, I want to make it clear for other users that units are not distinct legal entities. Here's a sample unit item from a batch upload: as you will see, it differs significantly from its parent organization, which is a municipality. Fjjulien (talk) 02:51, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Arpyia @ArthurPSmith Would you agree that division (Q334453) and organizational subdivision (Q9261468) are the same concept and should be merged?

  If so, which label would you want to preserve?

  Personally, I like the idea of starting the label with the word "organizational" since it clearly situates the concept in relation to its superclass. Not sure about "subdivision": it seems redundant. "organizational division" would suffice, in my opinion. Fjjulien (talk) 02:59, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Bonjour Fjjulien, merci pour votre réponse. Je pense que ce serait justement une erreur d'entendre une organisation comme une notion purement juridique : organization (Q43229) n'est pas la même chose que juridical person (Q155076). Un collectif de militants, une armée médiévale, une organisation mafieuse sont aussi des organisations décrites comme telles par la sociologie ou l'histoire. Et dans un registre beaucoup plus formel, qui revient au type de situation soulevé par ArthurPSmith : Prefecture of Lozère (Q59210480) est une organisation dotée d'un pouvoir de décision, d'un organigramme, d'un budget, un identifiant SIRENE, une forme juridique... et n'a pas non plus la personnalité morale. Arpyia (talk) 11:29, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Bonjour @Arpyia. Je suis entièrement d'accord avec vous. Comme j'ai mentionné plus une organisation peut être une personne morale mais doit pas pour autant l'être. Dans le domaine du théâtre par exemple, certains collectifs produisent des spectacles sans être constitués en société sans but lucratif. Ces collectifs n'en sont pas moins des organisations. Ces point de vue est partagé par mes collègues du WikiProjet Arts de la scène, avec qui nous avons déclaré la sous-classe performing arts group (Q105815710), dont la description précise qu'il peut s'agir ou non d'un groupe constitué en société.

Ma proposition relève des sous classes décrivant les unités organisationnelles. Je crois qu'une telle sous-classe est très utile pour désambiguîser les entités mais il faudrait en fusionner au moins deux à mon avis. Cependant, avant de réaliser la fusion, je souhaite consulter la communauté quant au libellé à retenir. Fjjulien (talk) 12:31, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

•  Comment I would also merge organizational subdivision (Q9261468) and division (Q334453), correcting that both are not legal form (Q10541491). But I would separately discuss the question of instance of (P31). Even though I like the radical proposal of just using organization (Q43229) on a conceptual level, I don't think it would work in wikidata. I would support the intermediate proposal of using just a handful of values by sector. One reason is the practical matter, that most normal users would not think about a company as an organization. For another reason, most selections would be along those lines and legal form (P1454) and industry (P452) can not be divided by those lines. Best --Newt713 (talk) 08:38, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
•  Support merging organizational subdivision (Q9261468) and division (Q334453). Beireke1 (talk) 11:29, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

The case of political parties

A radical proposal would be to use organization (Q43229) as a instance of (P31) value for all organisations. If we consider concrete situations, I'm not sure it's always feasible. For instance, it is highly desirable to be able to identify political parties. I don't think that field of work (P101), legal form (P1454) or industry (P452) can help to discriminate political parties.

So I suggest to use political party (Q7278) for all political parties. This imply to replace all values which are subclasses of political party (Q7278). For instance, we should replace Communist Party (Q965481)instance of (P31)communist party (Q233591) with Communist Party (Q965481)instance of (P31)political party (Q7278) and Communist Party (Q965481)political ideology (P1142)communism (Q6186).

Here is the full list of items which should be corrected https://w.wiki/APuK

PAC2 (talk) 13:18, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello PAC2, I agree that we want to identify political parties, but that does not mean that we must use instance of (P31) for that.

Defining a political party is not trivial, as different political and legal systems have different criteria to ascert if an organization should be qualified as a political party, and they attach legal consequences to that - often, but not only, related to funding. There are lawsuits about whether a particular organization is a political party. On top of that, an organization can also be described as such by sources regardless of legal provisions. Therefore, we should always specify who and what qualifies an organization as a political party, and under which definition. The answer may also change over time.

instance of (P31) does not have to be the answer to every question, we need to explore more precise ways to model reality. We have accredited by (P5514), although the wording of this property is strange, or there may be other suitable solutions. Arpyia (talk) 19:44, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you that P31 should not be the solution for everything.

In the case of a political party, I think it's the least worst solution.

An alternative option would be to use P101 with a value such as "activity of political parties". I'm not sure that the item exists. PAC2 (talk) 20:31, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

 Support I would reduce instance of (P31) for organizations to a handfull of values like business, government organization and nonprofit organization. But I would agree to add political party since they are (in most countries) not aligned with the other major categories. Thats why schema.org also included them in their specific types. --Newt713 (talk) 08:55, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Participants

I can't find a list of participants for this WikiProject. Therefore the notification of members is not working. Should we add this? Newt713 (talk) 08:43, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

 Support Yes, we should add a list of participants. PAC2 (talk) 19:38, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

 Done I've added a list of participants : Wikidata:WikiProject Organizations/Participants. You can add your username. PAC2 (talk) 04:59, 19 June 2024 (UTC)