Wikidata talk:WikiProject sum of all paintings/Archive/2018

This page is an archive. Please do not modify it. Use the current page, even to continue an old discussion.

"Exhibited at" (for a person)

I've been cleaning up our records for membership of the Royal Academy of Arts (Q270920). In the process I found several cases where a person hadn't been a member of the RA (very limited, very exclusive), but (at least according to their Wikipedia article) had exhibited there. Is this something we should be able to record?

For a work, we can use exhibition history (P608) -- though note that, according to its constraints, this is only for particular exhibitions, not venues nor sequences of exhibitions.

So if we knew the work in question, we could probably use P608. But if we don't know the work, is there a case for a new property, to go on the artist? Jheald (talk) 16:48, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

This has come up again and again. I am opposed because without the work, it is a useless bit of information. If you can find a reference, then you can find the work. Without the work, there is nothing to add. I am starting to feel we should be able to create exhibition items that are minimal, such as "miniature portrait of an unknown woman": exhibition history=exhibition time/location etc., with creator=artist, but no other supporting information. Jane023 (talk) 21:02, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't think I agree. "If you can find a reference, then you can find the work" -- not necessarily: many general biographical references will just say 'X exhibited at Y'. Yes, one might (eventually) be able to track down a catalogue of the exhibition. But that could mean immense work, and could take years -- whereas we can add right now to the database that 'Source S says X exhibited at Y'. "Without the work, there is nothing to add... it is a useless bit of information" Again, I don't think I agree. Merely the fact that X exhibited at Y (i) helps establish the calibre of the artist, as they were percieved in their own time; and (ii) is information about what further information might be sought. Jheald (talk) 21:14, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

 Support for dummy items as described by Jane if I get it right. They also can get consistently queried, here a dummy item "work(s) exhibited by X at Y". The sources we have can be added there. --Marsupium (talk) 22:25, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Seems to me that such placeholder items would be a menace -- a source of huge clutter; plus how would one ever know one had enough information to merge them?

Suppose we have a source that says "X exhibited at Y in the 1870s and 1880s". How many placeholders would we create? And suppose we found a picture with a note that was exhibited in 1878 and another that it was exhibited in 1883. Does that account for all the placeholders? Better, in my view, something closer to what the source actually says. Jheald (talk) 22:38, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Probably that dummy item will work for paintings, but for design and graphics liks jewelry, photography, ceramics and fashion this dummy item solution seems a bit odd or we should call the items a collection 'works by ...' and give every artist a collection item? --Hannolans (talk) 08:00, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

No adding this information to the person item would be a menace, as it would probably only be used when the data is minimal, adding undue weight to those venues for that artist. Historically there is a change before and after cheap photography in documenting exhibitions. Look at a page like this for some paintings listed by artist and name. You would at least need such a reference for a dummy artwork item, but this is the information I would expect. With art, context is everything and you need to be able to browse the other stuff in the exhibition to get an impression of what was exhibited and why. Jane023 (talk) 11:14, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

How to model underpaintings

Several painters sometimes painted over older panels or canvases and sometimes these "underpaintings" have become notable for other reasons, because they add vital information about the oeuvre of the artist, a colleague, or politics. The increased use of modern cleaning techniques combined with X-ray technology to reveal these will probably result in some interesting metadata over both under- and over-paintings over time. See e.g. Portrait of Don Ramón Satué (Q16594979) and I documented the underpainting in the en wikipedia article (see also pl and fr). Any ideas how to model this in Wikidata? Jane023 (talk) 13:42, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

underpainting (Q2431125): "initial layer of paint applied to a ground, which serves as a base for subsequent layers of paint". But what is initial layer? --Fractaler (talk) 14:33, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Hmm I believe that definition is similar to primer (Q380866). A true underpainting is an actual decorative presentation that is often visible under the final painting and mistaken for pentimento (Q2069454). Jane023 (talk) 19:35, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

You could make multiple painting items (one for the first version and one for the second one painted over it) and link them together? Multichill (talk) 19:41, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

That's a good idea. Who knows, maybe at some point they will be able to lift the newer painting off the older painting in some cases. For now, the underpainting is just another integral part of the final version, like the frame or labels on the back. Jane023 (talk) 20:06, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Unknown and pseudonymous painters

Do we have guidance written up anywhere as to how to fill out items for unknown or pseudonymous painters, eg Notnames like "Master of ...", painters using pseudonyms (eg Bob and Roberta Smith (Q15493566)) whose identities are known, painters (or collectives) using pseudonyms whose identities are not known (whether as a deliberate act by the creator, indifference by the public, or just the general forgetting of history).

How should instance of (P31) etc be set in these cases. When should one set instance of (P31) = human (Q5), or notname (Q1747829), or anonymous master (Q474968), or anonymous (Q4233718)? Are there other ways one should indicate that their full identity is not known, eg birth name (P1477) = some value, or no value ?

I can never remember what best practice is for all of these, so it would be great if there was a write-up somewhere. Jheald (talk) 18:42, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

In general, I think it is best to search for a "colleague" and then go from there as an example. So for example, use Master of the Female Half-Lengths (Q448285) for a Western renaissance painter, but something else for duos like Charles and Ray Eames (Q14634037). With modern artist collectives the works are often hard to specify if the individuals of the collective are known that worked on the thing. So I guess the short answer is just "it depends". Jane023 (talk) 13:41, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

@Jane023: Thanks, Jane. That's really good advice. But I always have a nagging worry as whether that particular item did get it right, and is the one to follow, or whether there are other items which are doing something different. So that's why I was thinking it would be really useful if we could identify an item and say this IS the right approach, and link to it as an example, either on the properties and usage page here or at Project:Visual Arts. Jheald (talk) 14:57, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Well I challenge you to try! I think you will quickly find there are too many exceptions to make any rules that stick other than the ones we already have for artists. Jane023 (talk) 16:06, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

If it's just examples of good practice that should still be helpful I think. --Marsupium (talk) 16:13, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Works from the Google Art Project without Wikidata item

We currently have more than 9,500 files from the Google Art on Commons that are not linked to any Wikidata item [1]. Just in case anyone is willing to have a look at it :) --Zolo (talk) 08:29, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

For some works items already exist, like this for that, but apparently BotMultichillT somehow misses them in its automatic adding of |wikidata=!? --Marsupium (talk) 19:45, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Official title property

Hi!

What should be used for the official title of a painting? Eye in the Egg (Q21750230) has both official name (P1448) and native label (P1705) right now, I assume it should be just one of the two? If so, could we get this documented somewhere? --Reosarevok (talk) 10:27, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

What do you propose as the authority for such a property? The current collection owner or the first time the work was "published" in a catalog, or the name the artist used in documents? I think you will find it is not easy to prove and a property would be hard to maintain. Jane023 (talk) 12:55, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

I tend to prefer official name (P1448) if both are possible since often titles are more complex than a list of labels of which one is in a native language. Still that needs clarification, because there are many kind of official names as Jane points out. Can we use any qualifiers for that? I think we definitely need some artwork name management beyond labels and aliases. Wikidata:WikiProject Visual arts/Item structure#Titles gives some instructions for titles in general also with a link to the CONA Titles and Names guidelines. --Marsupium (talk) 15:32, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

PS: The |lang= parameter of c:Template:Title already expects that a title could have an original language. --Marsupium (talk) 15:34, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Translation stuff

Someone marked this page for translation and added all sorts of translation tags. This page is extremely outdated and needs to be updated. The translation stuff is keeping me from doing that. Do more people feel like that? Maybe we should just remove the translation stuff? I'd rather have an up to date page in one language than an outdated page in multiple languages. Multichill (talk) 08:37, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

STRONG SUPPORT. I’ve wanted to update/improve this page several times but can’t because the translation templates are scary. This is not a page that is needed to be in multiple languages - specific instructions and modelling best practices CAN be, and when needed we can use Label-templates which show the relevant property/item in the relevant language of the user automatically. Wittylama (talk) 10:51, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

@Multichill:

in fact, you can modify and change the page, whether there are translation tags or not. Your changes will then be tagged for updating the translation. You do not have to worry about them : translation admins do it for you - just do the changes that you need to do :) --Hsarrazin (talk) 11:05, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

The kind of editing we're talking about would potentially completely refactor the whole page. Currently with these translation templates in place they restrict you to changing the phrasing of existing sentences in their existing order. Wittylama (talk) 15:26, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Well we can offload some stuff - I can move all the catalog stuff to some subpage and the suggested properties can go under the visual arts structure somewhere. We sort of invented the wheel, but lots of it is not restricted to paintings. Jane023 (talk) 15:43, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Occupation/genre/field of work/movement

Hi everyone, I'm looking into how to apply collection (P195), genre (P136) & field of work (P101) and how to deal with intersections.

Let's start with occupation (P106). Here we currently use painter (Q1028181) and not things like landscape painter (Q21600439). We have Wikidata:WikiProject sum of all paintings/Intersected painters to monitor this. This is the current situation, but is this also something we agree on? Should we replace obvious intersections like landscape painter (Q21600439)?

As for the genre. I'm confused. Should we use genre (P136) or field of work (P101)? Two queries

SELECT ?genre ?genreLabel (COUNT(?item) AS ?count) {
  ?item wdt:P106 wd:Q1028181 .
  ?item wdt:P136 ?genre .
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
  } GROUP BY ?genre ?genreLabel 
ORDER BY DESC(?count) LIMIT 100

Try it!

SELECT ?workfield ?workfieldLabel (COUNT(?item) AS ?count) {
  ?item wdt:P106 wd:Q1028181 .
  ?item wdt:P101 ?workfield .
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en". }
  } GROUP BY ?workfield ?workfieldLabel 
ORDER BY DESC(?count) LIMIT 100

Try it!

To me genre (P136) makes more sense. Again we encounter the intersections. And here it gets messy. When I look at sources like RKD or AAT, these are defined by subject: Landscape art, marine art, portrait, etc. The medium (painting, drawing, etc) is never included. I think that's the right way to do it for us too.

For Jacob van Ruisdael (Q213612) we would get:

• occupation (P106) -> painter (Q1028181) (and some more)
• genre (P136) -> landscape art (Q191163) (the label currently says "landscape art", but it's also mixed with landscape painting)

If we agree on this, we need to clean up the art genre tree. Link it to external sources (like AAT) and move usage over. We need to have a clear vision how we want to have it. We can set up reports to track this and start importing data from other sources.

We also have movement (P135). Probably needs similar kind of clean up. If that's done properly, it will also bring other types of artists (like Ludwig van Beethoven (Q255)) in the mix. Take for example en:Baroque. It gives a nice overview of the different art forms, but I don't think we can currently get this kind of data from Wikidata. WikiProject sum of all paintings has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead. Multichill (talk) 18:25, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Hello,

AFAIK, field of work (P101) is used for scientist and authors, not for artists genre… but I may be wrong. --Hsarrazin (talk) 18:28, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Well yes this is worth cleanign up and yes it gets messy fast. It is a gray area because we never really bothered to explain it anywhere and I myself have been inconsistent. It would be nice if you could set up suggestions for these. Two big ones for painting are landscape and portraiture. I guess I do feel that field of work is better for painter items than genre, which I associate with works. Movement is different so in the case of Hals & Ruisdael, Hals' field = portraiture, his works have genre portrait, and for Ruisdael, field=landscape and genre = landscape (art or painting, just pick one). They are both active in the so-called Baroque movement (so-called in that Baroque never really made it so far north, but never mind). Jane023 (talk) 18:44, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Bump, I made Wikidata:WikiProject sum of all paintings/Top genres. I assume the lack of response is because people don't have an opinion? I'll probably just go ahead and do a bit of remodelling and see how it works out. Multichill (talk) 17:36, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

I propose these replacements to start with:

• portrait painting (Q1400853) -> portrait (Q134307)
• religious painting (Q2414609) -> religious art (Q2864737)
• genre painting (Q214127) -> genre art (Q1047337)

The changes are to genre (P136) only on paintings. Multichill (talk) 18:07, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

I suspect I am the one who has mixed these all up. I am fine with your idea to clean up and I will adjust all my "quick statements shortcuts" so I use the ones you have suggested. I agree that it should be cleaned up (and the only reason I haven't worked on cleaning it up is because I don't know an easy way to change them). Jane023 (talk) 19:49, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

I can use a bot to change the statements so qualifiers and references won't get lost. Multichill (talk) 20:21, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Documented the genre part at Wikidata:WikiProject sum of all paintings/Genre and wrote a little bot that's currently updating the genres. Multichill (talk) 13:50, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Use Commons compatible image available at URL (P4765) when an image yet exists?

@Multichill: (asking here as it's of possibly public interest) Is there a way to get this image from [2] uploaded via the Commons compatible image available at URL (P4765) system easier than doing it completely manually? Perhaps using deprecated rank? The corresponding item Singers (Q19968958) already has a image (P18) value, but it's cropped. Thanks in advance, --Marsupium (talk) 14:32, 17 March 2018 (UTC), 14:33, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

@Marsupium: Right now the bot ignores paintings which already have image (P18), but I was already planning to drop that. New flow would be to upload the image and add an additional image (P18) claim. I'm a bit reluctant to replace it. A user can choose between the two images and remove one of the two. Does that sound like a good solution here? Multichill (talk) 14:36, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

I think ignoring items with a image (P18) statement is a good way to prevent upload of redundant versions to Commons. If removing the image (P18) statement enables upload that is ok I think. For cases like this one it would help if upload would also proceed if there is no valid image (P18) statement, so that one could deprecate an existing image (P18) statement and it does not get lost completely for the time till the upload is finished. What about that?

I'm examining the currently 29 cases with both image (P18) and Commons compatible image available at URL (P4765) right now … --Marsupium (talk) 14:51, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

@Multichill: … and it turns out ignoring of image (P18) would:

• in some cases produce exact duplicates
• in some cases bring higher resolution images

IMHO making it a human decision through ranks could be a good solution. --Marsupium (talk) 15:00, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Hm, or perhaps set preferred rank for the Commons compatible image available at URL (P4765) statement to overwrite the image (P18) statement? Or some qualifier to the Commons compatible image available at URL (P4765) statement? --Marsupium (talk) 15:02, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

@Marsupium: The bot won't upload duplicates, it checks the hash before upload. It just skips them and reports at Commons:Commons:WikiProject sum of all paintings/To upload/Duplicates. Could use a hand with that list :-) Multichill (talk) 15:45, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Cool, I'm working on that report!

The existing cases might indeed help to determine how to deal with the question:

SELECT ?item ?itemLabel ?image ?imageAvailable WHERE {
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
  ?item wdt:P18 ?image.
  ?item wdt:P4765 ?imageAvailable .
}
LIMIT 100

Try it!

Thanks in advance for noting any further considerations or changes to the algorithms here! E.g. for this case: Thomas Paine (Q47513361) I guess hashes won't work because the Commons file is the source file with a needless border removed … --Marsupium (talk) 16:59, 17 March 2018 (UTC), 17:04, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Watercolors

Hi!

Just wanted to quickly make sure, before we potentially import the watercolor collection of Tartu Art Museum (Q12376420) in addition to the "standard" painting one, that watercolors *do* belong in WD under the same guidelines as the other paintings. Should instance of (P31) be watercolor painting (Q18761202) instead, all other things the same?--Reosarevok (talk) 10:25, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@Reosarevok: Yeah, probably best to use instance of (P31) -> watercolor painting (Q18761202). Multichill (talk) 21:06, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

How should painting titles be handled?

@Multichill, Jane023, Jheald: Current practice for adding painting titles is all over the map. Some people just use labels, some people use the title (P1476) property (or multiple title properties for different languages), some people use the native label (P1705) property (in combination with the title property or labels), and some people use all three (See Mona Lisa (Q12418) for example). What is the recommended way to record this information? Kaldari (talk) 19:02, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

@Kaldari: title (P1476) says "published title of a work, such as a newspaper article, a literary work, a website, or a performance work". For Mona Lisa (Q12418) title is probably incorrect, see en:Mona Lisa#Title and subject. I only use labels and aliases. Title isn't used a lot, it doesn't even show up in Wikidata:WikiProject sum of all paintings/Most used painting properties. Multichill (talk) 19:15, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I've removed the titles at Mona Lisa (Q12418). Kaldari (talk) 19:35, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Just for the record, paintings that are older than a 100 years and have switched collections or been shown during various travelling exhibitions are documented in different languages with different names. I just added a Dutch painting yesterday from the Uffizi in Florence that is documented with a title with different meaning in Italian than in Dutch - you see this often with older paintings that moved around in Europe. The "original title" may be a local phrase or proverb and the "native title" in the collection tends to be descriptive. So yes, titles are literally all over the map and will probably remain so. Jane023 (talk) 05:13, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I definitely support the use of title (P1476) on artwork items as it allows the use of qualifiers and references. Artworks can have a “published title of a work”. If no qualifiers or references are used though the use of statements doesn't have much value over labels +/- aliases I guess. --Marsupium (talk) 09:29, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I've restored the title for now on Mona Lisa. The "published title of a work" part can be read in multiple ways. Someone published about a work (Mona Lisa) and in that publication referred to it with the name "Mona Lisa". Is that enough? I don't know. This might be one of those properties that is only going to be used on a few paintings that are very well known. My current position on it remains unchanged: I'm not actively adding it, but not actively removing it either. Multichill (talk) 11:34, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

My c:Module:Artwork/sandbox first applies LangSwitch to title (P1476) property and than looks at labels. Is that OK behavior? --Jarekt (talk) 15:01, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I am not sure - I guess it depends on your vision of data growth over time. I sort of like Magnus' approach of having a fallback language, and otherwise building a descriptive title based on some property values (painting by X in collection Y). Translation of en & nl painting titles into de labels got me into trouble on dewiki back in 2014. Jane023 (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

OK, so it sounds like no one has any idea how these properties should be used for paintings (although our current usage at Mona Lisa violates two different usage constraints). I'll see if some kind of consensus can be built at Wikidata:WikiProject Visual arts. Kaldari (talk) 17:24, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Sure. That's probably just us too, since we are not a big community yet, but I agree titles for other artworks should probably be in line with anything you decide for paintings. Jane023 (talk) 17:30, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Indeed people having this page and Wikidata:WikiProject Visual arts pages on their watchlist will probably be similar. I think we should get rid of the single value constraint of title (P1476). --Marsupium (talk) 16:22, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

collection (P195) and location (P276)

I need help with which statements to use regarding artworks in the Norwegian National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Q1132918). I suspect I have made a lot of mistakes and if so, I will have to correct them.

National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Q1132918) is the national museum of art of Norway and consists of National Gallery of Norway (Q3330707), The National Museum – Architecture (Q28803354), Norwegian Museum of Contemporary Art (Q28803361) and Norwegian Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (Q7061182) (temporary closed).

When I have added statements I have used National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Q1132918) both at collection (P195) and location (P276), and that is what I think is wrong. Shall I use National Gallery of Norway (Q3330707) than that is what you should use for as location (P276) and National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Q1132918) as collection (P195) ? This item is one example Winter at the Sognefjord (Q21980572). --Anne-Sophie Ofrim (talk) 18:19, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Anne-Sophie Ofrim, inventory number (P217) of Winter at the Sognefjord (Q21980572) has collection (P195) = National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Q1132918) qualifier, so item's collection (P195) should also be National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Q1132918), but if the painting resides at National Gallery of Norway (Q3330707) than that is what you should use for location (P276). --Jarekt (talk) 17:03, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Jarekt; thank you! --Anne-Sophie Ofrim (talk) 05:22, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Becoming and being a master

Finoskov and me, we had some considerations about how to model that an artist became a master. Finoskov uses occupation (P106), I've proposed to use position held (P39). The killer property significant event (P793) could also be a possibility. Any thoughts? Or have you modeled this so far? If so how? Thanks in advance, --Marsupium (talk) 13:03, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Definition first. What do you mean master? old master (Q435989), master craftsman (Q1284709) or something else? Nurni (talk) 19:14, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

@Nurni: Sorry, master craftsman (Q1284709). There is also assessment (P5021) that would only be correct for a small share in the cases and academic degree (P512) which has a more narrow scope. --Marsupium (talk) 21:11, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

@Marsupium: master craftsman (Q1284709), like apprentice or journeyman, is a grade in the guild so it seems that it should be used in conjunction with the position held (P39) property and appropriate qualifiers (start time (P580), end time (P582), of (P642), etc.). Using the occupation (P106) property would be confusing because it does not really say anything about the subject's profession. master craftsman (Q1284709) can be a member of any guild: sculptors, painters, stoneworkers, merchants, etc. Nurni (talk) 06:15, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

@Nurni: Agree! You use of (P642) for the guild? It is very unspecific. What about member of (P463)? And for the profession for which the person became a master craftsman field of work (P101) as a qualifier should fit, right? Thanks in advance, --Marsupium (talk) 06:35, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

@Marsupium: Sounds good to me Nurni (talk) 14:50, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I have added the memberships in the Guild of St. Luke from the English Wikipedia as I come across them. See e.g. Haarlem Guild of St. Luke (Q5636545) adn the items linking to it. I use member of (P463) for these links, and if you know the date, you can add the qualifier start time (P580). Jane023 (talk) 16:32, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for this hint! Does being member of Haarlem Guild of St. Luke (Q5636545) imply being a master craftsman (Q1284709)? On the other hand being a master craftsman (Q1284709) does not necessarily mean to be member of a guild I think. So we probably have to continue this double structure? --Marsupium (talk) 17:56, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

As with all things Wikidata, the answer is "it depends". So typically one becomes a master craftsman after being a journeyman working for a craftsman, and the moment is defined as one of three things: 1) membership in an organization (such as a guild) 2) passing an exam at an institution (such as a vocational school of some sort) 3) being in service for a period of 6 years and then signing works (usually one can only sign works once the title is attained). So this all depends on locality of the person and the time period he/she lived. Jane023 (talk) 18:07, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Shall we introduce properties indicating copyright status

I think it might be a good idea to introduce properties indicating copyright or Public Domain status of the original work (not of the photograph or other digitization). At the moment we have properties copyright license (P275), copyright holder (P3931), public domain date (P3893) and applies to jurisdiction (P1001), but none seem build for tracking reasons works are in Public Domain in different jurisdictions. We could expand the scope of copyright license (P275) to include PD, or have a new property just for PD. The new property could be called Public Domain status and could link to items like Template:PD-old-100 (Q12270136), while specifying applies to jurisdiction (P1001) qualifier. Eventually we would be able to query for public domain public art without images within some region, etc. Thoughts? --Jarekt (talk) 14:39, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

There was already this discussion a while ago: Wikidata:Property_proposal/Archive/48#Copyright_status which was closed as 'Not done'. However, I strongly suspect that something along these lines will be necessary, in tight-consultation with the Structured Data on Commons team. The key issue for me is that "Public Domain" is NOT a license - it is the absence or expiration of copyright. So, in my estimation the "copyright status" property is very useful for, as you point out, tracking the copyright-expiry for different jurisdictions (through the use of end time (P582) and applies to jurisdiction (P1001) qualifiers).

Copyright is a temporary addition/extra to the default status of no-exclusive-rights: Just like in all disciplines of Intellectual Property law, things should understood to have no exclusive IP rights UNLESS specified otherwise. So, we could say that the structure [of a made-up Qitem] could be:

Copyright status

copyrighted (Q50423863)

->applies to jurisdiction (P1001) - United States of America (Q30)

->start time (P580) - 25 March 1885 [ref]

->end time (P582) - 1 January 2087 [ref]

->applies to jurisdiction (P1001) - France (Q142)

->end time (P582) - 1 January 1995 [ref]

->end time (P582) - 1 January 2025 [ref according to a competing legal opinion...]

public domain (Q19652)

->applies to jurisdiction (P1001) - France (Q142)

->start time (P580) - 1 January 1995 [ref]

Note: the particular advantage of this system allows for different start and end dates for different statuses, not just for the different jurisdictions but also allows for competing [referenced] legal opinions to be modelled. This ALLOWS for Wikidata to track, for example, the museum's OWN statement of rights as well as what wikimedians might say in Commons templates. This, at the very least acknowledges the existence of a (c) claim on a painting [if we disagree with it] rather than merely ignoring/overwriting it as we currently do.

And then associated related properties would be structured like this:
copyright license (P275)

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (Q6905942)

->start time (P580) - 1 January 1995 [ref]

copyright holder (P3931)

->George Orwell (Q3335)

->start time (P580) - 1 January 1995

->end time (P582) - 2008 [ref]

->The Walt Disney Company (Q7414)

->start time (P580) - 2008 [ref]

->end time (P582) - eternity (Q138045) [ref]

So, I am all for reviving the Copyright status property discussion (but only once it's been run past the SDoC team to ensure compatibility with their plans). Furthermore, I would request that we keep in mind how a copyright-status property is compatible with other structures in IP law. That is, that we ensure compatibility with any future properties associated with Patent or trademark (etc) status/expiry. Wittylama (talk) 17:15, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for this history background, I was not aware of this. I just found similar discussion at Property_talk:P275#Public_domain. Wittylama your proposed structure seems to have qualifiers of qualifiers, so I modified it below. My solution would require us to rename and expand the scope of copyright license (P275) to Public Domain rational or license and each license or PD rational item would have some tag to indicate if it is PD or copyrighted. You are right that if we come up with anything we should check with SDoC team, but their task is a bit different as they only need to track why things are in PD or under open license, while Wikidata might also need to track why something is still copyrighted. I changed the example to a specific item

Diary of Anne Frank (Q6911)

Copyright status - copyrighted (Q50423863)

->Public Domain rational or copyright license (P275) - all rights reserved (Q1752207)

->copyright holder (P3931) - Otto Heinrich Frank (Q7336)

->end time (P582) - 19 August 1980

->applies to jurisdiction (P1001) - world (Q16502)

Copyright status - copyrighted (Q50423863)

->Public Domain rational or copyright license (P275) - all rights reserved (Q1752207)

->copyright holder (P3931) - Anne Frank Fund (Q565286)

->start time (P580) - 19 August 1980

->end time (P582) - 1 January 2016

->applies to jurisdiction (P1001) - world (Q16502)

Copyright status - public domain (Q19652)

->Public Domain rational or copyright license (P275) - Template:PD-old-70 (Q6535634)

->start time (P580) - 1 January 2016

->applies to jurisdiction (P1001) - European Union (Q458)

Copyright status - public domain (Q19652)

->Public Domain rational or copyright license (P275) - ?

->end time (P582) - 1 January 2042

->applies to jurisdiction (P1001) - United States of America (Q30)

--Jarekt (talk) 21:28, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Three thoughts for now:

• In this system I miss a property for the legal base. With public domain date (P3893) we introduced a laws applied (P3014) and determination method (P459) to conclude the status as without the legal base it is guessing why it is in public domain, I write them as source and qualifier, see for example Q29910194
• As the copyright status has a date it will change, we could automatic calculate it from the public domain date property.
• Europeana is using the right statements and promoting museums to use them as well. I added them in Wikidata as items: Good thing about the rights statements is that we can just import them as a property (probably a new property or license?). Not sure if some of those items are useful for us as well as a license idea? --Hannolans (talk) 22:07, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Hannolans Thanks for mentioning laws applied (P3014) and determination method (P459), as I was not aware of them. laws applied (P3014) takes an item,and I agree that is should be a property of the license (license meant as Public Domain rational or license template. I also like the use of determination method (P459) 50 years or more after author(s) death (Q29870405). --Jarekt (talk) 20:10, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Rights Statements

With regards to your import of the RightsStatement items Hannolans - very kind and helpful work! Thank you. I'm looking forward to seeing how we can integrate those into any Wikidata ontology of copyright concept - with specific reference to the StructuredDataOnCommons project. FYI (to you, and indeed anyone interested in this issue): are you aware of this forthcoming conference in Rotterdam - EuropeanaTech2018 in May. There will be a large Wikidata component to it and vocabulary/rights issues will feature (cc user:Isaacantoine) :-) Wittylama (talk) 12:39, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

@Wittylama, Hannolans, Jarekt: With regard to the RightsStatements, I do think that that is a very useful top-level summary of the copyright status, that it would be useful to place on items, perhaps with the existing copyright license (P275) as a qualifier.

In respect of the StructuredDataOnCommons project, a little of their latest thinking can be found in this thread in the latest consultation. Essentially the copyright message would need to be determinable from the properties, and it may very well not be expressed through a template, but directly from text stored in the Wikidata item.

Therefore its questionable whether any of the values of "copyright status", copyright license (P275), etc should point to a template, as those templates may soon no longer exist as part of the system. But on the other hand, those templates give the best typology of different copyright status reasons that we currently have, and using them as values ties directly to the text that should be used. There are downsides to introducing an extra element in the chain (eg: "Property:Copyright status reason" -> "Item:Copyright status reason" -> "Template:Copyright status reason"), because that brings in the need to keep a separate item in sync with the template if any changes are made. On the other hand, a reason is not a template, so perhaps the two should be separated; but on the other, if the two should always be in 1:1 sync, is it not much less accident-prone to keep them together?

One other thing is that I do like the idea of making "copyright status reason" or copyright license (P275) a qualifier to a top-level broad "copyright status" statement, but we run into the problem that in the wikibase system a qualifier cannot have further qualifiers; and there may be multiple licenses/"copyright status reasons" applying to different parts or different aspects of the image -- eg it may be the final result of a chain of derivative works; or there may be separate considerations for the part of the image of the canvas of a painting (PD) and the part of the image of its frame (copyright, licensed by the photographer). So we may need to have a "copyright status contributions" property, taking multiple values for different aspects or parts of the final image, each then qualified by owner, licence, etc.

But I do think that a clear overall top-level "copyright status" statement, limited to the RightsStatements values, is a nice idea. Jheald (talk) 14:24, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Jheald, My original idea was only related to Wikidata and relates only to objects/artworks not to images depicting them which might be stored on Commons. But you are right of course that two topics are closely related, as they would have to interact with each other and we do not want different systems for specifying image from system to specify original object. --Jarekt (talk) 20:15, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

About only one level of qualifiers issue: there might be 2 solutions:

1. Allow multiple identical "copyright status" as we have in the example, with different jurisdictions, dates and licenses.
2. make "Public Domain rational or license" top level and "copyright status" the qualifier. I do not like that solution as much because some templates could have confusing names so the copyright status might not be clear to humans without clicking on specific items.

--Jarekt (talk) 20:23, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

@Wittylama, Hannolans, Jarekt, Jheald: Wittylama called me here. I am not sure I understand all the current template intrincacies, but I can certainly recommend being cautious about using a property called license in combination with rights statements that may not be licenses (for example public domain, but also rights reserved or other kinds of statements). At Europeana we use something that's analogous to http://purl.org/dc/terms/rights Antoine_Isaac (talk)

Antoine_Isaac, That was the exact reason I mentioned that it would make sense to extend the scope and change the name of copyright license (P275) to "Public Domain rational or license". --Jarekt (talk) 20:10, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

@Jarekt: good point, and I'll extend it: it would make sense to extend further than "Public Domain rational or license", as the original question seems to have a wide scope. There are many other statements that are neither Public Domain nor licenses. For example none of the statements at http://rightsstatements.org/page/1.0/?language=en are licenses strictly speaking (they may indicate the presence of a license, though). Antoine_Isaac (talk)

@Jarekt, Isaacantoine, Hannolans: You all might be interested in the first structured licensing and copyright discussion for Commons, and participating in the discussion. This thread was brought up there. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 22:55, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

@Keegan: thanks I will try to find time and look at it, or ask if other people from rightsstatements.org can! Antoine_Isaac (talk) 10:02, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Yes, we need a property for "copyright status". I don't understand why this was not created long ago. This is not equivalent to a license. Regards, Yann (talk) 20:25, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I wrote a proposal: Wikidata:Property proposal/copyright status. Yann (talk) 15:35, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject sum of all paintings has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead. the proposal for property creation was done by Yann, and Ping did not work - please come and support - see above :) --Hsarrazin (talk) 11:54, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Structured Data on Commons - community consultation on basic properties for media files

WikiProject sum of all paintings has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead.. Hello friends! This month (July 2018), we are hosting a quite crucial community consultation on Wikimedia Commons: we are listing the Wikidata properties that media files on Commons will need (including ones that might not exist yet, and might need to be created for this purpose). The consultation runs at least till the end of July, maybe longer.

Please consider to take a look and give input. We already have a few cases related to artworks, but more thought on this topic is very welcome. Thanks! SandraF (WMF) (talk) 10:00, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Help modelling work by unknown artists

Hi all, can someone advice me on how to register work by unknown artists, for example Madonna and child (Q1680446) and Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Q178754). Should I use anonymous master (Q474968) or anonymous (Q4233718)? The last one seems inappropriate, because of the distinction of wanting to remain anonymous and of a maker being unknown because his or her name has just been lost to history. Is there an item like 'unknown' I can use? Also, how do you go about adding the school an artist was part of, can this be done on work or on artist level? Thanks for helping out! SIryn (talk) 20:25, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

• @SIryn: If in the source data there is a distinct entry about that artist, eg "Master of the madonna and child", then such distinct entry should also be made in WD, being instance of (P31) anonymous master (Q474968). If there is no distinct entry, use anonymous (Q4233718). (The new topic #Merge Notname and Anonymous master below may be related) --Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 13:21, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Merge Notname and Anonymous master

User:Zolo
Jane023 (talk) 08:50, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
User:Vincent Steenberg
User:Kippelboy
User:Shonagon
Marsupium (talk) 13:46, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
GautierPoupeau (talk) 16:55, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Multichill (talk) 19:13, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Susannaanas (talk) 11:32, 12 August 2014 (UTC) I want to synchronize the handling of maps with this initiative
Mushroom (talk) 00:10, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Jheald (talk) 17:09, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Spinster (talk) 15:16, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
PKM (talk) 21:16, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 17:12, 7 January 2015‎ (UTC)
Sic19 (talk) 21:12, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Wittylama (talk) 13:13, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
Armineaghayan (talk) 08:40, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
Musedata102 (talk) 20:27, 26 November 2019 (UTC) Hannolans (talk) 18:36, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
User:Martingggg
Zeroth (talk) 02:21, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
User:7samurais
User:mrtngrsbch
User:Buccalon
Infopetal (talk) 17:54, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
Karinanw (talk) 16:38, 24 March 2020‎ (UTC)
Ahc84 (talk) 17:38, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
User:BeatrixBelibaste
Valeriummaximum
Bitofdust (talk) 22:52, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Mathieu Kappler
Zblace (talk) 07:22, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
Oursana (talk) 13:16, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
Ham II (talk) 08:30, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Notified participants of WikiProject Visual arts WikiProject sum of all paintings has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead.

I propose to merge notname (Q1747829) and anonymous master (Q474968).

They are used widely (eg there are a number of ULAN entries linked to them, but there are no clear criteria to distinguish between "anonymous artist" and "anonymous master". At least I've examined some ULAN values, and I can't see a clear difference between one and the other. Can someone point to a meaningful difference? --Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 13:15, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I noticed this too. I have no idea how they got separated (or how the extra one got picked up). I know that on an individual basis you have notnames for specific artists, but those should just be handled with "said to be the same as" in the normal way. I would also vote to merge these. Jane023 (talk) 13:32, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

 Support Yes please! - PKM (talk) 19:47, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Easy source of depicts

I've been working on the following query to get a source of paintings where I can easily set the depicted person whenever I have a few minutes on the bus. Its essentially paintings with a image (P18) but no depicts (P180) where the same image is also used as a image (P18) for a person. It contains a few red herrings (e.g. the image of the painting is used in the item about the painter etc.) but the vast majority give a good hit. Just thought I'd share it in case anyone else have a few spare minutes every now and then. /Lokal Profil (talk) 06:50, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

The above query is even filtered for genre (P136)portrait (Q134307) which removes most false positives where the image is used on the painter item. /Lokal Profil (talk) 06:58, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Lokal Profil, that is great. I was just thinking about adding "depicted people" field to Commons c:template:Artwork, so we could get some good use of those depicts (P180) properties. Unfortunetly, some items have several hundreds of depicts (P180) properties and it will be hard to load all those items to check which one is for a person and which one is for some objects. --Jarekt (talk) 18:55, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

@Lokal Profil: The query improved a bit. Nurni (talk) 20:20, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Ooh I see you check for human (Q5) now and you also pick up the self-portraits. For those you can better check that the link i the same as the painter however, since e.g. the Rembrandt self-portraits were massively re-attributed by the RRP. Jane023 (talk) 06:12, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I think this would be very useful, but you would need to check that the depicted item is a human (Q5). Ideally, you could also check for a family name (Q101352) string in the title, but of course this would only give good results for people whose names are consistently spelled the same way (so it would fail for Russians, people with "of this or that empire", or youthful portraits of women whose names changed upon marriage). Jane023 (talk) 06:08, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Is there some way to approach this from the Commons/Petscan side? I mean finding images in need of a Q that are portraits of people and used in some Q? Thanks. Jane023 (talk) 06:15, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

May be we could write the query in such a way that one of the links present is a link to help:QuickStatements which can be used to add the image to the correct item. That is something I did a few times when manipulating a list of images in a spreadsheet (see here for an example). --Jarekt (talk) 14:48, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Experienced user help needed with painting series

Based on the discussion at c:User_talk:Jarekt#Adding_warning_when_a_painting_is_liking_to_a_painting_series? with Multichill, I began to work on cleaning some of the issues with "series" items where we have one item for a group of artworks and each individual artwork also has (or should have) its own item. c:Category:Artworks with group Wikidata item detects cases where a file is linked to one of group items, and in most cases it needs to be linked with individual artwork item. Also many of the group items were poluted by metadata related to a single artwork, like date, size or collection (some of which was added by me) and also needs be be inspected. The work on such items is time-consuming and might require item splits or merges, searches for correct existing items or new item creation. I would appriciate help from experienced users in cleaning up some of them. --Jarekt (talk) 15:58, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this - this will never be "done" because we still get lots of items from Wikipedia articles that discuss groups of paintings somewhat randomly, such as The Procuress by Dirck van Baburen (Q63341). I agree that these should be split out into each actual painting, but there are still so many paintings on Commons without a Wikidata link that I don't see this as a high priority task at all. I suppose if you can make a regularly updating list somewhere then it can be monitored, but I don't think the problem will ever be "solved". Jane023 (talk) 16:29, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the task will never be completed. However what I would like to correct is the issue of files on Commons linking to group items, unless the file shows a group of artworks. Linking of files showing a single artwork (or an article about a single artwork) to a group item, is likely to result in wrong metadata beeing transfered. So if we try to keep wikidata structures related to series of artworks vs. indiviual artworks, clean as we go, we will have less wrong artwork metadata. We cannot wait untill we have an item for every last artwork on Commons, because that will never happen. --Jarekt (talk) 18:23, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Paleolithic art?

I'm wondering whether and how paleolithic art like cave paintings or the freshly described L13 drawing (Q56600434) fit with this project. --Daniel Mietchen (talk) 00:17, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Help with collection and choice of sources

Could somebody lead me the way here please: Given The old goat (Q27033538), I have one source telling me that the painting is owned/in the collection of Kunstmuseum Den Haag (Q1499958), given as a loan to Fries Museum (Q848313). the other source relates to a Fries museum's collection URL that's gone and tells me it's in the Fries Museum collection (with inventory number). Two questions arise for me:

• how to structure this kind of item: location (P276) for the actual collection where the painting resides, and collection (P195) for the actual owning collection? Or should I use owned by (P127) for the owning collection?
• and, if the sources' information is a bit contradicting or missing like with this example (RKD gives at least a "last changed" date), how to deal with it? Can we tell which of the "meta" databases are more reliable or authoritative?

The old goat (Q27033538) is just an example, I suppose there are more of these in rkd.nl vs. data.collectienederland.nl, so any advise would be helpful because I would like to add more items of this painter. Thanks. --Elya (talk) 09:17, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for taking an interest in this important painter! Your questions are completely valid and it seems you have filled in the item to the best of your ability. You are correct that there are various inconsistencies across aggregator websites such as the ones you mention. If you have or can gain access to art catalogs for this artist, then you can use the metadata in there and then the metadata is anchored in time (publication date) and place (location at publication). I made a tracking list for you here: Wikidata:WikiProject sum of all paintings/Creator/Jan Mankes. Hope it helps. Jane023 (talk) 12:46, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Jane023, so I suppose I will slow down a bit and try to gain access to some catalogues in our local art library instead of interpreting aggregator databases ;-) --Elya (talk) 14:50, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Brick-and-mortar libraries are still extremely useful and necessary for any work on documenting artists, but even from your desk you have access to public domain art catalogs on archive.org (including recent catalogs under copyright that you can "borrow"). Some museums have also published catalogs of their collections on their website or in Google books. But a trip to any library's art section is always inspiring and of course there is no deadline ;) Jane023 (talk) 15:02, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

beyond all question … --Elya (talk) 17:04, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Sum of all graffitis?

I noticed an influx of items that are classified as instances of graffito and/ or vandalism and am not sure what to do with them. --Daniel Mietchen (talk) 20:02, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

@Daniel Mietchen: out of scope, nominate it for deletion. Multichill (talk) 10:19, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Adding Data from databases licenced under CC by

Hello,

I have read the project page and there mostly the part with metadata. Many metadata from museums is not licensed under CC0. So I cant add it here in Wikidata. What is different when I add it by hand. Can someone please explain me the difference, because I see there no difference. When I add the same data. -- Hogü-456 (talk) 21:30, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Hogü-456: meta:Wikilegal/Database Rights might help. Multichill (talk) 10:26, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Samuel Heathcote

The Samuel Heathcote in the Royal Collection as "Sam Heathcote (Q58414377) (1656-1708)" is almost certainly not the well-documented Samuel Heathcote (Q41784687) (1656-1708) who was a director of the East India Company. These are now separate items. Any help with more info on the artist would be welcome. - PKM (talk) 23:20, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

PKM, the only mention in www.rct.uk/collection is for "Sam Heathcote" I could not find dates of birth and death for him and suspect that they come from dates for the merchant. --Jarekt (talk) 14:14, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Most used painting properties and fabrication method

At Wikidata:WikiProject sum of all paintings/Most used painting properties I produced a report of most used painting properties. I noticed some people adding fabrication method (P2079) -> oil painting (Q174705) (my example edit) and it seems to be used over 600 times. Based on the made from material (P186) -> oil paint (Q296955) we could add it to about 170.000 items. Is that something we should do? Multichill (talk) 10:18, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes I think so. This also opens up the playing field to create/add alternative painting methods, which we also need. I have been tempted for a very long time to declare pastels and watercolors to be paintings too. Though these are often classified as drawings by institutions, the visual experience in Wikimedia projects is just the same full-color & full screen experience as oil paint. Jane023 (talk) 10:22, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

We often have situation where some information can be modeled using several alternative approaches, like your example where information that it is "oil on canvas" can be modeled using made from material (P186) -> oil paint (Q296955) and fabrication method (P2079) -> oil painting (Q174705) or artist's name can be added as author (P50) or creator (P170). My preference is to encode each information only once so if you correct it you only have to do it in one place. It also makes page less cluttered. As for watercolors and pastels, I though those we paintings, modeled by made from material (P186) -> watercolor paint (Q22915256) on paper (Q11472) and pastel (Q189085) on paper (Q11472). --Jarekt (talk) 13:32, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The huge private collection and the very active anonymous

So we were chatting about private collection (Q768717) and anonymous (Q4233718). In a data modelling sense it doesn't completely fit. We've known that for a long time, but didn't really have a good alternative. Instead of these specific items, we could also use unknown value combined with a qualifier.

For example for private collection (Q768717) .

• Old situation: collection (P195) -> private collection (Q768717)
• New situation: collection (P195) -> unknown value, qualifier instance of (P31) -> private collection (Q768717) (and maybe some more qualifiers about location or ownership)

And for anonymous (Q4233718) .

• Old situation: creator (P170) -> anonymous (Q4233718)
• New situation: creator (P170) -> unknown value, qualifier instance of (P31) -> anonymous (Q4233718) (and keep all the other qualifier)

I'm thinking out loud here. Would this be an improvement? What kind of new problems would we run into? Multichill (talk) 12:07, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes. Using “unknown value” for an unattributed painting or secret owner makes completely sense to me and seems to be precisely the kind of use-case for that datatype. It’s more cumbersome than simply saying “creator -> anonymous” but far more accurate since, as you say, we have the implication currently that there’s a very prolific painter called. Mr. Anonymous :-) Wittylama (talk) 17:25, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

The unknown value is now used for destroyed or stolen paintings. Anonymous is very active, but I don't see what's wrong with that. In the past we have also talked about splitting anonymous into "school of XXX" wher XXX could be a city/region/era. I think that's better, since most anonymous has been sold as by someone at some point. Jane023 (talk) 12:59, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

OK have been thinking about it but why do we need the P31 in the qualifier? we can always give a qualifier "manner of" or maybe "movement". Also, the "no value" can be used for destroyed, with a start date for the destruction event. Jane023 (talk) 10:46, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I am OK with "creator (P170) -> unknown value, qualifier instance of (P31) -> anonymous (Q4233718)" instead of "creator (P170) -> anonymous (Q4233718)", but I have issues with private collection (Q768717). If you have "collection (P195) -> private collection (Q768717)" than you can add additional qualifiers like of (P642) -> John Smith (Q3182476). If you have "collection (P195) -> unknown value, qualifier instance of (P31) -> private collection (Q768717)" than you can still add of (P642) -> John Smith (Q3182476) but it is more confusing as because that qualifier adds info to other qualifier and not the main statement. --Jarekt (talk) 13:42, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

@Jarekt: owned by (P127)?

As I understand it, we would add properties that would be normally on the collection item as qualifiers. So see for example collection Adriaan van der Hoop (Q19750488) for a list. If we have enough information, it doesn't make sense to use unknown value and we should just create a new item for John Smith's art collection. Multichill (talk) 14:10, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the best way is to have an item for "John Smith's art collection", if it is a significant collection to merit it's own item. I guess what I am saying is that in come cases painting was bought by anonymous buyer and it is in some unknown private art collection and in other cases it might be in private collection of a known person. owned by (P127) might be separate, most of the time if item is in someone's private collection than that someone is also the owner, but I do not want to assume the ownership. Perhaps it is owned by some organization, but it resides in someone's private art collection. Donald Trump got in trouble several times with tax office when a nonprofit organization he runs was buying artworks that now decorate his businesses. We might not be able to model such nuances but I would prefer to express exactly the provided information (either ownership or collection/location) without making any assumptions. --Jarekt (talk) 14:35, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

What are the best modelled items for your areas of interest?

Hi all

Over the past few months myself and others have been thinking about the best way to help people model subjects consistently on Wikidata and provide new contributors with a simple way to understand how to model content on different subjects. Our first solution is to provide some best practice examples of items for different subjects which we are calling Model items. E.g the item for William Shakespeare (Q692) is a good example to follow for creating items about playwright (Q214917). These model items are linked to from the item for the subject to make them easier to find and we have tried to make simple to understand instructions.

We would like subject matter experts to contribute their best examples of well modelled items. We are asking all the Wikiprojects to share with us the kinds of subjects you most commonly add information about and the best examples you have of this kind of item. We would like to have at least 5 model items for each subject to show the diversity of the subject e.g just having William Shakespeare (Q692) as a model item for playwright (Q214917), while helpful may not provide a good example for people trying to model modern poets from Asia.

You can add model items yourself by using the instructions at Wikidata:Model items. It may be helpful to have a discussion here to collate information first.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 15:46, 17 December 2018 (UTC)