Wikidata:Project chat/Archive/2012/11

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Needed pages

We need:

This, that and the other (talk) 01:57, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Can you clarify what should go on the first page please? --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:19, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Standard pile of legal text so that nobody gets sued, probably. The whole "None of the contributors, sponsors, administrators or anyone else connected with Wikidata in any way whatsoever can be responsible for the appearance of any inaccurate or libelous information or for your use of the information contained in or linked from these web pages.", etc. See w:en:Wikipedia:General disclaimer. --Yair rand (talk) 19:13, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Looks like that was written by the community on enwp. So let's do the same here. Please go ahead :) --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:00, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
✓ Done Sven Manguard (talk) 01:09, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

User space.

Is there something like a user space or sandbox where we could do some testing before going to the real stuff ? Regards. Zil (talk) 07:38, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Hmm no I fear not but you could try things on the demo system instead: http://wikidata-test-repo.wikimedia.de --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 08:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
According to Template:Welcome there is also Wikidata:Sandbox. Helder 16:16, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request

Hello. I have just created the Japanese main page (Wikidata:メインページ). Could some one please add ".page-Wikidata_メインページ.action-view .firstHeading," to MediaWiki:Common.css in order to hide the header? It seems that I don't have privilege to edit pages in the Mediawiki namespace. Thanks in advance. --Penn Station (talk) 18:11, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Done. Ajraddatz (talk) 18:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! --Penn Station (talk) 18:34, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Problem on Q1055

If I search (en) Arabic language or (it) Lingua araba I found Q1055 but isn't correct, how I can see where is the error? --ValterVB (talk) 10:59, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I confirm this problem. Likely Special:Search have still some issues, best thing is to warn devs about this. Restu20 11:08, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Done --ValterVB (talk) 11:21, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: Enable WD (edit: and WT) as a search/navigation shortcut

So if I want to go to a page in the Wikipedia namespace while I'm on Wikipedia, instead of typing, say, 'Wikipedia:About', I type 'WP:About'. For Commons it'd be 'COM:About'. I propose we set it up so that it works that way on this project with the code WD (so WD:About would take us to Wikidata:About). Thoughts? Sven Manguard Wha? 23:56, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Makes sense. Yay for laziness! Ajraddatz (talk) 00:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
That would be a namespace alias. "WD" is not reserved as a language code, so there's no technical problem with this afaik. Support. --Yair rand (talk) 00:15, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support is convenient for many things Raoli (talk) 00:38, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Working -> can bee archived. -- MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 16:21, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

office hours today and tomorrow

Hey :)

Just a quick reminder that Denny and I will be doing office hours later today (German) and tomorrow (English). More details on meta:Wikidata/Events. You can come and ask all your questions about Wikidata. Looking forward to seeing many of you there. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 09:40, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

"vanity" object record

I noted that object record number Q42 is currently allocated to Douglas Adams, very nice touch :-) I know this is just a trial setup and the database might be reset etc. etc. but that got me thinking - how will the database records be allocated when the articles from Wikipedia are imported en-masse? And, more intriguingly, will there be scope for people to "reserve" numbers of special significance as a kind of w:Vanity URL? I don't have any particular request to make, but it might be interesting to think about, especially if Wikidata becomes a very important record for history. Wittylama (talk) 11:17, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The numbers will be assigned consecutively. So, just like some people aim to get the one millionth article on the English Wikipedia, or the 40,000th bug on Bugzilla (*cough*, *cough*) I expect people will aim for getting a specific ID. --Denny Vrandečić (WMDE) (talk) 11:30, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Ok. So, I take that to mean that when Wikidata is made live "for real" these object records will be wiped and we'll start from scratch? If so - how is "consecutively" defined for the pre-existing articles? Is it by the age of creation in English Wikipedia? Alphabetically in English? Just curious. Wittylama (talk) 11:43, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
We will very likely not whipe the db again. Numbering happens in whatever order the items are created. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:18, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Why not when starting up put some meaning in these numbers. e.g. all persons in the numbers 1X.XXX.XXX ? Or is that not a good idea because it will give to much discussions in the future? Basvb (talk) 00:35, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
You've got it right. It is functionally irrelevant, and will just be a distraction. - Soulkeeper (talk) 00:39, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
It would give some meaning to the pagetitles. Rembering: ow I need to be at Q1287365, Q2783577 and Q1248758 seems difficult for me when you are looking for. Potato, Strawberry and Mushroom. So I guess the idea is that mainly the search button gets used, or users arive here using the interwiki's on other sites, or users don't arrive at all but bots do? Mvg, Basvb (talk) 00:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I think the idea is to use search when necessary, yes. In my experience, using nonsensical page identificators (like Q1287365) is actually a good thing (in a database management perspective). It enables us to change everything about a page when necessary, even its meaning, without needing to make changes elsewhere. It allows for greater flexibility. The computer sees a number, and is satisfied. We see a description, and are satisfied. Thus there will be no "conflict of interest" between cylons and humans computers and users. - Soulkeeper (talk) 01:49, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Jep :) The idea is also that you will not have to remember these numbers. There's things like Special:ItemByTitle for example. The idea is also that you can for example go to a Wikipedia article, change wikipedia for wikidata in the URL and then magically land on the correct Wikidata page. (Provided the language link is set in Wikidata this will work.) --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 06:23, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

(desangro) I have been helped by those Q-numbers. I've tried to write Valencia (my hometown) and I almost made a big mess. There are a few Valencia around the globe and the text of one of those Qs was connected with Valencia City (the Philippines), but described in Spanish as Valencia (Spain). So I tried to add Valencia (Spain) that had already been done. I realized that because I found not two but three different Q-numbers relating to Valencia. No Q-number and we could have ended up with a handful different articles about the same place or with places with no article. So, in my oppinion, keep the Qs. B25es (talk) 19:12, 4 November 2012 (UTC) PS:Valencia is not the only placename widely used around the world, so it could happen to Springfield or Saint-Pierre too.

Capitalization of labels

There is an art form called music and a Madonna album named Music. Wouldn't it be practical if we differentiated between them in the labels? - Soulkeeper (talk) 22:37, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

That is what the description is for. --LydiaPintscher (talk) 22:39, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
The description doesn't show in search results like the label does. - Soulkeeper (talk) 22:40, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah search is still meh :/ This is not how it's supposed to be. We'll need to work on that. Other special pages already do take the description into account. --LydiaPintscher (talk) 22:44, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
What pages are those? --Guerillero | Talk 23:09, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
There are a few additional special pages and more will come. See for example Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/London and Special:ItemDisambiguation/nb/Oslo. The first one uses a sitelink to get to the item, while the last one use the label to list possible landing pages. The last one will show a link to all items with a label in the given language, which is another nice thing in Wikidata – we don't have to think about which entity owns a specific entry. Jeblad (talk) 01:21, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I see that labels i added non-capitalized, regular nouns like "zucchini", "nose" etc. are being capitalized by others to "Zucchini" and "Nose". In these cases i would actually like to revert that because these are not usually capitalized in English and the reason seems to be only the historic reasons with Mediawiki and Wikipedia we are not restricted to anymore when it comes to labels vs. page names. Mutante (talk) 01:26, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I think English labels should only be capitalized if they are proper nouns. Regular nouns, adjectives, verbs should be non-capitalized as it is done on Wiktionary. I would not consider a label a start of a sentence. A description might be a sentence or not, i don't have a strong opinion yet on whether a description should start with a capitalized letter and end with a . or not. I suggest following the Wiktionary policy rather than Wikipedia. Mutante (talk) 19:15, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, that does run into problems with terms like IP address, and other acronyms, doesn't it?--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:44, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't think so. Acronyms are still capitalized (with a few special cases) -> wikt:Category:English_acronyms. It is just wikt:IP address and wikt:address. Mutante (talk) 19:52, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Take an example like wikt:vi. (See also Vi, VI, .vi, vì, vị, v.i., v. i., V.I. and V. I.). You can just get them right and only need to get used to not being restricted like with WP page titles. Mutante (talk) 19:58, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I agree, if it wouldn't be capitalized in running text, it shouldn't be capitalized in the label. We aren't limited by either Mediawiki limitations nor by making sure it looks good as a article title, so we can add the extra information without any problems. --Yair rand (talk) 06:29, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
Agree. Wikidata is likely to be heavily datamined, so let's try to make it as accurate as possible for even the dumbest machines :). --Zolo (talk) 07:16, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

How about SUL?

Why I can't login in this wiki with my SUL nick? 

Login error
 <The user name "Skyluke" has been banned from creation. It matches the following blacklist entry:
 <code>.*Ky[1Il][uüv].* <newaccountonly></code>>

I received this message... --79.13.30.17 09:58, 31 October 2012 (UTC) Skyluke@it.wiki

See Title blacklist on Meta. There is .*Ky[1Il][uüv].* <newaccountonly> Maybe you should tell about this out somewhere there. --Stryn (talk) 10:09, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
It should be solved now. --Vituzzu (talk) 10:59, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Many thanks Vito. ;) --Skyluke (talk) 10:29, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Translate extensions

If nobody oppose I would like to ask for mw:Extension:Translate and mw:Extension:TranslationNotifications to be set up on this project. That will make it easier to maintain localized pages. See also bug 41585 - Add the extensions Translate and TranslateNotifications on Wikidata. Jeblad (talk) 13:42, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

 Support We have many pages that needs to be localised in this wiki. --Hydriz (talk) 13:43, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 Support. Tpt (talk) 15:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 Support --Guerillero | Talk 15:51, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Support. The Translate extension is a very useful tool for multilingual wikis. --MF-Warburg (talk) 15:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 Support, it would be great. --Stryn (talk) 16:07, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 Neutral - I have worked with that extension and the system isn't working as users would expect, what makes it difficult to change pages. It should be developed further first before being deployed anywhere. Romaine (talk) 16:45, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 Support See also Wikidata_talk:Main_Page#How_to_translate_the_main_page_in_other_languages.3F. Helder 23:38, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 Support — Ltrl G☎, 23:49, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 Support Sven Manguard (talk) 01:30, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support --Sannita - not just another it.wiki sysop 10:52, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support --Raoli (talk) 19:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support --Bene* (talk) 20:17, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Support. Ajraddatz (talk) 22:46, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support only in ns "Wikidata" and "Help" because it will be very useful for policies and help pages,  Oppose for other namespace. Restu20 22:52, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support --Snaevar (talk) 23:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Nice! But I can't translate. Should I request a special right for this? Benoit Rochon (talk) 07:50, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Hello, I don't know if we have to go through a voting process to get translators, but I created Requests for translation group. I think it would be useful to have couple translators at this crutial point. Thank you. Benoit Rochon (talk) 18:55, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Diff template

The template {{Diff}} (like that on en.Wikipedia and elsewhere) is now available, to enable you to link to the difference between two edits, in discussion pages like this one. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:59, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Just copying the link of a diff is easier than a template. Romaine (talk) 16:46, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
The template makes the link work regardless of protocol, so it doesn't matter if one person pastes it using http:// and the other reads it using https:// (or vice versa) - that won't be the case if you just paste a URL. It also makes the link appear as internal, rather than external. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:16, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Just removing the http: or https: works fine: Wikidata. Romaine (talk) 00:36, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
That's still flagged as an external link. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:04, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
The one from {{Diff}} is also marked as external, until bugzilla:11477 is fixed. Helder 15:06, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Really: what about this? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
It will be marked as external as usual: <span class="plainlinks"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="//www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q6145&diff=280772&oldid=280762">what about this</a></span>
You can use CSS to remove the icon if that is what is botthering you:
div#content a.external[href^="//www.wikidata.org"] {
    background: none;
    padding-right: 0;
}
Helder 17:39, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

(outdent) I have no such CSS and see no logo. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:19, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Sure, but for that you had to pollute the code with an extra span tag (since we can't add the class to the anchor tag), and it didn't change the fact that the link is still semantically marked as "external" by the class MediaWiki adds to it. If you want to change the appearence, use CSS. If you want to change the meaning (i.e., not make them to be "external"), that is bugzilla:11477. Helder 12:11, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Main language in first

When we have selected our main language, the database could display in first (and maybe highlighted) the link to this language. for exemple a list with a link to a article in (en) (fr) (es) (it) (de), if we have selected the main language in french, we can see the liste like that :

  • (fr) lien français
  • (de) deutsch link
  • (en) english link
  • (es) hipervínculo españoles
  • (it) link italiano

--Jitrixis (talk) 12:23, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Excuse me, in italian the translation of "english link" is link italiano or collegamento italiano. What the aim of this "link"? Thanks --Raoli (talk) 15:26, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
It's just to find easier the french link in the item if you are french or italien if you're italien --Jitrixis (talk) 15:34, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I like the idea. So long as it's a preference based on the currently viewed language, or a purposeful choice in the settings. It will make it easier to find an item in your language when the list is 100 items long. Mind you, everyone should know their language code letters, and all the lists should be in alphabetical order, so this shouldn't be needed, but since some people won't know their language code, this is still of use. My one concern is what happens when we start dealing with data that isn't just inter-language links. What do we highlight and when? Sven Manguard Wha? 03:24, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I've another idea . we put the main language link in top of the table and we put under the description, like that (yes I always take in main language french ^^): --Jitrixis (talk) 08:57, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
FRname
FRdescripion
FRalias
FRwiki : lien français wikipedia
FRwikt : lien français wiktionnaire

  • (frwiki) lien français wikipedia
  • (frwikt) lien français wiktionnaire
  • (dewiki) deutsch link wikipedia
  • (enwiki) english link wikipedia
  • (eswiki) hipervínculo españoles wikipedia
  • (itwiki) link italiano wikipedia

--Jitrixis (talk) 08:57, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

picture of my idea http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/7518/16septembrewikidata2012.png --Jitrixis (talk) 09:24, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
This would be useful. You should go to Wikidata:Contact the development team‎‎ — Ltrl G☎, 09:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

For now, you can try something like the following: 

if( mw.config.get( 'wgNamespaceNumber' ) === 0) {
	$( function(){
		var $tool = $( 'table.wb-sitelinks' );
		$tool.find( '.wb-sitelinks-' + mw.config.get( 'wgUserLanguage' ) )
			.prependTo( $tool.find( 'tbody' ) )
			.find( 'td' )
				.css( 'background-color', '#CFC' );
	} );
}

It won't update the alternating row colors though. Helder 17:06, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, looks good! --Stryn (talk) 17:14, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I did an update to change the background color to green. Helder 17:52, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
PS: note that this won't work with fallback languages (but you can use hardcoded codes as I did, to highlight more than one language as well). Helder 23:03, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Added *and* removed?

Surely this change's description reflects a bug? It says the alias was both added and removed, but it was only added. I'm not even sure why such a description would even exist... adding info and removing it in the same edit should amount to a null edit and not even show up in the logs... --Waldir (talk) 19:36, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Text is always "Added and removed" when adding alias. It should be changed. --Stryn (talk) 19:42, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Also, changes like this should say "added", not "changed". --Waldir (talk) 19:39, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

This is an old bug, its fixed in master which will come to a site near you very soon. Jeblad (talk) 20:40, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
On the same page it says "Mudanças entre as edições de """ but I think it is missing some title inside of "". Helder 15:14, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I filed Bugzilla:41540 yesterday morning. Raymond (talk) 19:11, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

SlurpInterwiki script

I've written a small JavaScript script, slurpInterwiki that import automatically inter-languages links from a Wikipedia already added in site links list. To use it copy/paste in your common.js (My preferences > Appearance > Skin > Custom JavaScript): 

mw.loader.load('//www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=User:Tpt/slurpInterwiki.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');

This gadget can be launched by clicking on "Import interwiki" link in the toolbox. Tpt (talk) 07:40, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

  • Thanks. I just copied it to my commons.js, but it does not seem that things go authomatically. (I also cleared the cache). Is there smth special I need to do to start it working?--Ymblanter (talk) 07:47, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
    Ярослав, так вроде оно и не должно автоматически. У меня слева в секции "инструменты" появилась ссылка "Import", все работает. Но это в Векторе. ShinePhantom (talk) 07:51, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
    Нет, не вижу. У меня тоже вектор. Наверное, я скрипт куда-то не туда добавил, сейчас разберусь, спасибо.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:56, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
    А, это только в англоязычном интерфейсе. В русском не появляется. ShinePhantom (talk) 07:58, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
    Да, просто не тот код скопировал. Всё работает, отлично. У меня как раз англоязычный, я с 2007 года так работаю.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
    У меня не работает (вектор, хром). Что я делаю не так? Kneiphof (talk) 14:41, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
    Всё так делаете, просто в тот момент скрипт под хромом не работал. Попробуйте сейчас ещё.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:41, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. Now I noticed that there is on the toolbox "Import interwiki". --Stryn (talk) 07:53, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I've forgotten to say that this script is launched by clicking on the "Import Interwiki" link added in the toolbox. Tpt (talk) 07:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Hi, I've added "es" i18 key: User:Superzerocool/common.js. Superzerocool (talk) 10:21, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I've added it to my version of the gadget. Tpt (talk) 10:29, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I've also added the Italian version, I think we can add it to the common.js. --Vituzzu (talk) 11:10, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks ! I've made a request for adminship in order to keep ability to edit it if I move it into Mediawiki namespace. If I'm admin, I'll move the script to a gadget and ask here if we make it available by default. Tpt (talk) 11:18, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
The Dutch translation of this script can be found on this page. --Wiki13 talk 12:13, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I've add it to my version of the script. Thanks ! Tpt (talk) 12:22, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Finnish version: User:Stryn/Slurper. --Stryn (talk) 12:23, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Could you fix Kan niet met API verbinding maken ! to 'Kan niet met de API verbinding maken' ? Thanks in advance! --Wiki13 talk 12:43, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
✓ Done Thanks Stryn ! Tpt (talk) 15:49, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Great tool! Romaine (talk) 14:58, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Next tool should be a tool to see which articles with (interwiki's) on an certain language project aren't in Wikidata yet. Romaine (talk) 14:58, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Great. Would it be possible that to have it add something like "script" in the interwiki (for clarity sake, + advertisement). Or still better I think, could it add all interwikis in just one edit, so that it does not swamp the page history ? --Zolo (talk) 15:46, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
The problem of the script is that users how use it do not check if langlinks are correct. The script simply copy the existing local langlinks to wikidata regardles if other wikis have a different opinions which articles are related.
The script would be helpful if users would check first if the langlinks are correct. But that isn't done my many people. For simply importing data without human check we have existing bot script that can detect conflicts and have additional checks. So please add a warning that users are aware of this problem. Merlissimo (talk) 18:54, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I've added a warning message ('box-warning' in i18n). Can you check it ? Tpt (talk) 19:53, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
It doesn't work after warning was added. At least for me. Any possible reasons?

This is a very helpful script. Thank you. Are you sure you really fixed the "interwiki prefixes with hyphens" bug mentioned above? I have problems with several entries, where the script says it has imported the links, but it actually has not. It seems that those entries all have interwiki links with hyphens (examples: Q2749, Q2765, dewiki import), whereas the successfully imported did not. -- Thoroe (talk) 00:18, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

This bug is fixed now, I hope. The script bugs because there was in the chosen wiki a link to a depreciated wiki (be-x-old) that make the script fail. This wiki is now ignored. Tpt (talk) 08:02, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Looks good so far. Thanks for the fix. -- Thoroe (talk) 10:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Could someone try to import interwiki for Dagestan and Primorsky Krai, please? These are two my last entries, and the script fails to load anything, it says interwikis have already been added. I closed and reopened the browser, but the problem persists, and I do not understand what it is going on. Thanks in advance.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:59, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Worked for me. --Stryn (talk) 07:12, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. It is still not clear what stopped working for me though--Ymblanter (talk) 07:27, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I have fix some bugs. I hope this problem is fixed too. Tpt (talk) 08:02, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it works indeed, thank you so much.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:10, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Now same error is happening for me also. So I can't import anymore. Strange. --Stryn (talk) 07:29, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I've made some change to the script. I hope it fix these bugs. Tpt (talk) 08:02, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm... why I can't see the import link? --Stryn (talk) 09:21, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
May be because it is visible only in selected interface languages?--Ymblanter (talk) 09:23, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I do not see it in any language. I tried Finnish, English, Russian, French, no link... --Stryn (talk) 09:25, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
The we probably need to wait the advise from the script author again.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:27, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Works now. I updated my Firefox. --Stryn (talk) 11:01, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I also can't see the link in any interface language. --Morten Haan (talk) 16:00, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I tried other browsers. Newest Firefox (16.0.2) works, newest Chrome and Internet Explorer doesn't work. --Stryn (talk) 16:06, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I tried Internet Explorer and Safari (both newst versions), both don't work. It seems that the script only works on Firefox. --109.84.98.162 16:14, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Bug fixed. Sorry. Tpt (talk) 16:22, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Now I have again the problem that there's no wiki to select. See page Q5846. --Morten Haan (talk) 16:39, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
And in my case (FF16) it now does everything properly, but needs to be stopped manually.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:41, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Update: On Safari it works but has to be stopped manually, on Internet Explorer it works sometimes only. --Morten Haan (talk) 16:58, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
It might now work. Purge yours cache. Sorry for the bug. Tpt (talk) 17:38, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

More taskforces

Almost all pages on Wikidata:Countries Task Force and Wikidata:Elements Task Force are now done. Very few are remaining and i see this could cause many edit conflicts or duplicates. Could someone please initiate more taskforces? §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 11:44, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I understand that everyone wants to - and should - try out the new editing interface, but surely such major tasks should be done by - and can wait for - bots? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:10, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Will these taskforces be thw only way to navigate through similar items? In such case many taskforces will be needed. They would be like categories in Wikipedia. For such amount of work, bots would definitely be needed. With bots doing the main chunk, we can do the cleanup. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 03:51, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
At least let's come up with a format we all agree upon: (1) is it all caps or sentence caps (Alphabet task[ ]force or Alphabet Task Force)? (2) is it one word (taskforce) or two words (task force)? Bennylin (talk) 17:03, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I assume, the task force project should be a project page not a part of a general talk page. Otourly (talk) 17:41, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Patrol flags

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Bug filed. See bugzilla:41907. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:04, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Shall we turn on patrol flags? I don't think it is on now… We could give autopatrol rights to known good users from other projects. This will make it possible to filter out new users in the huge flood of edits. Full patrolling doesn't make sense right now, but being able to hide known good edits could be nice. Jeblad (talk) 12:07, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Autopatrolled

Can we have an autopatrolled group to make the NewPages a bit less yellow? Ajraddatz (talk) 00:14, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41907
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Policy

With the userright now implemented, what should be the policy of giving it out?--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:11, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikidata:Project_chat#Autopatrolled flags available Ajraddatz (talk) 21:34, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: Limit the number of bureaucrats and admins

It has turned out that there is allready an flood of admin rights requests. The number of bureaucrats and admins should slowly increase as the community gets bigger. So, I am proposing two rules:

  1. There is an maxium of one user with each user right per every 100 active users. (hereafter mentioned as spots, available spots are spots that have not been filled yet). This rule does not apply to Wikidata staff accounts.(at 15:30 there where 320 active users, so at that time there should be a maxium of 3 users with each user right)
  2. Votes are counted by withdrawing oppose votes from support votes. Those with the highest score fill the available spots and get the corresponding rights. Other requests are put on hold until there is an available spot again.

--Snaevar (talk) 15:47, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Your metric is sensible one, with the caveat that the minimum number of admins needs to be much higher than 3; a group of 3 means there would be long periods with no admins available. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:08, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
6 to 12 would be better --Guerillero | Talk 16:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Even though I retracted my request for the very same reason, I do not think this is a good idea. Right now users are supporting the candidates mostly on the basis that they have proven to be excellent in other projects. (In this respect, a request by Sarah, who at the time I am writing this has three edits - two on her user page and one to write the request - and has the highest support among all candidates - is very illustrative). However, we need users who are not just proven to be trusted on other projects, we need users who will be dedicated to this particular project - and if someone is an admin on five other projects and a steward (I made the example up, I do not mean anybody in particular), than we have more chances that they just become inactive soon. In view of this, I would not limit the number of admins. An alternative would be to have the RFA in three months, when we know who is active and who is not - but this does not seem to be an option, since there are some (infrequent) mediawiki requests (we can survive without deletions though, and hopefully there will be not so many vandals).--Ymblanter (talk) 16:46, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Sure there are core users in future, but just as on Commons, I think most users only come here shortly to change something as they noticed on their home wiki an error with / missing interwiki. This is not a regular project like a Wikipedia where a community is growing, this is a different type of project. Romaine (talk) 16:52, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I sincerely believe that the more (trusted) admins there are, the better. That's pretty much the same as for editors, developers or any other volunteers category (as long as you can trust them for what they have to do, and they are not fully inactive, of course). Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 17:10, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I think this is a kind of project where it make sense to be an admin if one will regularly contribute. Not so right now, but later on where the project will have real content it will be very important. An alternative is to have a kind of near-admin rights. Also, this project will be very much a kind of hub for a bunch of wikipedias and therefore it will be important to have people that can communicate with the different projects. That also make it important to have many admins to handle all kinds of questions that arise. I would say go for a higher number of admins as long as they are well-known for communicative skills. Jeblad (talk) 18:04, 31 October 2012 (UTC) (I'm non-staff in this respect, and also everywhere else where I use this nick!)
  • An upper limit is useless. As I already suggested to the staff we can simply use the default standard which has been used for successful projects: temporary (renewable) adminships and no local bureaucrats. --Vituzzu (talk) 18:27, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Far simpler to hand out the tools to users we trust on a short term basis, on the understanding that they will need to go through whatever process we establish once that is up and running. This will avoid problems experienced on en.wiki, where when someone who has held the tools for a long time makes a difficult decision, it is not uncommon for suggestions to be made that the person might not have passed RfA in modern times. —WFC— 19:03, 31 October 2012 (UTC)


@Andy Mabbett and Guerillero: Sure, I am open to suggestions. I think that 8-10 admins is acceptable at this point. That would be 40-50 users per each admin (At 18:02 there where 413 active users).

@ Ymblanter: Sure, Wikidata will have Wikidata-specific issues, no doubts about that. I would rather ask the canditates about possible Wikidata-specific issues and see how they would act in those cases. Besides, having over 20 admins on a wiki created two days ago is just redicilous.

@ Romaine: Even if the bots do all the work on updating interwiki links, we are going to need people to translate infoboxes in the second phase. And besides, the statistics don´t reflect what you are saying. Since yesterday there have been an increase of active users on Wikidata by 93 users.

@ Jeblad: I consider knowledge of several languages more important. That kind of knowledge will be useful to find out whether the sitelinks are correct or not. After all, the sitelinks are going to be displayed on the wikipedias, and that I think makes them really important. Besides, admin rights are not needed to communicate with users.

@ Vituzzu: That works too.--Snaevar (talk) 18:48, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

@Snaevar: To translate infoboxes? Maybe I am misinformed but that sounds really strange. And about statistics, I was talking about the long term statistics, not the current short term statistics in what a huge bubble still needs to come as almost every user wants to experience himself how it works. I was speaking about the activity after that bubble. Just as with Commons, there will be a community, but a large part of the users is active on the language projects and goes to Commons/Wikidata for the there present files/data to use that in articles. Romaine (talk) 17:26, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
  • The project that Wikidata is most similar to is Commons, in that they are both mutlilingual repositories where maintenance and organization are a primary rather than a support task for the project. Commons' system, as I see it, has five core features. First, the edit threshold expected for RfA candidates is low compared to many other projects. 4,000 contributions is fine numbers wise, and a year or even less than a year is fine time wise. Second, there are a lot of Commons admins; 265 for a project that could function effectively with 75 or 100. Third, if you're an admin, and you're inactive for six months, you lose the mop. Fourth, Commons doesn't do re-elections, because we've really never had major problems with admins, and admins on Commons tend to he held in much higher regard by the Commons community than EnWiki admins are held by the EnWiki community, some of whom view admins as "the enemy". Fifth, the most important skill in assessing admin candidates is knowledge of a specialized are (copyright) integral to the project. Yes, there are other factors, but many, many less than English Wikipedia has. I personally think that we should look to Commons as an example: Keep the threshold at a reasonable level that can be achieved with 9-12 months of dedication, remove for inactivity but don't do re-elections, and (once the project gets going), assess candidates on their ability to constructively edit Wikidata. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:55, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I agree that Wikidata is quite similar to Commons, but I think initially one re-election might be useful (maybe I'd be more certain as time progresses). I also believe that there shouldn't be an upper limit to the number of admins, for a number of reasons, some of which are:
    • The fewer the admins, the more likely we will have backlogs
    • A select group of admins might be more efficient and/or effective in certain areas than others (just as how they usually ask what admin tasks users plan to take part in on enwiki)
    • People have different language proficiencies, which would be useful in a number of cases. Having an admin who is able to help users from other languages is a plus.
    • Not because a user has the community's confidence means the user should be made an admin, but similarly, not because the community has a (relatively) large number of admins means the user shouldn't be made an admin.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  17:35, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Adminship should be based on trust, and not the admin-user ratio. I concur with Hazard-SJ.--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:05, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
  • For me, it would totally make a sense to have one admin per language so some limiting via other criteria which would cause lower number seems not to be the good path to me.
    — Danny B. 21:46, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
    I agree this that at least one admin per language would be good in the future, maybe not yet needed so many admins. --Stryn (talk) 19:29, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I think people will expect a link like Birmingham to work; whereas in fact the page about that English city is at Q2256, and the former link is currently red. Should we be creating redirects, or will there be some other way to deal with this? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:11, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Would be nice if the software could create a redirect or something else automatically. --Bene* (talk) 20:13, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
It will be more useful if the redirect will be generetad automatically, but we have to ask to devs if they can implement it. Restu20 20:19, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I disagree. Each data point would need over 100 redirects in some cases and we would need to worry about disambiguation. The ID numbers make life simpler --Guerillero | Talk 20:30, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Simpler for who? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:33, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Search will hopefully work in short time, and it is also a fancy URL scheme in the work. In the mean time you can write links as Special:ItemDisambiguation/en/Birmingham and Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/Birmingham. The first form is especially for the situations where the name needs disambiguation. The last form is for the cases where you know a link exists. And of course this can be with a pipe-fom like Birmingham and Birmingham. Jeblad (talk) 20:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) People who do not speak English and people who speak varying dialects of English. Everyone can come to the same neutrally named page and extract the same via the search and change language functions. --Guerillero | Talk 20:40, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Since such people wouldn't see the redirect, I'm not clear how omitting it would simplify things for them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:11, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Added a bug for making this kind of links somewhat simpler; bug 41621 - Link to be resolved to Special:ItemDisambiguation. Jeblad (talk) 10:25, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
As a suggestion: [[<word>]] should provide me with a page that displays every Q-item that has <word> in its label. F.e. Auritz should have a list with the three elements Q5423, Q5431 and Q5448 and obviously their labels and descriptions. --32X (talk) 14:49, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Such links are possible via special pages: Special:ItemDisambiguation/en/Berlin and Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/Berlin. Perhaps templates could be used to provide a shorthand. I'm not sure further magic is needed - or rather, i dear that the language/label vs. site/title distinction would get even more confusing. -- Daniel Kinzler (WMDE) (talk) 20:53, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41560
Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41749

I stubled over another problem, a link doesn't work in the description field, [[Q552|Oder]] in the German description does not create a link to Q552 with the German label Oder. --32X (talk) 14:49, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

See bugzilla:41560 and bugzilla:41749. Helder 12:31, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

So I've just imported the interwiki links for the Liao Dynasty and all of their emperors. It would make sense, since navigation is difficult using only the search bar, and since items are given a Q#### code for a name, to have some sort of method of linking data items. I'm not sure how to go about it, but maybe a text line up top that says

This is part of the series "Emperors of the Liao Dynasty". There are 9 items in this set; Q4989, Q4991, Q4992, Q4993, Q4997, Q5000, Q5005, Q5007, and Q5009.

Or something similar?

Thoughts? Sven Manguard Wha? 03:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like something that would happen during the second or third phase of Wikidata. --Yair rand (talk) 03:18, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I disagree. The longer we wait to organize the interwiki links data points, the more duplications we're going to see, and the harder it's going to be to find related items once we do decide to sort things. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:20, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Certainly it would be useful, I just meant that I don't think we'll have the technical capability to do so until a later phase... --Yair rand (talk) 04:37, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
This is part of Phase II where there will be statements and some of them will point to other entities. An item with sitelinks is a type of entity. So you will be able to create a statement for emperors in the item for "Liao Dynasty" that holds a list of all the emperors. The description is a bit simplified, but I think you get the general idea. Jeblad (talk) 10:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikidata:TOP 1000 articles Task Force

What do you think about? meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have. Przykuta (talk) 09:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

✓ Done Zanka (talk) 14:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I think people will expect a link like Birmingham to work; whereas in fact the page about that English city is at Q2256, and the former link is currently red. Should we be creating redirects, or will there be some other way to deal with this? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:11, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Would be nice if the software could create a redirect or something else automatically. --Bene* (talk) 20:13, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
It will be more useful if the redirect will be generetad automatically, but we have to ask to devs if they can implement it. Restu20 20:19, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I disagree. Each data point would need over 100 redirects in some cases and we would need to worry about disambiguation. The ID numbers make life simpler --Guerillero | Talk 20:30, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Simpler for who? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:33, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Search will hopefully work in short time, and it is also a fancy URL scheme in the work. In the mean time you can write links as Special:ItemDisambiguation/en/Birmingham and Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/Birmingham. The first form is especially for the situations where the name needs disambiguation. The last form is for the cases where you know a link exists. And of course this can be with a pipe-fom like Birmingham and Birmingham. Jeblad (talk) 20:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) People who do not speak English and people who speak varying dialects of English. Everyone can come to the same neutrally named page and extract the same via the search and change language functions. --Guerillero | Talk 20:40, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Since such people wouldn't see the redirect, I'm not clear how omitting it would simplify things for them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:11, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Added a bug for making this kind of links somewhat simpler; bug 41621 - Link to be resolved to Special:ItemDisambiguation. Jeblad (talk) 10:25, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
As a suggestion: [[<word>]] should provide me with a page that displays every Q-item that has <word> in its label. F.e. Auritz should have a list with the three elements Q5423, Q5431 and Q5448 and obviously their labels and descriptions. --32X (talk) 14:49, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Such links are possible via special pages: Special:ItemDisambiguation/en/Berlin and Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/Berlin. Perhaps templates could be used to provide a shorthand. I'm not sure further magic is needed - or rather, i dear that the language/label vs. site/title distinction would get even more confusing. -- Daniel Kinzler (WMDE) (talk) 20:53, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41560
Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41749

I stubled over another problem, a link doesn't work in the description field, [[Q552|Oder]] in the German description does not create a link to Q552 with the German label Oder. --32X (talk) 14:49, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

See bugzilla:41560 and bugzilla:41749. Helder 12:31, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

So I've just imported the interwiki links for the Liao Dynasty and all of their emperors. It would make sense, since navigation is difficult using only the search bar, and since items are given a Q#### code for a name, to have some sort of method of linking data items. I'm not sure how to go about it, but maybe a text line up top that says

This is part of the series "Emperors of the Liao Dynasty". There are 9 items in this set; Q4989, Q4991, Q4992, Q4993, Q4997, Q5000, Q5005, Q5007, and Q5009.

Or something similar?

Thoughts? Sven Manguard Wha? 03:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like something that would happen during the second or third phase of Wikidata. --Yair rand (talk) 03:18, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I disagree. The longer we wait to organize the interwiki links data points, the more duplications we're going to see, and the harder it's going to be to find related items once we do decide to sort things. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:20, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Certainly it would be useful, I just meant that I don't think we'll have the technical capability to do so until a later phase... --Yair rand (talk) 04:37, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
This is part of Phase II where there will be statements and some of them will point to other entities. An item with sitelinks is a type of entity. So you will be able to create a statement for emperors in the item for "Liao Dynasty" that holds a list of all the emperors. The description is a bit simplified, but I think you get the general idea. Jeblad (talk) 10:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikidata:TOP 1000 articles Task Force

What do you think about? meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have. Przykuta (talk) 09:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

✓ Done Zanka (talk) 14:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

How do we call us as Wikidata editors?

Wikidatian ◆ Wikidater ◆ Wikiwrangler ◆ Wikimedian ◆ Wikidatist

This question was raised in other places already, and there is obviously no need to answer it here once and for all -- but, maybe someone has suggestions. Basically:

Wikipedia::Wikipedians : Wikidata::???

How to call the community of people that are working on Wikidata? --Denny (talk) 11:02, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Numbers

So, I read that it can be used to, for example, centrally store data like the population of a town and use it in any language.Wikipedia. How does it work? If I, for example go to Q84 (London), then all there is are the links to Wikipedia articles about London and a short description. How can I store the population of London and use it in en:London? --217.251.231.243 12:15, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

First phase is only interlanguages links, other features will come after — Ltrl G☎, 12:22, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Phase II will include statements, which will have claims (f.eks. 8,174,100 people) about a property (f.eks. population) of the entity (f.eks. London). Well, sort of simplified. Jeblad (talk) 13:18, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Now we have at least two taskforces which are almost completed, however, the result is that we have a list of articles linked to their Q-codes. Basically, they serve now as navigation lists. Do we need more of those lists, or there will be (there is?) some other form of finding out where a particular article is (I am aware about the search, but it is not fantastic, and one can already try searching for York with the prupose of finding whether an article about the British city is available - not talking of a situation when the interwikis have not been fully extracted, and the outcome just does not show up in search in a particular language).--Ymblanter (talk) 13:05, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Vandalism

I wonder if there are any plans towards preventing and fighting vandalism on Wikidata. How will editors in the wikipedias get to know if an item is changed here? --FA2010 (talk) 14:30, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I have found some vandalism choosing hide logged-in users on the recent changes page. --Stryn (talk) 14:46, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
There are a few ideas of preventing and fighting vandalism on Wikidata at meta:Wikidata/Preventing unwanted edits.--Snaevar (talk) 15:42, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
At the clients (wikipedia projects) there will be entries in recent changes when items are updated, but in the repo (that is here) we lacks good ideas for how to handle vandalism. Only thing I know about is plain old patrolling, some analysis that can be used to flag bad changes, and using references with quotes. References will be part of the claims, but it will probably not be implemented with automatic verification of quotes. If it is added it could be used to mark items with failing references, that is the quote can't be found in the external text. Jeblad (talk) 18:09, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Source mirror: Instead of only pointing on the source, copying it and saving it on wiki-data

Every value of an item can have sources. But how are this sources given (hold by wiki-data)? Possibilities:

  • As Reference / Pointer (Reference)-> Meaning as Weblink or an „ancient pointer“, e.g. page, author and title of a book or magazin.
  • Copy of the source itself (Whole) -> A archived webpage, or a scan of a page of a book, pdf, etc.

The question is: Would it be possible to attach a copy of the source on wiki-data?

Issues:

  • copy rights
  • server memory
  • ?

I would love a feature like this. For instance the webarchives archive all webpages without asking its owner. So it should be „legal“ to archive the webpages which are attached as sources in wikidata. Also it should be possible to legally scan pages of very old books or „free“ books like statistic books handed out by the goverment etc.--Svebert (talk) 16:27, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

  • Actually, there are some questions about whether or not it *is* actually appropriate for webarchives to archive all webpages; almost all web archives give the owners of the original sites the ability to opt out, and they do not usually copy continuously. I don't think it would be very wise for any WMF project to consider permission to upload copyrighted source materials, given the willingness of large organizations to sponsor extremely expensive litigation. Scanning of "free" or out-of-copyright books and documents is the objective of Wikisource. Risker (talk) 00:20, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Import pages from meta

Please import meta:Wikidata/Glossary and it´s subpages, plus perhaps meta:Wikidata/Contribute as well. Wikidata/Glossary on meta covers the same subject as Help:Terminology.--Snaevar (talk) 20:29, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Importing is currently disabled (import at least, not sure about importupload). I'll see what I can do. Ajraddatz (talk) 20:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Note that the pages rely on the Translate extension, importing them might be a bit tricky. --MF-Warburg (talk) 21:01, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Holding off on this until the translate extension is on here, to avoid broken pages. Ajraddatz (talk) 22:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
The translate extension has now been set up on this project. See Special:Version and https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/31342/ .--Snaevar (talk) 23:18, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Imported Glossary (Wikidata:Glossary), with sub-pages. Ajraddatz (talk) 23:45, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Could someone please finish the half-done import of Template:Documentation from meta? It's currently broken still. This, that and the other (talk) 00:07, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
It's messed up, if you click the redlink it takes you to the imported template. If it isn't working by tomorrow I'll delete and reimport. Ajraddatz (talk) 00:11, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
A "dummy" edit fixed it. --MF-Warburg (talk) 00:15, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing it! This, that and the other (talk) 00:16, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Apparently the extension doesn't like imported pages; it has reverted all of them to English. Attempting to fix... Ajraddatz (talk) 12:19, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
@Ajraddatz: Thanks for the import.--Snaevar (talk) 12:49, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Main Page design

Hello everyone! Before launching Wikidata, Lydia Pintscher sent a message about the desing of the Main page. I just wanted to ask permission to the community if I could implement a multilingual page I'm working on. Thank you in advance. Benoit Rochon (talk) 09:53, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Current main page is good (my opinion). --Stryn (talk) 09:56, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 Oppose For three reasons. Firstly we allready did discuss the design of the main page, as Benoit mentioned. Secondly, I don´t see a reason to copycat the main page of the french wikipedia, and in fact having different design makes wikidata a bit unique. Thirdly, I like the current design but not Benoit´s proposal.--Snaevar (talk) 12:37, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Alright, fair enough! May I improved the current one? And by improving, I do not mean changing the style... I just want to improve the multilangual capacities and uniformity between languages. Benoit Rochon (talk) 15:01, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Sure.--Snaevar (talk) 15:54, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
My goal is unify all main pages in all languages. For instance on the English main page, there's a little mistake; besides the title "Wikidata" there's a vestige of the old frame... what happen is everyone copy/paste this frame vestige in all their languages without correcting the code. In a near future it will become more and more difficult to modify the style if we're not using templates to manage this. I guess it's my "Wikidata Cartesianism" who make me react like this! Benoit Rochon (talk) 17:17, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
And this one? Main Page#2 Raoli (talk) 19:24, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Sorry but I like the actual main page. I think it's plain but pretty cool.
@Benoit Rochon  Support Good idea to use templates! --Bene* (talk) 19:29, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
I didn't change the look at all. I just used templates for better consistency between languages. If there are other languages that are added, there will be at least a little consistency!
So here 3 examples:
Tell me what you guys think about the code. Thanks a lot for the feedback. Benoit Rochon (talk) 19:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
I like it. very nice. You changed only the layout of sister project, right? I think the old one is better. --Bene* (talk) 19:56, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Looks nice, easy to edit. --Stryn (talk) 20:10, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
The code is very clean. Good job ! Tpt (talk) 20:24, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your comments. I put back the original layout for sister projects. Anything else? Benoit Rochon (talk) 21:23, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
The size of the word "Wikidata" in the header should be larger (in my opinion 320%). Raoli (talk) 00:25, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
As you can see above Raoli, the community decides to keep the desing as it is, I'm sorry. So the only thing I did was using 3 templates for a better consistency between languages. Now I think font-size: 320% is too much, no? Benoit Rochon (talk) 07:55, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
All main pages in all languages are now using the new 3 templates. Now I'd like to add a code to flag if a new translation is needed... any ideas? Most of the time, English version is the most uptpdated version, but it would be good to flag other languages. When I changed the templates, I noticed that 70% of main pages are already obsolete... and we are 5 days old! Best regards. Benoit Rochon (talk) 16:00, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Instruments

  1. An istrument which shows the entries which have no label is underway. There is allready an patch for that, on https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/31508/ .
  2. I am not sure what you are referring to with "a place where all such instruments are listed". Could you elaborate ?--Snaevar (talk) 02:46, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Re 2: I was thinking about the page which lists all available instruments, with brief description and links.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:41, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Like Special:SpecialPages? Helder 00:01, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but there are many things like gadgets and scripts which usually do not make it to Special pages (depends on the coniguration of course).--Ymblanter (talk) 00:50, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Random interface language

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41451

Before I selected a language, I was seeing Italian. When I logged in with my alternate (user:This is also Sven Manguard) to snag the SUL, Mandarin Chinese was the default. I think it might be randomized. Sven Manguard Wha? 19:13, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Well if it is randomized then we might as well use English like Commons, Meta and Incubator.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  20:18, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
It's not randomized, it's a bug in the Universal Language Selector extension related to squid/varnish caches. Once you logged in and set your user language, it should work. We hope to fix this for anonymous users soon. -- Daniel Kinzler (WMDE) (talk) 21:16, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Deletion script

I have written a script to add very quickly a new request for deletion. A link will appear on the top of the page just like move and there you can request a deletion. If you want to try it, write into you common.js: 

importScript('User:Bene*/deletionRequest.js');

Hope you enjoy and please report bugs. :-) --Bene* (talk) 16:57, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I put it in my js and the tab and the resulting dialogue box appear but it does not seem to make the edit. (I am running Windows 7 with Firefox 16.0.2) --Guerillero | Talk 20:09, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi, thanks! Here is the French translation:
		'en': {
			'title': 'Demande de suppression',
			'description': 'Demander la suppression de cet élément.',
			'reason': 'Motif de suppression :',
			'error-reason': 'Vous devez indiquer un motif de suppression !',
			'success': 'Demande effectuée avec succès.'
		},
Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 21:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for translation!
@Guerillo: Are you sure it does not work? I have Windows 7 and Firefox 16.0.2, too, and it works fine --Bene* (talk) 21:11, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Doesn't work for me also (W7 and FF 16.0.2). --Stryn (talk) 21:21, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Were several bugs. Should work now. --Bene* (talk) 22:26, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Best way to contribute?

Is it useful to spend lots of time creating new pages, or are there plans for automation of that process at some point? --Cerebellum (talk) 21:08, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes to both questions. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:34, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
What Sven said.

Manual contributions on any task will be productive at the moment, as we have very little in the way of automation, and this stage of Wikidata's development is almost entirely about growth. But if you're looking specifically for tasks that are unlikely to be automated in the future, adding simple descriptions to entries is probably a good place to start. —WFC— 21:40, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

  • My understanding is indeed that creating new pages is largely a waste of time. Right now we have a lot of effort involved and 10K pages in three days were created. Even with the same effort, it will take four years to create four millions. This work is better delegated to a bot. On the other hand, creating descriptions and labels, especially not in English, are valuable and can not be done by bot with existing technology. This activity will continue, and I would like to see some supporting automated tools for it.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:57, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Even without automated tools, my guess is that we'll be at 100k (roughly 2.5% of all articles on en.wiki) in around 9–10 days from now, and 200k (5%) in 15–18 days, which even assuming no further growth (and there will be a lot of growth once phase two comes in) would put us on course for completion in roughly one year.

      The advantage of starting phase one manually lies in getting to know the interface, building up a community in preparation for phase two, being in constant contact with the developers and so on. —WFC— 22:12, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Agree with previous answers. Also improving / translating the documentation for newcomers, translating the interface, reporting bugs and / or fixing them (if you're a developer), raising design issues… can help. Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 22:16, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
  • The label could be taken from the Wikipedia article names, just without text in brackets at the end; the aliases could be the names of redirects; the discription is not that easy but I think in many cases it could be taken from the Infobox where avalible; the interwikis could be be taken from any Wikipedia where a maching article exists. So we could have one bot that creates a page with English label, discription and aliases and with all interwikis. Then other bots add label, discription and aliases in the other languages. So people only have to correct mistakes done by these bots instead do all the work. --Morten Haan (talk) 22:29, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
    No, descriptions really need to be created or at least looked at by humans. Otherwise everything will be screwed up.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:39, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
  • OK, I think it would be better if humand only have to check the information instead adding everything. The bots could log all pages they created or edided, so people can look at all bot constributions. --Morten Haan (talk) 22:49, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
    Update: Since there's a task force for labels and discriptions, I think we can the pages be created by a bot and let them be looked at by that task force. --Morten Haan (talk) 02:15, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I have some ideas for phase 2. For example the "Infobox country" in the en:WP is used in about 300 articles. Does that mean we are discussing things on the discussion pages of 300 items? And what about articles like "History of country x" or "politics of country x", etc.? In my view, it would be a good idea to centralize the discussions like "xx of country yyy" on one Wikidata page, by adding soft links on the discussion pages. We could do the same with similar topics, like citys, rivers, etc. Since we now have some experience with Wikidata, we could look into phase 2 and start thinking about the workflow. --Goldzahn (talk) 02:40, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
  • And we should start thinking about working together with bots. I think, bots should do 99,9% of all interwikilinks and drop those items somewhere, which are difficult. Maybe by adding a template. Creating those 0,1% of the million items possible, should be our contribution to wikidata. --Goldzahn (talk) 08:05, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Proposals at Wikidata talk:Administrators

I have made the following proposals at Wikidata talk:Administrators

  • Reconfirmation for initial wave of admins
  • Adopt the Commons De-adminship policy (with one modification)

Please comment on the proposals at that page. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:52, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

  • I already mentioned on several occasions that I am pretty much disappointed by the RFAs. In my opinion, RFAs should determine whether the candidate is willing and is qualified to perform the administrative tasks. This is not even being discussed. We have candidates who put forward their candidature and got many supports before making ten edits. Yes, sure, we know them from other projects. But I do not see any commitment to work here, even less statements what they are going to do. I am afraid that if the initial wave of admins gets reconfirmed, in a month we are going to have twenty admins, of whom only one or two ever show up in the project. I even stopped commenting on new candidatures, because to me it does not make sense.--Ymblanter (talk) 00:24, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
    I agree (see my comment on that talk page). However, with the three month confirmation it allows us to give it a try to start, and we can remove after if it doesn't work out. Ajraddatz (talk) 01:30, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Article titles

Apologies if this has been mentioned already, but I was wondering if perhaps there are plans to import article titles from interwiki links. I stumbled across Q3871, which at the time looked like this. Pages without titles are confusing, and it seems like it would be easy to import the article title from the appropriate interwiki link using a bot. Otherwise, editors will have to somehow find and fix these pages. Thoughts? – GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:59, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

That we are already doing, see one header here above: Wikidata:Labels and Descriptions Task Force. Romaine (talk) 03:06, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Is it automated or manual? As the project grows, I see manual naming becoming a major issue. – GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:02, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
There isn't currently any automated process that does this, but that is being looked at for the future (I think). Ajraddatz (talk) 15:35, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Current;y we are experiencing a spurt, but when all current articles with interwiki's are in Wikidata, the grow of new interwiki items will be slower. Romaine (talk) 01:07, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
That's exactly what I was suggesting in the thread above: there are nearly 1,000,000 articles in Spanish, and, as I could see, most of the items yet added have no label in that language. I only see an advantage in manually adding the labels for those items with no article in the Spanish Wikipedia, which are not many so far. The rest of them could be added with a bot. --Dalton2 (talk) 12:40, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Report interwiki conflicts

I already noticed some users came across interwiki conflicts/problems, also spoken about on IRC. If such conflict can't be solved easily by a user, it would be nice if other users can have a look at the problem. For that reason the page Wikidata:Report interwiki conflicts is created. If anyone comes across a interwiki conflict which is hard to solve, you can report it on the linked page. Greetings - Romaine (talk) 03:17, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

WikiProjects vs. task forces

Is Wikidata going to have WikiProjects? And if so, what would distinguish them from task forces? -happy5214 07:30, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

In this, Phase I, I think task forces are enough. This, that and the other (talk) 08:48, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

latin translation

Is it senseful to add latin translation into the field "Auch bekannt als:"? For example Q7891. Conny (talk) 15:33, 3 November 2012 (UTC).

Two ways to go about it. dewiki (I'm assuming you're talking about German) mentions the Latin prominently in the lead. However, it is still kind of redundant to have it in "Also known as:" when it's already listed in the interwiki link to lawiki. -happy5214 15:54, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
How to handle biological content (plants, ...) without latin articles? Conny (talk) 15:58, 3 November 2012 (UTC).
(edit conflict) If the Latin version is used in Germen language texts then you should add the alias. Else you can edit the [la] label. --Morten Haan (talk) 16:01, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
+1 -happy5214 16:03, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

items of deleted wikipedia content

How to handle lemma deleted in Wikipedia? For example Q10228 (deleted in ru: [1]). Conny (talk) 15:57, 3 November 2012 (UTC).

Delete it also here. --Stryn (talk) 16:00, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. Conny (talk) 16:08, 3 November 2012 (UTC).

person titles

How to handle person titles in the description ([2])? Conny (talk) 16:08, 3 November 2012 (UTC).

For example a professor title is sometimes not for all live. In my feeling the description should be, if possible for infinity the same ;) . Conny (talk) 11:06, 4 November 2012 (UTC).

I'd recommend writing the label the way we would for Wikipedia - so for English lablels, we'd follow the English Wikipedia and use honorifics and titles sparingly where appropriate. You can always add other forms of the name as an "also known as". Jdforrester (talk) 18:25, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Script "labelLister" : Label, description and alias list

I've writen a script to add a tab next to the read button to see the list of all label, description and tag in different lang to help for maintenance, for exemple an empty item is maybe not really empty.

Add this code in your common.js : 

mw.loader.load('//www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=User:Jitrixis/labelLister.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');

[shortcut key : (e) => Firefox alt+shift+e]

A the time, there is 8 translation (en,fr,de,it,nb,no,ru,pl). If someone wants help me to translate. A translation exemple : 

		'en': {
			'box-title': 'Labels list',					//Title of the dialog box and tab
			'box-cancel': 'Close',						//Title of the button to close the dialog box
			'label': 'Label',						// seconde table name
			'description': 'Description',					// third table name
			'alias': 'Alias',						// fourth table name
			'edit': 'Edit',							// Edit button
			'send': 'Save',							// Save button
			'end': 'Finish',						// Finnish button
			'reload': 'Reload',						// Reload button
			'lang': 'Code language',					// the first value on edit menu
			'all-delete': 'Delete all',					// checkbox to delete all aliases
			'add': 'Add aliases',						// the fourth value on edit menu
			'remove': 'Remove aliases',					// the fifth value on edit menu	
			'warning-alias': 'Separate aliases with \'|\'',			// You can add several alias if separated by a vertical bar
			'warning-message': 'Labels list of <b>Q' + itemId + '</b> :'	// The message inside the dialog box
		},

Please report bug. thanks --Jitrixis (talk | ) 20:14, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Cool, very useful, thanks! --Stryn (talk) 20:35, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Have translated into german:
'de': {
	'box-title': 'Liste der Bezeichnungen',
	'box-cancel': 'Schließen',
	'label': 'Bezeichnung',
	'description': 'Beschreibung',
	'alias': 'Auch bekannt als',
	'warning-message': 'Bezeichnugen gelistet von <b>Q' + itemId + '</b>:'
}
Very nice, thanks! --Bene* (talk) 20:43, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Italian translation:
'it': {
	'box-title': 'Lista etichette',
	'box-cancel': 'Chiudi',
	'label': 'Etichetta',
	'description': 'Descrizione',
	'alias': 'Alias',
	'warning-message': 'Lista di etichette di <b>Q' + itemId + '</b>:'
}

--ValterVB (talk) 20:50, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi ValterVB, would you like to translate my script for Italian language, too? --Bene* (talk) 20:53, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely:
'it': {
	'title': 'Richiesta di cancellazione',
	'description': 'Richiesta di cancellazione per questo elemento',
	'reason': 'Motivo della cancellazione:',
	'error-reason': 'Devi indicare il motivo!',
	'requested': 'Cancellazione già richiesta',
	'success': 'Richiesta effettuata con successo'

}

--ValterVB (talk) 21:15, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

thank you Bene* and ValterVB for translation . If some one can help me... there'is a problem if we change the language to another language that the script doesn't know he doesn't display the link .--Jitrixis (talk | ) 20:55, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I can help you. There was the same bug somewhere else. Look here for the solution. :-) --Bene* (talk) 21:02, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. it's work ^^ --Jitrixis (talk | ) 21:25, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Norwegian translation
'nb': {
        'box-title': 'Etikettliste',
        'box-cancel': 'Lukk',
        'label': 'Etikett',
        'description': 'Beskrivelse',
        'alias': 'Også kjent som',
        'warning-message': 'Etikettliste for <b>Q' + itemId + '</b>:'
},

'no': {
        'box-title': 'Etikettliste',
        'box-cancel': 'Lukk',
        'label': 'Etikett',
        'description': 'Beskrivelse',
        'alias': 'Også kjent som',
        'warning-message': 'Etikettliste for <b>Q' + itemId + '</b>:'
},

—Cocu— t 21:39, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

  • Russian:
'ru': {
                        'box-title': 'Названия',                                     //Title of the dialog box and tab
                        'box-cancel': 'Выход',                                          //Title of the button to close the dialog box
                        'label': 'Название',                                               // seconde table name
                        'description': 'Описание',                                   // third table name
                        'alias': 'Другие названия',                                               // fourth table name
                        'warning-message': 'Список названий для <b>Q' + itemId + '</b> :'    // The message inside the dialog box
                },

--Zanka (talk) 21:48, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank You --Jitrixis (talk | ) 21:56, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Is there are chance that you can make this work with monobook? --MF-Warburg (talk) 22:29, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
It would be awesome if i could use this to add labels in other languages without having to switch my complete UI language. Mutante (talk) 22:40, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I solve the problem. Now it's work on monobook style --Jitrixis (talk | ) 23:06, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, works perfectly. --MF-Warburg (talk) 23:10, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
		'eo': {
			'box-title': 'Listo de etikedoj',					//Title of the dialog box and tab
			'box-cancel': 'Fermu',						//Title of the button to close the dialog box
			'label': 'Etikedo',						// seconde table name
			'description': 'Priskribo',					// third table name
			'alias': 'Kromnomo',						// fourth table name
			'warning-message': 'Listo de etikedoj de <b>Q' + itemId + '</b> :'	// The message inside the dialog box
		},
		'fr': {
			'box-title': 'Liste des étiquettes',					//Title of the dialog box and tab
			'box-cancel': 'Fermer',						//Title of the button to close the dialog box
			'label': 'Etiquette',						// seconde table name
			'description': 'Description',					// third table name
			'alias': 'Alias',						// fourth table name
			'warning-message': 'Liste des étiquettes de <b>Q' + itemId + '</b> :'	// The message inside the dialog box
		},

J'ai ajouté eo et fr --ArnoLagrange (talk) 10:24, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Reponse to feature request : it's done, but you can change one value per time, that's mean you need to change one value and click on Save, for exemple to change label, description and aliases, you need : change label value then click on save, then change description value, then save, then add and/or remove alias (only add and remove aliases can work a the same time) and then save. --Jitrixis (talk | ) 02:14, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 'fa': {
	'box-title': 'فهرست برچسب‌ها',
	'box-cancel': 'بستن',
	'label': 'برچسب',
	'description': 'توضیحات',
	'alias': 'فضای نام',
	'warning-message': 'برچسب‌های فهرست  <b>Q' + itemId + '</b>:'
 }

Photograpers (talk) 10:23, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Chinese translation: 

		'zh': {
			'box-title': '标签列表',					//Title of the dialog box and tab
			'box-cancel': '关闭',						//Title of the button to close the dialog box
			'label': '标签',						// seconde table name
			'description': '描述',					// third table name
			'alias': '别名',						// fourth table name
			'edit': '编辑',							// Edit button
			'send': '保存',							// Save button
			'end': '完成',						// Finnish button
			'reload': '重载',						// Reload button
			'lang': '语言代码',					// the first value on edit menu
			'all-delete': '全部删除',					// checkbox to delete all aliases
			'add': '添加别名',						// the fourth value on edit menu
			'remove': '删除别名',					// the fifth value on edit menu	
			'warning-alias': '使用 \'|\' 分隔别名',			// You can add several alias if separated by a vertical bar
			'warning-message': '<b>Q' + itemId + '</b> 标签列表：'	// The message inside the dialog box
		},

		'zh-hans': {
			'box-title': '标签列表',					//Title of the dialog box and tab
			'box-cancel': '关闭',						//Title of the button to close the dialog box
			'label': '标签',						// seconde table name
			'description': '描述',					// third table name
			'alias': '别名',						// fourth table name
			'edit': '编辑',							// Edit button
			'send': '保存',							// Save button
			'end': '完成',						// Finnish button
			'reload': '重载',						// Reload button
			'lang': '语言代码',					// the first value on edit menu
			'all-delete': '全部删除',					// checkbox to delete all aliases
			'add': '添加别名',						// the fourth value on edit menu
			'remove': '删除别名',					// the fifth value on edit menu	
			'warning-alias': '使用 \'|\' 分隔别名',			// You can add several alias if separated by a vertical bar
			'warning-message': '<b>Q' + itemId + '</b> 标签列表：'	// The message inside the dialog box
		},

		'zh-hant': {
			'box-title': '標籤列表',					//Title of the dialog box and tab
			'box-cancel': '關閉',						//Title of the button to close the dialog box
			'label': '標籤',						// seconde table name
			'description': '描述',					// third table name
			'alias': '別名',						// fourth table name
			'edit': '編緝',							// Edit button
			'send': '保存',							// Save button
			'end': '完成',						// Finnish button
			'reload': '重載',						// Reload button
			'lang': '語言代碼',					// the first value on edit menu
			'all-delete': '全部刪除',					// checkbox to delete all aliases
			'add': '添加別名',						// the fourth value on edit menu
			'remove': '刪除別名',					// the fifth value on edit menu	
			'warning-alias': '使用 \'|\' 分隔別名',			// You can add several alias if separated by a vertical bar
			'warning-message': '<b>Q' + itemId + '</b> 標籤列表：'	// The message inside the dialog box
		},

--Stevenliuyi (talk) 20:15, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

✓ Done--Jitrixis (talk) 21:47, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Color indentation on talk pages

Hello,

Several wikis use "color indentation" on talk pages, using css (exemple pt, fr, kk, ca, frp, etc). I'm not necessarly asking "color indentation" for all talk pages, but at least have the possibility to bring this specificity in a page, using a class to make it look like this. It's just a short css code to be added to mediawiki:common.css. May I ask an admin to add this please. Thanks in advance. Benoit Rochon (talk) 22:48, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Also for me it would be good! Perhaps as a gadget? Raoli (talk) 00:21, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Since it uses the class "Indent-Color", which is not defined by MW itself, it would be necessary to add it to the pages somehow. Are you planning to use a script or to add an open tag to the top of pages (and possibly rely on HTML Tidy to close it)? Some wikis use the "ns-talk" class (and add this class via JS to any page which is not a talkpage but where discussions also happens). Helder 01:18, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
This is a sort of thing that should be user configurable, but if you can make it into a gadget they can turn on themselves then why not? Jeblad (talk) 07:51, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

localization of sidebar

The sidebar should be localized further: 

using eo UI 

using eo or fr UI
  • the entry "Project chat" should be translated to :
    • eo: Diskutejo
    • fr: Le Bistrot

--ArnoLagrange (talk) 11:06, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Hopefully the bug will be fixed shortly (as in this week). Jeblad (talk) 07:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
Done for eo and fr. Tpt (talk) 20:38, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Glossary and Terminology

We have two sets of pages now: 1. Category:Wikidata:Glossary - in Wikidata namespace (English version only) and 2. Help:Glossario, Help:Terminology/de, Help:Глоссарий - in Help namespace. I could not understand the difference and what we assume to do with it. Should we just translate English version of Glossary and keep it in Wikidata namespace or we could keep both one as Glossary and another for Terminology. English version of Terminology redirects to Glossary. Zanka (talk) 16:03, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Could somebody take a look on Wikidata:Glossary, it seems like a lot of translations from Meta are missing. To bad if we must do it all over again. The page at Wikidata:Glossary is updated with additional entries and is the only one being maintained in the future. That is the one at Meta will be a copy of this one, and only updated as needed. John Erling Blad (WMDE) (talk) 08:37, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
It seems that FuzzyBot deleted the german version of the text. (see history) And adding those text from the history into the translation-tool doesn´t work (I can´t save the translation). Are you sure the translation-Tool does work properly? --Goldzahn (talk) 09:37, 5 November 2012 (UTC) translation-Tool does work now. --Goldzahn (talk) 07:00, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Wikidata:Project_chat#Translation_extension --Stryn (talk) 11:52, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Categories as data objects

Q4453 - a data object related to Category in Wikipedia. Not sure how many such an object we have. Two questions: 1. Is it ok to use Wikidata to save interwiki for categories (actually internal wiki objects and separate namespace)? 2. If yes, maybe we should somehow distinguish them from usual article related objects? Zanka (talk) 16:49, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

See above: #Categories --Bene* (talk) 16:54, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. Zanka (talk) 17:12, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Two pages of the same title

I was allowed to create two pages of the same title first Ilocos Sur Q12741 then Ilocos Sur Q12899 the difference is that en iw was not on the first one. Not sure if I did something wrong or it's bug.--Lam-ang (talk) 22:35, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Pages are allowed to have the same label as other pages. This is not a bug. If Q12741 and Q12899 are about the same topic, then one of them should be deleted (and should not have been created). --Yair rand (talk) 22:49, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
But, then there should be a warning if creating a new item with same title, to avoid massive amount of duplicates -- MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 16:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
You will be warned, when you are trying to add some link which already appears in another item. We need same titles, example, if there is a cat, cat (album), cat (single) and cat (car), we set all the labels to cat. Description is for describing items, not label. --Stryn (talk) 17:16, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

So What's new on labelLister :

  • A reload button, if you're on the label list, it's reloading the list, if you're on the edit menu it's reset input default value.
  • An edit button. When you click on it a prompt appear and ask you the language code that you want to edit (casse insensitive). then an edit menu and 2 new buttons (Save / Finish) appear.
  • On the edit menu you can change label, description or add and/or remove aliases.
  • If you click on "save" button, change are saving (of course), and a summary of change appear to the right of the code language in green to show you when the request is end, BUT :

(WARNING : you can change only one value per save, that's mean you need to change one value and save)

for exemple : to change label, description and aliases, you need : change label value then click on save, then change description value, then save, then add and/or remove alias (only add and remove aliases can work a the same time) and then save.

  • And if you click on "finish" button, the edit menu will close (Attention : All change will be lost)
  • You can add or remove several aliases if separated by a vertical bar

--Jitrixis (talk | ) 02:14, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

A documentation button has been added --Jitrixis (talk) 22:31, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, it has become a powerful tool now. I've added the Italian translation of documentation and of the function labels. :) Raoli (talk) 04:32, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks a lot all for your translation :D --Jitrixis (talk) 16:41, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

autowatch

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41573

How to watch easy every edited and new created item? Prefs only works for articles... Conny (talk) 11:41, 4 November 2012 (UTC).

Maybe with Special:NewPages ? --ValterVB (talk) 11:44, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
I think he wants to watch every item he edited or created himself. Don't have any idea. Maybe you should ask the developers. --Bene* (talk) 11:46, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
see Wikidata:Contact the development team#Watchlist Otourly (talk) 11:52, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

User stories

I am very much in favour of wikidata and in particular sees benefits to materialize in phase 2. A few months back I expected it to be available in late 2012 or early 2013. By reading the weekly updates, I have come to doubt so. But I am not sure - I find it very hard to understand the substance of the activites included in the planning. And I even claim to have flair for technical stuff. (BTW: Is it not depressing to address development activities as errors?)

I understand, that the methods used are at least inspired by Agile development. Which should start by user stories. I might have been looking in the wrong places, but I have not found much in the project understandable to users.

With my focus on phase 2, lets make some suggestions (here using en:Volkswagen Beetle as item):

  • As an author, I would like to state to produced number to be 21529464.
  • As an author, I would like to state the production period to 1938-2003.
  • As an author, I would like to state the main designer to be (another item) en:Ferdinand Porche, so that infoboxes in different languages can make a link to old Ferdinand.
  • As an author, I would like to state a secordary designer, Karl Rabe, by name, as no item for this gentleman is currently available, so that an item can be established, when someone in some language makes a bio on him (he actually is available in en + de).
  • As an editor, I would like to design a car infobox, which displays available claims and in edit-mode also allow empty properties to be set, so that authors can edit general car properties.

-- Poul G

Why this message?

I was moving into a template the header oh the page Wikidata:Bar. But appears this message. How can I create it? Raoli (talk) 00:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

This was due to the global titlebacklist (meta:Title blacklist) which was preventing this title from being created. After a firm discussion, we've now updated the titleblacklist, so that this issue should no longer occur. You probably want to use a name like Template:Wikidata:Bar/head as Template:Wikidata:Bar might be to broad, btw - Hoo man (talk) 01:20, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for updating the list. Raoli (talk) 02:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

local alias

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41811

In my opinion adding possibility to have local alias will help users to don't switch keyboard language for linking to wikidata namespace i.e. now for addressing to Special:CreateItem user should use Latin keyboard!

or for main page they should write Wikidata:صفحهٔ اصلی
also [[صفحهٔ اصلی]] or [[Main page]] doesn't have any redirect to Wikidata:صفحهٔ اصلی Photograpers (talk) 09:16, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Which data?

Before the next step of Wikidata – adding data apart from interwikis – starts I would like to discuss if there will be data which should not be hosted here, e.g. I think of "data" by historical revisionists and holocaust deniers. I don't want to read those numbers here and in my opinion it is better for Wikidata, too, that this project won't be the platform for it. Does Wikidata need a catalogue of reasonable/trustable/scientific/… sources or is it enough to cite any website or self-published book? What do we want? NNW (talk) 12:29, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm new here but my understanding is that the software will allow multiple values, each with attribution details and one of these values can be marked as "preferred". Selecting which values to include and which to mark as preferred is a task for the editors, discussing and agreeing on the talk page for each item - just like on Wikipedia.
If the editors find that an additional attribute is needed so values can be marked as "disputed" or "dubious" or "bullshit" then this is something that will emerge over the course of these discussions and can be added without having to change the software (as I understand it).
In other words the task of evaluating sources is one for the next stage, when we start populating the database and not a task to to be tackled at this stage, as I understand it. Filceolaire (talk) 16:37, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
I know that there can be multiple data sets to a special topic, that's not the question. In my opinion it would be good to know if there are "sources" which aren't accepted here or not before this stage starts. This might be a question of quality vs. quantity. NNW (talk) 18:58, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
More than that: under some circumstances such data could put users using such data, even if only accidentally including them to their home wiki at risk of criminal prosecution, so this issue is not resolved with some label "bullshit" or "dubious". So this must be thought about how to handle this. --Matthiasb (talk) 06:27, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

enumItems — a new script to move to the previous or the next Wikidata item

Hi everyone,

I've written that very simple script to help the LDTF; someone might find it useful.

To use is, just add mw.loader.load('//www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=User:Arkanosis/enumItems.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript'); to your common.js. You should then have one or two arrow tabs next to the watchlist star tab, to jump to the previous and the next item, respectively.

Comments and ideas are of course welcome. Skipping deleted items and redirects is already on the todo-list.

Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 00:23, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Hello I tried to use it and I really like it, so I've written at User talk:Arkanosis/enumItems.js. :) Raoli (talk) 00:47, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you :) — Arkanosis ✉ 00:57, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Can't edit items? Turn on the gadget!

If you can't edit items because of missing edit/remove links and you have "Enable section editing via [edit] links" preference unchecked, then you can bring those links back by checking "Allow editing of items when [edit] links are turned off in preferences" gadget.

— Danny B. 01:36, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I've moved this CSS into the common.css so that it's active per default for all users. Thanks to Danny B. for discovering that and making up a workaround ;) - Hoo man (talk) 02:33, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
So that's why it didn't show up. Thanks, hoo. Bennylin (talk) 16:04, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

labelLister Update :

You can now edit label, description and aliases at the same time whithout having to save several time --Jitrixis (talk) 03:59, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Gadget

Why not use the gadget (in preference) for these tools? --Beta16 (talk) 13:12, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Mostly because none of their authors have the rights to edit the MediaWiki: namespace.
Also, it's a good thing if we first have the opportunity to see which scripts people actually use, so that we don't end up with hundreds of unused gadgets. The current UI isn't adapted for a large number of gadgets.
Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 14:34, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

weekly summary

Hey :)

If anyone has anything interesting/noteworthy/funny/... that they want mentioned in the weekly summary please let me know.

--Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 15:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I would be interested if we could get a graph of the number of entries to see how growth is occurring. Chris857 (talk) 03:33, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Deletion of non-item pages

I need to delete Wikidata:Accessibilidad-PleaseDeleteMe, Wikidata:Accessibilidad, Wikidata:Accessibility/es, Wikidata:Accessibility/es-PleaseDeleteMe and Help:Contents/es. What's the procedure to request such kind of deletions? Thank you. --Dalton2 (talk) 03:26, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Add template:db (maybe no one not find) or add request for deletion to Wikidata:Requests for deletions. --Stryn (talk) 05:25, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, just use requests for deletions page at the moment. Sysops are looking at that. This, that and the other (talk) 06:13, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. But Wikidata:Requests for deletions is only for items, I think. I used the template instead. --Dalton2 (talk) 08:32, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
No not only for items, it can be for anything. There are few deletions of non-item pages though, so that is why you may not have seen any there. This, that and the other (talk) 09:47, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Ah, ok, it's good to know it. Thank you. --Dalton2 (talk) 10:15, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
✓ Done --Hosiryuhosi (talk) 11:02, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
So Wikidata:Community_portal needs to be fixed (once it is stop giving a 404 error). Helder 17:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Aliases for special pages

We are missing a lot of aliases for special pages, so I added a page for translating them. Aliases are what you write in the URL, not what goes on the page itself. We can't use Translatewiki.net for this, so please add translations to the page Wikidata:Aliases for special pages and we update them at some (ir)regular intervals. John Erling Blad (WMDE) (talk) 12:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that! Not sure, if you did all the translations yourself, you may like to update attributions there.
— Danny B. 13:31, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
The page is a copy from the existing file, so no, I've done none of the translations. John Erling Blad (WMDE) (talk) 13:34, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
OK, we should find authors then.
— Danny B. 13:36, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Please do NOT add authors unless you are the author yourself. :D John Erling Blad (WMDE) (talk) 13:37, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, I did it according to the page history and that's why I wrote here you should check those...
— Danny B. 13:48, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
For a moment I thought I could write both Korean and Arabic, but a collegue of me just smiled and said "no you can't!" :D John Erling Blad (WMDE) (talk) 13:54, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
I provided the Italian translation. I hope it is complete. --Raoli (talk) 13:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Really nice! Thanks! :) John Erling Blad (WMDE) (talk) 13:54, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi, John. I'm willing to translate the aliases for special pages into Spanish, but I have no idea about where those expressions are used, so first I need some context, since some English words are a bit ambiguous in Spanish:
Spanish translation issues
  • 'CreateItem' => 'create an item' (imperative), or 'to create an item' (infinitive)? In the first case it's CreaElemento and in the second case it's CrearElemento.
  • 'NewProperty' => 'new property' (no problem with this). Translation: NuevaPropiedad.
  • 'ItemByTitle' => 'item by title', or 'items by title'? (I see Raoli translated it as 'elementi', i.e. 'items'). In the first case it's ElementoPorTítulo and in the second case it's ElementosPorTítulo.
  • 'ItemDisambiguation' => 'disambiguation for (an) item' or 'disambiguation for items'? First case: DesambiguaciónDeElemento, second case: DesambiguaciónDeElementos
  • 'ListDatatypes' => 'list types of data' (imperative verb) or 'list of types of data' (noun)? First case: ListarTiposDeDatos, second case: ListaDeTiposDeDatos I think it's the first choice.
  • 'SetLabel' => 'set a label' (imperative) or 'to set a label' (infinitive)? First case: AsignaEtiqueta, second case: AsignarEtiqueta. I'd choose the second choice.
  • 'EntitiesWithoutLabel' => 'entities without label', no problem. Translation: EntidadesSinEtiqueta. Here there's a duplicated 's' in the alias, which is a bit cacophonous, but I see no better solution. By the way, 'entity' is something different from 'item', right? If not, it's better ElementosSinEtiqueta.
And that's all. Best regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 15:32, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
This is what you write in the URL, like http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:CreateItem, or inside the square brackets, like [[Special:CreateItem]]. Jeblad (talk) 15:38, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
For all Special pages I took inspiration from the functions enabled on Wikidata Repo. Raoli (talk) 17:51, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
OK, thanks. Then, here is the translation:
Spanish translation (final version)
  • 'CreateItem' => CrearElemento
  • 'NewProperty' => NuevaPropiedad
  • 'ItemByTitle' => ElementoPorTítulo
  • 'ItemDisambiguation' => DesambiguaciónDeElementos
  • 'ListDatatypes' => EnumerarTiposDeDatos
  • 'SetLabel' => AsignarEtiqueta
  • 'EntitiesWithoutLabel' => EntidadesSinEtiqueta
Best regards. Thanks, Raoli, your advice was very useful for me. --Dalton2 (talk) 18:35, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Big thanks to everyone that contributed so far! Snaevar, Danny B., Lam-ang, Dalton2, Raoli… I hope more join in! =) I'll update the file in the middle of next week. Jeblad (talk) 19:42, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I can't edit

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41924

Hello. I did created item Q17107. However, later, I wanted to add some links but at first the javascript of the page didn't worked and now it does not even appear. I'm using the monobook skin, the secure https server and Firefox. Thanks in advance for your comments. Regards. — MarcoAurelio (talk) 21:28, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Try using Vector, as I think it was optimized for Vector.--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Changed to vector and used the normal server. Same problems. Thanks for your assistance. — MarcoAurelio (talk) 22:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Do not use the unsecure server with a steward account, please :) — Arkanosis ✉ 23:21, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm using the secure server since I discovered it a couple of years ago. Regards :) — MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:52, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Does the page load entirely? Can you please press ctrl + shift + j, clear the previous errors, reload the page (f5) and tell us what's going on in the error console?
Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 23:21, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi. At the console error while loading a page I get in the "errors" section (the "warning" section gets totally flooded) the following:
  • Fecha y hora (date and time): 09/11/2012 0:25:33
  • Error: TypeError: this._interfaces[i].valueCompare is not a function
  • Archivo de origen (file of origin): [3]
  • Línea (line): 151
Best regards, — MarcoAurelio (talk) 23:30, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
OK, it's in wikibase/lib/resources/wikibase.ui.PropertyEditTool.EditableValue.js at line 810. Looking why. — Arkanosis ✉ 23:36, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
I can't understant why without reproducing the problem and… I can't reproduce the problem :(
Is it the only page concerned? — Arkanosis ✉ 00:13, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
It seems like sometimes we can get a partial load of scripts, and then we will get a lot of errors. Try purging and reloading as Arkanosis said, that usually fixes the problems. Jeblad (talk) 07:07, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. But reloading the page did not solved the problem hence this post and at Wikidata:Café. Regards. — MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:52, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

(outdent) Today I get a different error:

  • Fecha y hora: 09/11/2012 15:54:07
  • Error: TypeError: previousLanguages.push is not a function
  • Archivo de origen: [4]
  • Línea: 24

I see no script at all today. Regards. — MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:55, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Text corrections in the Spanish interface

Hi again. In the Spanish "View history" page ("Ver historial") there are a few translation mistakes:

  • where it says "(act) = diferencias con la versión actual," it should say "(act) = diferencias con la versión actual,"
  • where it says "(prev) = diferencias con la versión previa," it should say "(ant) = diferencias con la versión anterior,"
  • where it says "M = edición menor" it should say "m = edición menor"

How can I correct those mistakes? Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 22:53, 8 November 2012 (UTC) P.S: I've got translator rights at translatewiki, but I guess that's no use. Right?

It's on translatewiki:MediaWiki:Histlegend/es. Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 23:30, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks so much. I've just corrected it. --Dalton2 (talk) 00:01, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Autopatrolled flags available

Hi everyone,

Sysops can now give the autopatrolled flag to trusted users. How do we handle that?

I'd like to keep it informal: users who want the flag for them or for someone else could ask for it on Wikidata:Requests_for_permissions and admins would give it if there is no obvious problem. On the French Wikipedia, the flag is granted automatically and it works well that way.

Any thought?

Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 11:40, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

  • This is in principle fine, but how would the admins go the user is trusted? Should the applicants give a link to a different project?--Ymblanter (talk) 12:11, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
    I guess it depends: either the applicant is known by another trused user (recursive problem :p), already active on another project, or his contributions here are correct. Maybe other reasons. — Arkanosis ✉ 12:22, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
  • The autopatrolled flag means that all of the edits are automatically patrolled, so the user with it must be trusted to do a good job. We can measure this with our own judgement, by looking at their edits here and their contributions elsewhere. This flag isn't a big deal - it just reduces the workload of the patrollers, so there is no need to have any set criteria for it. IMO, this should really be up to admin judgement to avoid making it a big deal. Ajraddatz (talk) 12:58, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Autopatrolled flags are asked on Wikidata:Requests_for_permissions? There I only see requests for adminship, bureaucratship and bot flags. --Dalton2 (talk) 13:10, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Not yet. I guess I will be bold and start the section.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:13, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Should we then start it now? I guess everybody agrees that if an admin thinks the user is trusted, OR if an admin checks the contributions and decides the user is trusted, the flag should be granted.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:12, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

catalan menu

Hi,

the Catalan left menu (probably MediaWiki:Sidebar/ca should be fixed. Main page is Wikidata:Pàgina principal; project chat is Wikidata:La taverna; portal is Wikidata:Portal de la comunitat. Thank you in advance.--Arnaugir (talk) 12:39, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Updated. Ajraddatz (talk) 13:05, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Please see #localization_of_sidebar : not updated old requests. --ArnoLagrange (talk) 20:12, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Questions about descriptions and labels

Is there any rule for descriptions and labels? I think there should be some general guidelines, regardless of the language of the description and/or label. For instance, I understand that labels should have no explanations between brackets, so "table" should be preferred instead of "table (furniture)". But, for descriptions, I'm not sure. For example, I see the description "Capital of Bolivia" for the item labeled "Sucre" in English, but it also could be "City of Bolivia". Is there any criterion for this? And what happens with disambiguation pages? For example, what description should be added for Q14749? And what about capitalization? "Table" or "table"? Yes, too many questions at the same time :). Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 14:19, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Related threads:
Think of a label as the title of a real entry that would go on Wikipedia, and the description as if you always use full sentences for disambiguation. You can also use the description as a kind of super category or topic. As a rough idea, it is the most obvious description you can imagine but still at a sufficient high level that it can be reused across items. We don't have a working translation memory now, but I guess it will come. Jeblad (talk) 20:19, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Norway – Country on the Scandinavian peninsula in Northern Europe
  • Norway – Neighbourhood in Toronto, in the province of Ontario, Canada
  • Norway – Unincorporated community in LaSalle County, in the state of Illinois, United States.
  • Norway – Census-designated place (CDP) in White County, in the state of Indiana, United States.
It occurred to me to put "several meanings" in English, "plusieurs significations" in French, "varias acepciones" in Spanish, etc. in the description field for items from disambiguation articles in the corresponding language. Any objections? --Dalton2 (talk) 13:07, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
I would say that a common phrase would be good in such cases. On the other hand, descriptions like this will not look good when we are listing hits. It will end up as
  • Teluk Bintuni Regency – Teluk Bintuni Regency is a regency of West Papua Province, Indonesia.
I don't think this form is a good idea, but "Regency of West Papua Province, Indonesia." could work. Jeblad (talk) 02:40, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Do we have a FAQ page? This topic should really be there. Helder 18:30, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes: Help:FAQ. --Stryn (talk) 18:40, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Categories

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
As mentioned above, proper place for the discussion is Wikidata:Requests for comment/Inclusion of non-article pages. --Zanka (talk) 01:48, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Is it ok to add categories already, like here: Q1366? And label is then Category:Porto? --Stryn (talk) 07:09, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea: As I see Wikidata, this website is done in order to store data about entities and links to websites that talks about them, not to store Wikipedia's interwiki. Tpt (talk) 08:00, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Actually I don't see the problem with this. If the whole interwiki system is going to be replaced we will need entries for project pages, categories, templates, help namespace, etc. This, that and the other (talk) 08:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I believe that the interwiki system will not be replaced (Mediawiki will have to ever support inter-language links for wikis that doesn't use Wikidata) and the project description talks only about support of main namespace of Wikipedias. I think we need an RFC in order to clarify this. Tpt (talk) 08:54, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
And what about user pages (Q1170, Q640)? --WTM (talk) 09:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
It's an interesting point. There's also Q1281, and they will likely keep comoing. Does anyone from WMDE know whether non-article namespaces are in Wikidata's scope? (By the way, I meant the whole Wikipedia interwiki system in my reply above!) This, that and the other (talk) 09:04, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
It's technically possible. If it's ok to do in practice is up to the community. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 09:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I've open a discussion here: Wikidata_talk:RFC/Inclusion_of_not-article_pages. Tpt (talk) 10:31, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
My suggestion is to create new namespaces to organize items such as the categories, help pages and templates (the discussion about the scope is more related to deciding which ones of them will be "content" namespaces). Helder 16:13, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Good idea. Currently everything is mixed. --Stryn (talk) 08:51, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
The interwiki system will not be replaced. Wikipedias will still have interwiki link groups that have interwiki conflicts, plus section interwiki links (like "de:Figuren der Harry-Potter-Romane#Hermine Granger"). Wikidata however should contain all other interwiki links in all namespaces. It is then up to each wikipedia, wheter they use Wikidata links from an praticular namespace or even whether they use Wikidata at all.--Snaevar (talk) 10:55, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Of course the interwiki system in Wikipedia should be gone when we're done with this and it is stable. It's one reason why Wikidata was proposed: for getting rid of the tens of thousand interwiki bot edits each day. --Matthiasb (talk) 19:55, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I was writing about Wikidata´s technical limitations in my last comment. That comment does however not reflect my own opinion on Wikidata. I am an beurocrat on is.wikipedia and there my fellow beurocrats are fed up with the bots. So, as much as I would like to get rid of them, I will have to accept the fact that the technical limitations do not allow such an mesure at least yet. So, in order to get as many interwiki links to wikidata as technically possible, I have been fixing interwiki-conflicts.--Snaevar (talk) 17:48, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I thought one of the objectives of wikidata is to replace the databox with a central store of data. This would mean we don't have a basic Category: labels. Rather we have Area:: Population:: DateOfBirth:: Genus:: PartyAffiliation:: labels for the characteristics of each entry. Filceolaire (talk) 12:01, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Sitelinks is part of the item, as is statements (which is not available for the moment). It is no problem to make items that have a description "Abstract item used for a category in Wikipedia", and then more or less empty statements section. A category i simply nothing more than an abstract idea, which is again an entity. Jeblad (talk) 17:42, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
The fundamental problem with that is that it would often mean that you would have two items about the same thing - after all, on wikipedia, categories often have a corresponding "main" article. An item can only correspond to one page on Wikipedia - so, should we have two items about Germany, one for en:Germany and one for en:Category:Germany? That seems in contradiction to the very idea of an entity base.
We could of course introduce Wikipedia categories as a (pseudo-)site group separate from the Wikipedia (article) site group. The each item can correspond to one Wikipedia article and one Wikipedia Category per language. -- Daniel Kinzler (WMDE) (talk) 20:12, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

See also bugzilla:41895 -- Duesentrieb (talk) 21:10, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I know this thread is about categories, but, since some people have widen the scope of it, I'll express my opinion: I think it's necessary to have different namespaces for categories, user pages, wikiprojects, etc. and keep them out from normal searches, and I'll give an example to explain why: When someone from outside Wikidata (which will be the most common case) does a search for, let's say, Phoenix, that someone will be expecting to have a list of results with the city, the mythological being, and the like, but not a Wikidata user named "User:Phoenix", a wikiproject called "Wikiproject:Phoenix" or a template called "Template:Phoenix results" made by a keen supporter of the Phoenix Suns. Just imagine a scene in the future where Wikidata's results are among the first results in a Google search... Maybe I'm being too apocalyptical, but I see people hurrying up to choose the nick "Barack Obama" or any other name from this list in order to be worldwide known before somebody else does... :) Best regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 22:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Translation extension

Hi,

I am willing to jump in and start translating through the extension but it won't save. What gives? The page with msgs is only readable but not writeable. Can anyone do sth with this please ?

Greetings,
Kpjas (talk) 17:11, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

bug 41667.Justincheng12345 (talk) 06:52, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikidata:Tools

I have created this page to make an overview of all tools that are available. Please help me to complete the List. Maybe some of them could be integrated into Mediawiki software. Regards, --Bene* (talk) 22:59, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

They can surely be made into gadgets once there are local sysops to maintain that. --MF-Warburg (talk) 23:07, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
How soon do you think might happen this thing? Raoli (talk) 00:24, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
See Wikidata:Requests for permissions, it is generally the rule that sysop status requests last for 7 days; so in 2 or 3 days, there will probably the first local sysops. --MF-Warburg (talk) 00:53, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Some of the tools are on our todo-list, but then as php-tools, and other are simply things we have forgotten or thought would be used differently. Jeblad (talk) 07:56, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

database dumps

Please find talk to database dumps. Greetings, Conny (talk) 08:55, 4 November 2012 (UTC).

Repository of standard translations

Wikidata will have to use many tools and tricks in order to get the best possible internationalization. It will be a massive collaboration effort, but I would suggest a simple first step to help internationalize labels and descriptions: collect words or expressions that are likely to be useful for many entities (but where a translatewiki message does not sound practical). As a proof of concept, it tried "Church of the Holy Spirit" (usable in Q13408, Q13409 and potentially dozens of others). Comments and addings welcome at Wikidata:Frequently used labels.--Zolo (talk) 13:24, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Italics

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41749

Is there a way to add italics to labels (for book titles for instance)--Zolo (talk) 16:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikicode isn't enabled in labels as I know. --Bene* (talk) 16:57, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
Bug 41749 – Italic do not work on item's title. Jeblad (talk) 17:26, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I didn't know that. :-) --Bene* (talk) 19:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Input on edit summaries

We need further input on edit summaries. Especially if it is needed and if so some examples on how it will work. That is a description or a visualization of one or more use cases. See also Bug 41490 – Ability to enter edit summaries. John Erling Blad (WMDE) (talk) 13:32, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Gadgets

Shall we add entries in gadgets for loading of scripts, and just load from the developers js-page as for now? It will make it easier for users to try out scripts. The only major problem I see is slow loading and a possibillity that some script developers could do nasty stuff with their scripts. I think this is a better solution than loading stuff from user js-pages in Mediawiki:Common.js because then they can't be turned on/off. John Erling Blad (WMDE) (talk) 14:05, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

As you wish. As I said earlier, I think it's a good thing to see first if people actually use the scripts before adding them as gadgets (since the current UI can quickly become a mess if we add to much gadgets). But then, yes, it will be much easier for users.
For the “nasty stuff” issue, I think it's OK if the developer is trusted enough and if some active users have the script in their watchlists to check what's going on.
I'm not in favour of loading user scripts from common.js; scripts are not free.
Thanks and best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 16:10, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Script "autoEdit" : add automatically label and description

Me and Zolo has writen a script (...yes, I know, again :D) to add automatically a label thanks to the interwiki links and add descriptions thanks to a list that you can custom.

You can share list and see default list on this talk page User talk:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js/lists.

Add this code in your common.js : 

mw.loader.load('//www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=User:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');

If someone wants help me to translate this script.

How to translate the script :

  • See the original translation in english under.
  • Then copy this exemple and translate.
  • And add a new section on autoEdit talk page with your translation.

A translation exemple : 

		'en': {
			'box-title': 'Automatic addition',			//Title of the script
			'box-cancel': 'Close',					//Close button
			'box-send': 'Update',					//Update button
			'sended': 'Sent',					//The message that alert you when it's sended
			'labels': 'Labels',					//First option
			'descriptions': 'Descriptions',				//Second option
			'list': 'Lists',					//third option
			'none': 'None',						//none list selected
			'warning-message': '<ul><li>Labels checkbox : Update automatically the label of all language thanks to the interwiki site links.</li><li>Descriptions checkbox : Update automatically the description thanks to a list that you can custom (<a href="http://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=User:'+wgUserName+'/autoEditLists.js&action=edit&editintro=User talk:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js/editintro">link</a>).</li></ul>',					//The message that explain what are the uses of each option and a link to the custom page
		},

Please report bug. thanks --Jitrixis (talk) 16:19, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

automatically remove disambiguation, such as "eat (verb)" shows the label "eat" instead of "eat (verb)". --Jitrixis (talk) 18:01, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Replace sended with "sent" please...unless you meant something else.--Lam-ang (talk) 16:39, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
✓ Done--Jitrixis (talk) 19:45, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Spanish translation

Code 
    'es': {
                        'box-title': 'Adición automática',
                        'box-cancel': 'Cerrar',
                        'box-send': 'Actualizar',
                        'sended': 'Enviado',
                        'labels': 'Etiquetas',
                        'descriptions': 'Descripciones',
                        'list': 'Listas',
                        'none': 'Ninguna',
                        'warning-message': '<ul><li>Casilla de etiquetas: Actualizar automáticamente la etiqueta de todos los idiomas a partir de los enlaces ''interwiki''.</li><li>Casilla de descripciones: Actualizar automáticamente la descripción de múltiples idiomas a partir de una lista que usted puede personalizar (<a href="http://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=User:'+wgUserName+'/autoEditLists.js&action=edit&preload=User:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js/preload&editintro=User talk:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js/editintro">enlace</a>).</li></ul>',
                },

Best regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 16:37, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

✓ Done--Jitrixis (talk) 19:45, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. --Dalton2 (talk) 21:16, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Finnish translation

Code 
    'fi': {
                        'box-title': 'Automaattinen täydennys',
                        'box-cancel': 'Sulje',
                        'box-send': 'Päivitä',
                        'sended': 'Lähetetty',
                        'labels': 'Otsikot',
                        'descriptions': 'Kuvaukset',
                        'list': 'Listat',
                        'none': 'Ei mitään',
                        'warning-message': '<ul><li>Otsikot-valintaruutu : Päivittää automaattisesti kaikkien kielten otsikot kieltenvälisten linkkien mukaan.</li><li>Kuvaukset-valintaruutu : Päivittää automaattisesti kaikkien kielten kuvaukset listojen mukaan, joita voi tehdä itse (<a href="http://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=User:'+wgUserName+'/autoEditLists.js&action=edit&preload=User:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js/preload&editintro=User talk:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js/editintro">linkki</a>).</li></ul>',
                },

Thank you! --Stryn (talk) 16:59, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

✓ Done--Jitrixis (talk) 19:45, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Bene * ask to move the link in the toolbox because its current position is not appropriate in relation to its use .

So be careful if you reload the page the link may change places. Thank you for your understanding --Jitrixis (talk) 18:01, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Bug

I see the gadget in english and not in italian. Can anyone help me about this? Restu20 18:21, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

There is a bug so I undo what I do and now the link is in tool box and translation in 'nl', 'it', 'es', 'fi', 'fa' are temporarly disable --Jitrixis (talk) 18:23, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
✓ Done Bug solved --Jitrixis (talk) 19:44, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
  In my (Spanish) list it appears "date" instead of the correct "fecha". And it doesn't work either; it only slurps a small amount of descriptions into the date items (Spanish one not included). Any clue? --Dalton2 (talk) 21:27, 8 November 2012 (UTC) The same problem seems to occur with the rest of the interface languages.
I don't see the problem, I switch with an other User--Jitrixis (talk) 13:14, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
http://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q17959&diff=373331&oldid=373301 Have you reload your script after 22h00 to prevent of bug and is there a description already set in spanish language. because the script don't change the label or the description if they are already setted and delete the disambiguation of the title link --Z-J36 (talk) 13:21, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I test with the last version and it's work http://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q2297&diff=373396&oldid=369081 so I say ✓ Done for Me --Z-J36 (talk) 13:28, 9 November 2012 (UTC) alias Jitrixis
Yes, it works for me too. --Dalton2 (talk) 05:00, 12 November 2012 (UTC) P.S: I already changed the 365 days of the year.

Chinese translation

Code 
		'zh': {
			'box-title': '自动添加内容',			//Title of the script
			'box-cancel': '关闭',					//Close button
			'box-send': '更新',					//Update button
			'sended': '已发送',					//The message that alert you when it's sended
			'labels': '标签',					//First option
			'descriptions': '描述',				//Second option
			'list': '列表',					//third option
			'none': '无',						//none list selected
			'warning-message': '<ul><li>标签：根据跨语言链接自动更新各语言的标签。</li><li>描述：根据你自定义的列表自动更新各语言的描述（<a href="http://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=User:'+wgUserName+'/autoEditLists.js&action=edit&preload=User:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js/preload&editintro=User talk:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js/editintro">链接</a>）。</li></ul>',					//The message that explain what are the uses of each option and a link to the custom page
		},

		'zh-hans': {
			'box-title': '自动添加内容',			//Title of the script
			'box-cancel': '关闭',					//Close button
			'box-send': '更新',					//Update button
			'sended': '已发送',					//The message that alert you when it's sended
			'labels': '标签',					//First option
			'descriptions': '描述',				//Second option
			'list': '列表',					//third option
			'none': '无',						//none list selected
			'warning-message': '<ul><li>标签：根据跨语言链接自动更新各语言的标签。</li><li>描述：根据你自定义的列表自动更新各语言的描述（<a href="http://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=User:'+wgUserName+'/autoEditLists.js&action=edit&preload=User:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js/preload&editintro=User talk:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js/editintro">链接</a>）。</li></ul>',					//The message that explain what are the uses of each option and a link to the custom page
		},

		'zh-hant': {
			'box-title': '自動添加內容',			//Title of the script
			'box-cancel': '關閉',					//Close button
			'box-send': '更新',					//Update button
			'sended': '已發送',					//The message that alert you when it's sended
			'labels': '標籤',					//First option
			'descriptions': '描述',				//Second option
			'list': '列表',					//third option
			'none': '無',						//none list selected
			'warning-message': '<ul><li>標籤：根據跨語言連結自動更新各語言的標籤。</li><li>描述：根據你自定義的列表自動更新各語言的描述（<a href="http://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=User:'+wgUserName+'/autoEditLists.js&action=edit&preload=User:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js/preload&editintro=User talk:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js/editintro">連結</a>）。</li></ul>',					//The message that explain what are the uses of each option and a link to the custom page
		},

--Stevenliuyi (talk) 20:38, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

User:Inkowik/Category system

I've made a proposal for a meta category system of wikidata. I think it's important to clarify a good category system before too much pages an categories are created. Regards, --IW 19:23, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with this tree of categories. Raoli (talk) 19:34, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
This discussion can continue on User talk:Inkowik/Category system. --Eric-92 (talk) 01:06, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

HTML language attributes

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 40238

On, for example Q6145 ("European Hedgehog"), the table cell with the Azerbaijani name of the subject is marked up as: 

<td class="wb-sitelinks-link wb-sitelinks-link-az" lang="az">
<a href="//az.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_kirpi" dir="auto">Adi kirpi</a>
</td>

which, quite rightly, has the lang attribute set to "az".

However, the name of the language itself: 

<td class="wb-sitelinks-sitename wb-sitelinks-sitename-az">azərbaycanca</td>

does not have that attribute; which it should.

Do I need to raise a Bugzilla ticket, or can we fix that locally? Do we also need to fix this for the dir attribute for the names of languages which read right-to-left? And shouldn't there be an hreflang attribute on the link?Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:33, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Probably needs a bugzilla ticket. The dir and hreflang attributes should probably also be fixed. --Yair rand (talk) 23:39, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Ah, I see we already have bugzilla:40238. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:56, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Delete template discussion

Please take a look at Template talk:Delete‎‎ (otherwise it'll get hidden in the RC). Ajraddatz (talk) 00:55, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Possible bug

While editing the item labeled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, when I tried to enter the description, I had this error message:

  • There is an edit conflict. Please reload and save again.
  • Details: Edit not allowed: Edit conflict.

I tried several times with the same result. But, after entering the alias, the error message disappeared. Anybody had this problem? --Dalton2 (talk) 10:11, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
P.S: Also, as in the comment above, now I get no results from "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope", when the item Q17738 already exists.

Oberbergischer Kreis: same result (Q6928). --Dalton2 (talk) 10:33, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't have any problems. --Stryn (talk) 10:37, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I can see it happens with *every* search I do. I changed the browser from Firefox to IExplorer and I got the same result. Am I doing something wrong? Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 11:06, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I am right now in a cybercafé, and the problem is still there even without loggin in, so it's something that doesn't depend on my account or my computer. Anybody from Spain can confirm this? --Dalton2 (talk) 12:31, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
The label and description together must be unique. I'm not sure that constraint is described anywhere, and quite frankly I'm not sure if it is a good thing. Jeblad (talk) 13:03, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I think the problem is that the system searches por pages instead of items. For example, if I search for "Wikidata:Project chat" it works, but if I search for "Helium" I get an error message since there is no page named "Helium". In fact, the error message is different when I search from the Spanish language than when I search from the English language. In the first case it says "¡Crea la página «Helium» en este wiki!" (Create the page "Helium" in this wiki!), and in the second case I get "You may create a new item, but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered." I hope the problem will be solved with the next update. --Dalton2 (talk) 13:17, 9 November 2012 (UTC) P.S: It also happens in French, Italian, Russian, Traditional Chinese, Polish... not in German.

Move of slurpInterwiki to a gadget

I've moved the slurpInterwiki script to a gadget in order to make it more easy to use. So, if you want to use it, choose the gadget "Import interwiki from a Wikipedia" in your preferences and remove the load of the script from your common.js. Tpt (talk) 17:08, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Is the message "Import interwiki from a Wikipedia" translatable? --Dalton2 (talk) 17:19, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, you can translate it in MediaWiki:Gadget-slurpInterwiki/LANG_CODE. Tpt (talk) 17:29, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. --Dalton2 (talk) 17:45, 9 November 2012 (UTC) P.S: I see no edit button nor edit box in MediaWiki:Gadget-slurpInterwiki/es. The translation is "Importar enlaces interlingüísticos (interwikis) desde una Wikipedia".
Theses pages are in MediaWiki namespace so you need admin rights to edit them. I've added es translation. Tpt (talk) 17:50, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. --Dalton2 (talk) 18:59, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Items about Wikipedia's "behind closed doors" issues

I found this item: Q12274. Is everything valid for Wikidata? Even the internal pages of Wikipedia? Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 17:08, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Groups of interwiki links with interwiki conflicts are not valid, but yeah, currently all namespaces are. There is an Request for comment to limit this even further at Wikidata:Requests for comment/Inclusion of non-article pages, so this might change, but I doubt it.--Snaevar (talk) 17:23, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I think it's not beneficial for Wikidata to include things like user pages or templates or Wikipedia help pages. We have to keep in mind that Wikidata's aim is not only Wikipedia, so in the future it could become a repository of contact information and other data not suitable for a dictionary, a book or an encyclopedia. In my opinion there should be something similar to Wikipedia's five pillars. --Dalton2 (talk) 18:57, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
My opinion is, that we should not add user pages to items. Because even bot's don't (normally) add interwiki links to user pages. --Stryn (talk) 19:17, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
My opinion on these namespaces:
User pages: May be excluded, not becouse there are few bot edits, but becouse of GlobalProfile.
Wikipedia help pages: They would be useful for other wikis than Wikipedia.
Templates: Phase 2 of Wikidata is about infoboxes. And infoboxes (at least currently) are templates. The difference between Wikidata and Wikipedia infoboxes is that Wikidata infoboxes will include all the necessary info.--Snaevar (talk) 22:14, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

active users

Via [5] is the amount of actice users not counting since days. Does this work well? --Conny (talk) 18:33, 9 November 2012 (UTC).

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41933
Yeah, I know it´s way off. I have filed a bug for that. Thanks for reminding me.--Snaevar (talk) 18:54, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

The link I included in the thread Wikidata:Café#El buscador no da resultados at 23:33 pointing to this chat doesn't access the section it should. If I include the same link in this page it works. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 23:51, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Bugs – Need-volunteer

There are a whole bunch of bugs for Wikibase, the main extension driving Wikidata, and several of those are marked "need volunteer". Some of them could be solved by users in the community, and some of them are already identified by the community. The two central places on Bugzilla is WikidataRepo and WikidataClient. These lists are the complete lists of bugs for the main extension. There are also additional extensions that are important, for example DataValues, Diff and UniversalLanguageSelector. There are also a whole lot of simpler tasks in additions to those listed below. Jeblad (talk) 19:02, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

To pinpoint a few of the bugs that are already discussed in previous threads

  • Bug 41623 - Special page to list a specific text entry for all languages for a single entity
  • Bug 41597 - special page to list all items without label in a given language
  • Bug 41529 - Special page and/or parser function to check quotations from references
  • Bug 41495 - Hard to tell whether an item has any content.
  • Bug 41051 - Special page to identify likely items for a site-page
  • Bug 41050 - Special page to identify unlikely sitelinks for an item
  • Bug 40704 - Style Wikibase entity views for monobook skin
  • Bug 39173 - Special page for translating labels (and descriptions)
  • Bug 39150 - Create Special:EmptyItems
  • and the list goes on…

Broken search?

No results when I search for Turkmenistan. Anybody else with that problem? NNW (talk) 09:28, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Search page does not find anything, so yes, it's broken. --Stryn (talk) 09:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Search will work from next update. Jeblad (talk) 12:53, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

For later it would be nice also making descriptions and other names searchable... :) --Conny (talk) 09:45, 9 November 2012 (UTC).

The search as it is implemented will not work for descriptions. It is implemented for labels and aliases. If the community wants it to work for descriptions it must clearly say so. I don't think searching in descriptions is useful for finding specific items, but I tend to think it is expected that a search work like that. Finding exact matches on labels and aliases should also be supported the same way as exact matches on titles are supported in Wikipedia. Jeblad (talk) 12:59, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Search does not seem to work even for labels at the moment. For instance, Q2598 should come up in a search for Watford, but isn't at the moment [6] (I conducted that search in both universal "English" and "British English"). This needs to be fixed as a matter of urgency: having to sift through 20 duplicate search results (as was the case a week ago if an item had 20 language links), is infinitely better than not having any way of finding an item at all. —WFC— 08:46, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Order of aliases

I can see aliases are not sorted, but they remain in the order they were entered. Maybe it's better this way, I don't know, but the fact is that it's difficult to change that order, and the only way to do it is by retyping them or deleting and entering them again from scratch. Something to manage this in a WYSIWYG way could be helpful, although maybe it's hard to implement what I suggest. --Dalton2 (talk) 21:58, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't alphabetical order be better than different sorting for every page? Kaldari (talk) 22:14, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
They should be sorted by language code when you reload. Sorting on edit would be confusing. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 12:30, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

It is not possible to add links to 'commons' and 'species'. Why not? Those are quite relevant links. Especially because they also contain "data" and you do not want those data to be duplicated here. Taka (talk) 22:02, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

That is what i am talking about since june. incubator, species and commons all belong to the wikipedia langlinks groups. The only difference is that these langlinks are unidirectional. My Interwikisbot is working on all these projects. I added the first feature request about this topic on april: bugzilla:35960. Merlissimo (talk) 14:06, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Categories of project pages

Currently, all glossary pages are included in Category:Wikidata-en because the category inclusion is not translatable. I propose that category inclusions should be translatable via the standard translation interface, similarly to Wikidata:Bureaucrats. This thread states that consensus should be gathered before any major changes. -happy5214 23:49, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

 Support if not better choices. Current category is however wrong for all translations. --Stryn (talk) 00:41, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support because I'm obsessed with translations (and so do many of my partners at the Spanish Wikipedia), but only if the category tree is OK and if translations are not counterproductive. --Dalton2 (talk) 12:09, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support Make the link to Category:Wikidata-en translateable, but not the link to Category:Wikidata:Glossary.--Snaevar (talk) 12:23, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support Yes category is really a problem --Bene* (talk) 12:31, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
I've gone and done this; if the category wikidata-en exists then others should as well IMO. If people disagree they can keep discussing, and I can revert the changes I've made. Ajraddatz (talk) 12:41, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
....or we could categorize the pages automatically, like so:

{{#ifeq: {{FULLPAGENAME}} | Wikidata:Glossary | [[Category:Wikidata:Glossary|en]] [[Category:Wikidata-en]] | [[Category:Wikidata:Glossary|{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] [[Category:Wikidata-{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] }} --Snaevar (talk) 12:56, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Idea to reduce blank labels for English varients (and other language varients)

As it stands, all the English varients that are not just "English" (i.e. " British English", "Canadian English") are ending up blank, when in the vast majority of cases the label will be exactly the same for all English varients. I think it would be preferable if, when a new data page is created, the label that is added for English should apply to all English varients by default, and then (if it turns out the label is one of the exceptions like, say "Aeroplane" and "Airplane" or "Candy and "Sweets) the varient English can be changed. Otherwise we end up with the English varients having a lot of blank labels that require a copy-paste from the "English" label (perhaps a bot could do this anyway?). Just an idea, wondered what others thought of it. Del♉sion23 (talk) 11:25, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Just to add that it would save editors from having to do this kind of edit. Earthquake is the same in British English and other English, as is the same with a majority of words. Del♉sion23 (talk) 11:29, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Even with the more striking differences ("autumn" vs "fall", "tank truck" vs "oil tanker" etc), the 'wrong version' will in most cases be of more use to speakers of other varieties of English than "-". —WFC— 11:45, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes sounds good. I am not completely sure for "simple" (it may make sense, but it is likely that many descriptions may not be simple). --Zolo (talk) 13:28, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
I think it's a good idea, not only for English, but also for other languages which have multiple variants. Take Chinese as an example, it has so many variants (zh-hans, zh-hant, zh-cn, zh-hk, zh-tw, zh-sg, zh-mo, zh-my), there is definitely a need for reducing wasteful duplication of work.--Stevenliuyi (talk) 13:54, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. I'd forgotten about the other varients. But of course there are also varients of other languages. It would be best to at least have a label there, as in a majority of cases it is either the same, or at least understandable and can be corrected. It's less work if they are added by default than having to go through the majority of them copy pasting. Del♉sion23 (talk) 14:04, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
There is significantly more difference between different variations of Chinese than there are for different variations of English. While in 99% of cases different variations of English are mutually intelligible, that percentage is much lower for Chinese. This is why all the variations of English have one project, and all the variations of Chinese do not. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:21, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
As a native Chinese speaker, I know the difference between variants. The variants I metioned above only include variants used in zh.wiki.--Stevenliuyi (talk) 16:35, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Recycle pages instead of deleting

I was wondering why we delete pages for reasons like accidental duplicates at all because you could just as well "recycle" the page and use it for another term by changing the label and adding other links. As long as it has not been linked/used anywhere yet. right? Mutante (talk) 07:31, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

  • Fully agree, I made this point easlier. The page I created, Q12.., was deleted, because somebody else created Q48.. and added more descriptions there. This really pissed me off, because Q12.. was the first day contribution.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:17, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Re-assigning data IDs is generally not a good idea, because if someone is expecting an ID to hold a certain content, and it in fact holds something different, then the user of content will become less confident about the stability of the IDs. Really, items should not be re-purposed unless they were created really recently (i.e. last few minutes). This, that and the other (talk) 09:10, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
  • It is possible to reclaim unused IDs, but I think that should only be done where someone really want to salvage his (or hers) early contribution. For Wikidata it will be really important to have stable URLs, and moving items around on different IDs is a real no-no. Those URLs are designed to be stable so they can be used outside Wikidata (and also Wikipedia). Basically they should be viewed as our form of a social security number for an entity, we should not change that – ever. Jeblad (talk) 09:49, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Recycling could be less of a good idea as this project develops. I think that we have an indefinite number of Q##s, so there isn't a great need to conserve them. Doesn't matter to me, though. Ajraddatz (talk) 11:50, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
  • The old item can (in future) already be implemented on the local wiki's, and then reusing it may cause problems. Romaine (talk) 03:13, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I reused two items I created, but right after they were created, because when I tried to add links I noticed I was duplicating an existing link (because it was not shown in the special page). What is the procedure for deletion requests? Helder 23:57, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 38664

Others have already pointed out why recycling IDs is a bad idea (and there is no need too). I'd like to add that we plan the ability to merge two items, turning one ID into a redirect pointing to the other (this will probably be the only way to create redirects in the item namespace). So the way to get rid of a duplicate in future should be to merge the items, not to delete one, so all IDs stay available and stable. See bugzilla:38664 for tracking. -- Daniel Kinzler (WMDE) (talk) 21:11, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

What to do with this one: Q5084? Repurposed after six days [7]. First it was just test, made by one staff member. --Stryn (talk) 12:18, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with This, that and the other. IDs should be treated as primary keys of a database and never reused. Altough there is no live client wiki at the moment, we should not spread bad habits at his phase. Merging is a great idea, looking forward. Bináris (talk) 15:59, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi I've written a short script done to be used in Wikipedias that add to the toolbox a link to the Wikidata page related to the page showed. In order to use it, copy/past it to your Wikipedia common.js and put in var wiki the name of your wiki (like frwiki or dewiki). Tpt (talk) 12:08, 2 November 2012 (UTC) 

( function ( mw, $ ) {
	var namespace = mw.config.get( 'wgCanonicalNamespace' );
	if( namespace === '' ) {
		var page = mw.config.get( 'wgTitle' );
	} else {
		var page = namespace + ':' + mw.config.get( 'wgTitle' );
	}
 
	$.ajax( {
  		url: '//www.wikidata.org/w/api.php',
		data: {
			'format': 'json',
			'action': 'wbgetitems',
			'sites': mw.config.get( 'wgDBname' ),
			'titles': page,
			'language': mw.config.get( 'wgPageContentLanguage' )
		},
		dataType: 'jsonp',
		success: function( data ) {
			if( data.success ) {
				for( var i in data.items ) {
					if( i != -1 ) {
						mw.util.addPortletLink( 'p-tb', '//www.wikidata.org/wiki/' + data.items[i].title, 'Wikidata' );
					}
				}	
			}
		}
	} );
} ( mediaWiki, jQuery ) );

This seems not work on Windows 7 :'( Otourly (talk) 12:16, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

It seems not work also on Chrome... Restu20 12:18, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Works here. I have Windows 7. I tried newest Firefox and Internet Eplorer, and works on both. --Stryn (talk) 12:20, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
me, too. Thanks, for the script. --Goldzahn (talk) 12:26, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

FYI: And you can't see the link on Wikipedia if article doesn't exist on Wikidata. --Stryn (talk) 12:21, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok it's work it's appears on the toobox menu on the left. Otourly (talk) 12:34, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Now it works, I've made a mistake. Thanks a lot for this script. :-) Restu20 12:35, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Somehow I can not get it working on enwiki (FF16). At least it does not show anything new in the tools section in the left menu.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
You did commons.js and it should be common.js :) --Stryn (talk) 13:49, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks very much, now I moved it, and it works.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:22, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you! This is very helpful. --Saint-Louis (talk) 14:31, 2 November 2012 (UTC):Thank you! This is very helpful. --Saint-Louis (talk) 14:31, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you very much Tpt! I really like the scripts you are making here on Wikidata. Keep up the good work! :) --Wiki13 talk 15:28, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
I think you can use mw.config.get( 'wgDBname' ) instead of hardcoding the wiki name in the source. Helder 00:11, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
it doesn't work for categories i.e. en:Category:World Heritage Sites in Iran & Q4400 Photograpers (talk) 15:28, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
Nice work on the script! --J36miles (talk) 02:38, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Interesting idea. I've expanded on your script at User:Yair rand/WikidataInfo.js, which adds more extensive Wikidata data in a Wikidata link immediately under the page's title. --Yair rand (talk) 06:33, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Importing wikipedia article titles as labels

I see most items are missing the label in most languages. Is there any reason Wikipedia article titles in the given language are not imported en masse? It seems like a huge waste of time to add labels to millions of items in hundreds of languages manually. It is very rare that the label is not the same as the article title (with the part int parantheses split off, and DISPLAYTITLE followed if present, but even withou those, it would be right 99% of the time). --Tgr (talk) 13:07, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

User:Jitrixis/autoEdit.js adds the wikipedia article names that are available. Del♉sion23 (talk) 13:08, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
And so does User:MerlIwBot apparently. Zolo (talk) 13:33, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Only for the items it creates, though. Items which have been created by other means still do not get all the labels, and if the wiki article in some language is created later than the item, the label does not get added, either. --Tgr (talk) 00:16, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Style corrections

Sorry, I have just noticed that I can edit the glossary. --Dalton2 (talk) 16:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
I think there is a somewhat fuzzy use of the terms "entity" and "item": In the glossary, it says that "there are three types of entities: items, properties and queries", but later, it says that an item is "also called entity". This ambiguity is repeated in several pages, where "item" and "entity" are used as exact synonyms. Wouldn't it be better to avoid treating them as synonyms and use "item" as a "type of entity", but not as a synonym of "entity"? It's a bit confusing for me, specially when I see the special pages ItemByTitle, CreateItem, ItemDisambiguation and, on the other hand, EntitiesWithoutLabel. If "entity" and "item" are synonyms, then EntitiesWithoutLabel = ItemsWithoutLabel. You see the conceptual problem? If they are the same, then EntitiesWithoutLabel should be avoided. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 20:51, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
It comes partly from an incomplete explanation in the glossary, partly from sloppy naming. Perhaps it is possible to make it easier to understand if we rephrase the definitions.
An entity is a real world concept, and Wikipedia write about those real world concepts in their articles. Inside Wikidata we write about (recreate) those real world concept as items. Our item is an description of the entity. We use sitelinks to address the items from Wikipedia, connecting pages about the entities with items about the same.
Then things gets messy because when we model this we have a common baseclass that is called Entity (technically an interface but that is not important) and that class holds some common structures (labels, aliases, description). The naming of that class is in my opinion a bit sloppy. It is used for three subclasses (could be more) that share the same common structures (basically ) and then we end up with special pages like EntitiesWithoutLabel because it works across all three subclasses. In this case "Entities" is our internal base class and not the external entity, and we break the mental model (conceptual model).
One solution could be to avoid saying that "there are three types of entities: items, properties and queries", they are not real world entities. Also instead of a special page EntitiesWithoutLabel it would be an ItemsWithoutLabel. If we later on decides we need the same search for properties and queries we could make additional pages. That would imply that we have three distinct groups on Special:Specialpages for items, properties and queries and none for entities.
Does this make sense? Jeblad (talk) 13:12, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it does. I'll wait for everything to be fixed before I do the translation into Spanish. Also, my translation of the EntitiesWithoutLabels special page should be changed accordingly from what I suggested in this chat. Thank you. --Dalton2 (talk) 13:48, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
I see the text was partly rewritten, although there is still something I need to make clear: "Qualifier is a part of the claim that says something about the specific claim, often in a descriptive way. A qualifier might be be terms according to a specific vocabulary but can also be variant descriptive phrases". A qualifier might be terms or phrases, or a qualifier might a term or a phrase? Also: reference and source are the same thing? It says "reference (or source) describes the origin of a statement." Wouldn't it be that a "reference describes the source of a statement"? Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 01:50, 12 November 2012 (UTC) More things: "metadata is all of the data that Wikidata either records about this, or that is embedded in the software and cannot be changed by the editors, e.g. the edit history of a page, the Wikidata editor who has entered a statement or given a reference." The Wikidata editor or the name of the Wikidata editor? More things: "Values (or datavalues) are the information pieces embedded in each claim. They can be a single value or multiple values." Values can be a single value or multiple values? This doesn't sound well.
A qualifier contain a single descriptive term or phrase, but there can be several qualifiers. If those terms or phrases is free text or part of some vocabulary would probably be up to the community.
A reference identifies a source, but it is quite common to talk about the source instead of the reference. The reference will typically point to a specific page or part of a book, a page on a website, or something similar. Our statement is in the item, and it will have a reference to something the source has published.
I would say "like the name of the Wikidata editor".
It seems like a value will contain several parts in some cases, but it will be handled as a single composite value. For example a geoposition which will contain several parts. Jeblad (talk) 02:30, 12 November 2012 (UTC) (In my opinion the glossary is extremely important as it makes it possible to communicate more accurately.)
I see. Then I think that the text in the glossary should express what you're explaining here, to make things clearer. For example, more or less, something like this:
  • "A qualifier might be a term according to a specific vocabulary but can also be a variant descriptive phrase (if those terms or phrases are free text or part of some vocabulary would probably be up to the community."
  • "Reference (or source, although they are not the same) describes the origin of a statement."
  • "Values (or datavalues) are the information pieces embedded in each claim. They can have a single core or multiple cores."
Well, that's some ideas. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 03:29, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Collecting other data besides languages

Apologies if this has been already discussed somewhere, I'm finding it a bit tricky to navigate this site.

Has there been any discussion about collecting data besides inter-language links? If not, I would like to start working on that. We could have a bot extract basic values like population, largest city, capital, area, etc. from an infobox on a wiki like enwiki, then extracting it from another wiki like dewiki, verifying they are the same, and then adding them would be a good start. Ideally, most values that are typically in an infobox could be added. Legoktm (talk) 18:01, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Number of times the word "famous" occurs in an article would be also good. No, this is all planned for the second stage, which has not yet been deployed.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:17, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I found m:Wikidata/Technical_proposal#Phase_2:_Infoboxes which answers my question. Legoktm (talk) 18:28, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Why not use the system developed on Commons?

It makes sure that every gadget also has an example image, documentation, discussion page and the status of the gadget. It is very simple to use. commons:Template:Gadget-desc and related pages. --Raoli (talk) 21:18, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

So, basically, they just use a template for the description of every gadget? Seems like a good idea to me.
Actually, I may even use it on the French Wikipedia, now :) — Arkanosis ✉ 20:39, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
I used "the system" on Italian Wikiquote with excellent results. On Italian Wikiquote "Langswitch" allows you to translate all warnings and infobox in all languages (also Main Page). See q:it:Utente:Raoli/Prove Template/Varie/Pagina if do not believe me, then q:it:Speciale:Preferenze#mw-prefsection-gadgets. Raoli (talk) 21:15, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Template related to the use of "Commons gadget system"
Gadget state Hot words Functioning
{{Gadget-state}} {{Gadget-desc/eti-trad}} {{Lang}}
{{Gadget-state/default}} {{Gadget-translatelabel}} {{LangSwitch}}
{{Gadget-state/deprecation}} {{Gadget-translation}} {{Fallback}}
{{Gadget-translation-editintro}} {{GetFallback}}
{{Default-tag}} {{GetFallback2}}
{{Deprecated-tag}} {{Gadget-desc}}
Mediawiki pages related to the use of "Commons gadget system" (Main languages)
MediaWiki:Lang MediaWiki:Lang/de MediaWiki:Lang/fr MediaWiki:Lang/nl
MediaWiki:Lang/pl MediaWiki:Lang/es MediaWiki:Lang/ru MediaWiki:Lang/ja
MediaWiki:Lang/pt MediaWiki:Lang/zh MediaWiki:Lang/sv MediaWiki:Lang/vi
MediaWiki:Lang/it MediaWiki:Lang/uk MediaWiki:Lang/ca MediaWiki:Lang/no
MediaWiki:Lang/fi MediaWiki:Lang/cs MediaWiki:Lang/hu MediaWiki:Lang/fa
MediaWiki:Lang/ro MediaWiki:Lang/ko MediaWiki:Lang/ar MediaWiki:Lang/tr
MediaWiki:Lang/id MediaWiki:Lang/sk MediaWiki:Lang/eo MediaWiki:Lang/da
MediaWiki:Lang/sr MediaWiki:Lang/kk MediaWiki:Lang/lt MediaWiki:Lang/ms
MediaWiki:Lang/he MediaWiki:Lang/bg MediaWiki:Lang/eu MediaWiki:Lang/sl
MediaWiki:Lang/vo MediaWiki:Lang/hr MediaWiki:Lang/war MediaWiki:Lang/hi
MediaWiki:Lang/et MediaWiki:Lang/la MediaWiki:Lang/el MediaWiki:Lang/is
MediaWiki:Lang/af MediaWiki:Lang/ia

Edit request: .is main page

Please create MediaWiki:Mainpage/is with "Wikidata:Forsíða/is" and hide the header of "Wikidata:Forsíða/is" in MediaWiki:common.css. I am going to translate the main page into icelandic.--Snaevar (talk) 20:34, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

✓ Done Please translate Wikidata:Forsíða/is. Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 20:49, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Requests for administrator attention

Should we make something like Wikidata:Requests for administrator attention? I think we've many admins and if there is a central page, you've the best chance to get fast attention, if needed.--CENNOXX (talk) 22:11, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

It could be a good. --Stryn (talk) 22:18, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Support, though I would rather use Wikidata:Administrators' noticeboard as on commons or enwiki - Hoo man (talk) 23:17, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Editprotected - MediaWiki:Mainpage/ilo and MediaWiki:Villagepump/ilo

Request enabling -

thanks!--Lam-ang (talk) 23:18, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

✓ All done - Hoo man (talk) 23:40, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Opt out of global sysops

Now that we have tons of our own admins, we no longer need global sysops to have sysop access by default on this wiki. They served us well before we elected admins, but we are no longer in need of their services.

Note that we no longer meet the default criteria for global sysops, so if they are to retain access on our wiki, we'll need to establish consensus in favor of that.--Jasper Deng (talk) 01:19, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I feel this is a bit premature. I think it would be better to wait until everything is settled and then if the wikidata folks want global sysops disabled on this wiki we may disable them. Also, if folks want to keep access to them it's fine too. I think that in this initial stage global sysops can do more good than nothing, but that's something the whole wikidata should decide. Best regards. — MarcoAurelio (talk) 01:23, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, this is why I'm asking here for community consensus.--Jasper Deng (talk) 01:25, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
I agree with MarcoAurelio; they have been here since months and even years ago, so they are used to dealing with Wikidata better than anybody at this moment. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 02:50, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Why would we not want global sysops anyway? They're such nice people. This, that and the other (talk) 07:11, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
In the future, of course, but now I think it is still too early. --Beta16 (talk) 10:44, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
I would prefer that we do this in three-and-a-bit months, once the admin system has been well-defined, and the first wave of admins have been reconfirmed. Opt out on 28 February 2013. —WFC— 10:59, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Both stewards and global sysops have done and are still doing a great job here. I'd really like that we give enough time to those of them who want to contribute on wikidata to get the local sysop flag (which shouldn't be a big problem). Until then, I prefer they keep their rights. Maybe we should discuss this again in a few months?
Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 17:21, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
We can wait the first reconfirmation and then we can decide about the opt out of global sysop. Restu20 17:25, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Global sysops are indeed nice people (or so I like to think :D), and I don't see much need to remove them until we have some permanent admins. Or even keep them after that. More helping hands doing non-controversial work is rarely an actual problem. Ajraddatz (talk) 21:01, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Keep the global sysops for now, until the 8th of January (on that date, two months have passed since the first set of administrators where named). The global sysops can assist the administrators until then.--Snaevar (talk) 14:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Abuse Filter request

I create this abuse filter http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:AbuseFilter/1 When somebody add the template { {delete} } to an article a tag is added (Requested for deletion) to help maintenance for exemple on the RC. Who are agree ? --Jitrixis (talk) 11:03, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

As I said on Jitrixis' talk page, abuse filters are not free: there is a limit of 1000 conditions that we can have at the same time for all filters.
Right now, it's not really an issue to have such filter, but once we need filters to fight vandalism and detect mistakes, we'll have to deal with these limits.
As we can already know which pages include the {{Delete}} template using Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Delete, I think we should not enable this filter at the risk of people getting used to it, which would make it more difficult to remove it if we need other filters that have no equivalent such as WhatLinksHere.
Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 17:29, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Don't enable filter 1. We should use the abuse filter to fight abuse only. The abuse filter will be needed to fight vandalism on sitelinks.--Snaevar (talk) 17:52, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Nb : I ask on "contact the developper" page to add a value on the abusefilter to know what change has been made on an item (like sitelinks, labels, description or aliases). --Jitrixis (talk) 18:06, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
No, contrary to its name, the abuse filter doesn't have to be used to combat abuse only. Currently, it's the only way to tag edits, and that would be useful. I made a change to the filter, for the record, to fix Jitrixis' grammar in his description, but did not change anything about the filter itself.--Jasper Deng (talk) 18:41, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
I know everything about the english wikipedia use of abuse filter as an edit filter and their failed bug about changing the name of the specialpage of the abuse filter to "special:edit filter".
As far as tagging goes on Wikidata, it will not be the only way of tagging edits. For more information, see Jeblad´s comment on Wikidata:Contact_the_development_team#Suggestion:_Tag_filter_equivalent_for_Wikidata --Snaevar (talk) 20:06, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
This will probably again be done with an extension to AbuseFilter, albeit likely with a different filter group so that filters for tagging edits have a separate condition limit from anti-vandalism filters.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:09, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
I doubt that we will have so many filters here that this one will cause issues. I don't care either way, since the rc moves fast enough that this would be no more convenient that whatlinkshere/t:delete Ajraddatz (talk) 20:59, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Change name on special pages?

There are now two special pages with names that are not intuitive at all. I think it is better to change their name now to avoid more confusion. Perhaps my interpretation of the names are wrong, so please feel free to propose alternate names!

  • Special:ItemByTitle → Special:ItemBySitelink (This is not a title in Wikidata, but a sitelink at an external Wikipedia. Page always redirects to item with exact match.)
  • Special:ItemDisambiguation → Special:ItemsByLabel (This is a label used at none, one, or several items in Wikidata. Page always redirects to a disambiguation list if items are found.)

The old names should be retained as aliases. Jeblad (talk) 12:04, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, change the names of special pages. The old ones where a bit confusing.--Snaevar (talk) 12:24, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the more concise names.--Arnaugir (talk) 12:27, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Special:ItemByTitle in the sidebar?

I see that someone added "Create a new item" to the sidebar. I'd like to also suggest Special:ItemByTitle (perhaps linked as Find an item). It's a bit different (in some ways better) than search, as it allows to find if a particular wikipedia page (in particular language) is already included in Wikidata as a site link. If it's not, then it invites you to create the item. In some cases, ItemByTitle is a nicer starting point for creating an item. (PS - when the wikidata gets updated with newer software, the CreateItem page will be pre-populated with what you search for in ItemByTitle.) Cheers. Aude (talk) 15:29, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I think inviting to create an item can be dangerous at least with the current search, since the Wikipedia article can exist but have a slightly different name.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:53, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Aude: please take a look at Wikidata:Tools#Improved search. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 15:54, 11 November 2012 (UTC) P.S: I agree with Ymblanter, I can't see any advantages from having such an option in the sidebar: the error message after a failed search contains a link that leads to the CreateItem page.
Please replace in the sidebar the italian translation of "CreateItem" with "Crea nuovo elemento" rather than "Crea un nuovo elemento". Thanks --Raoli (talk) 16:29, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
You can translate it on Translatewiki. --Stryn (talk) 16:34, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I have forgotten it. Great! Raoli (talk) 16:55, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Create conflict with wikidata

Seems like Wikidata won't check if the link is redirect or not, as if I give a redirected link to one item(A), and the product to another item(B),in Wikidata for both, it will gives a interwiki conflict for the pages in Wikipedia. I wonder if it will be a kind of vandal or anything, and if we can make a bot to check this kind of things and report. If you don't know what I'm talking about, See

At least when you create an item and provide an interwiki link, it automatically gets converted to the article name if it was a redirect.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:22, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
In fact it is doing what it is supposed to do, it will normalize, convert and follow redirects to find the target page. It is possible with additional code to stop on specific redirects as if they were articles, but in general redirects should be followed to the final page. Jeblad (talk) 17:53, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

How to detect vandalism?

How can we detect vandalism? And what should be do with users like EliasP who added wrong sitelinks (read my commoents here)? Maybe it is only simplemindedness, but such wrong edits will cause many troubles in the future. Reviewing all changes of this user will cause a lot of work. Merlissimo (talk) 17:24, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

See also m:Wikidata/Preventing unwanted edits. Jeblad (talk) 17:45, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
If you need a tool you can try with --Raoli (talk) 17:55, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
// [[File:Krinkle_RTRC.js]]
mw.loader.load('//meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Krinkle/RTRC.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');
 
/* Direct link to RTRC */
$(function(){
    mw.util.addPortletLink('p-personal', '//wikidata.org/wiki/User:Krinkle/RTRC',
              '♣ RTRC', 't-RTRC', 'Real Time Recent Changes', 'm', '#pt-userpage');
});
@Raoli The problem is that you cannot detect these kind of wrong edit i linked above or vandalism by watching diffs. Additional to the page source you need the content of the sidelink target page. Merlissimo (talk) 18:31, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
But when these links are used in the wikipedias, the people there will take care of their interwikilinky, too. It's the same as now, only that the interwikilinky are now located in articles. They have to look after their interwikilinks. Before that we can easily check the links with existing interwikilinks which are probably right. --Bene* (talk) 18:36, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I was brainstorming and thought of something. The idea is twofold. Firstly to have an Navigation popup gadget, similar to en:Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups but a bit different. The problem with the Navigational popups gadget on enwiki is that it does not show an navigation popup on links to other projects (or at least not for me). The gadget on wikidata will have to be able to show an popup from other projects.

Secondly, to change the automatic edit summary so the sitelinks that the user (or bot) changes become clickable hyperlinks.

Those two things will result in that we have an link in the history of the item and recent changes for each sitelink that is changed that can be hovered with the mouse and then the user will see an navigational popup of the page.--Snaevar (talk) 19:04, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

 Support very good ideas. I think it would be possible to create such a script. Should I start to write it? --Bene* (talk) 19:07, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support it's a nice solution. Bene*, you should start writing it now. :) --Dalton2 (talk) 19:18, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Comment: I've already imported popups from the English Wikipedia at MediaWiki:Gadget-popups.js. Yes, it would be very nice for popups to do cross-wiki previews and even better to preview diffs for data entries, but I don't know about the difficulty in implementing that. The current implementation of pop-ups is quite messy.--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:24, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Should not be much of a problem to write the link straight into the autocomment, but then you must wait for the update… ;) Jeblad (talk) 19:29, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Comment: If it's only about adding one feature, I'd suggest to improve Lupin's popups gadget instead of starting a new one. Not only it would be familiar to users, but it would also benefit to Wikimedians on all projects. Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 20:32, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Help:Editing

Could someone explain to me, or add on to Help:Editing on how to add multiple interwiki entries in a single edit? I saw File:Wikidata berlin en 03.png which tells me that there should be a blue [add] box under an entry you are editing, but I don't see this when I add entries. I see a grey [add] which is unclickable. If I'm doing something wrong, if someone could help, I would appreciate it. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 00:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

You can enable the tool as a gadget at your preference (along with other tools for easy editing), once enabled "Import interwiki" link will appear on your sidebar, click and choose the site to import interwiki check the checkbox and click import and your done.--Lam-ang (talk) 00:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but he's saying that it's not possible for him to add a single interwiki, and, without a first interwiki added, the script doesn't allow to add more ones. --Dalton2 (talk) 00:48, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
It's obvious that he can add interwikis manually look at recent changes:)--Lam-ang (talk) 00:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
I got it, thanks guys. I can get single interwikis added, but I had to add one interwiki at a time otherwise without the tool. Is that a technical impossibility at this juncture? Regards, — Moe Epsilon 00:56, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikidata task force naming titles/conventions

Hello, I thought I should mention this sooner than later as it would be more work if mentioned later. For task forces should they be named Wikidata:<Name> "Task Force", "task force" or "taskforce". Soon, I imagine there will be tons of task forces but if the proper title isn't decided on soon, someone will be making a lot more moves then they would want to. I am not a genius in English so I don't know the correct spelling. See Category:Task force for all the task forces. Riley Huntley (talk) 04:15, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Why not a dedicated namespace for task forces? The same way there is the "Projet" namespace on French Wikipedia for WikiProjects. Amqui (talk) 04:20, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
If there's a category with all of them listed, why do the names or namespaces need consistency? IMO there are more important issues to worry about at this stage... Ajraddatz (talk) 04:30, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I just saw task forces are temporary, I thought they would be the "wikiprojects" equivalent for Wikidata, but since they are not, their names don't really matters at this point. Amqui (talk) 04:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Wiki poject task forces

I think it would make sence if my bot MerlIwBot automatically creates wikiproject task force lists. Yesterday my bot completed the import of frrwiki, but 94 Pages having an langlink could not be imported automatically because of conflicts. (2181 frrwiki page currently have an item) How should these pages look like? How should missing links listed?

My suggestion for a title would be (example frrwiki) "Wikidata: Wiki project Task Force/frrwiki". Each entry: 

* [[:frr:Space Shuttle]] ([[Special:ItemByTitle/frrwiki/Space Shuttle|check]])
 : related items: [[QSXXX]], [[QSXXX]]

Any additional informations to add? Are there people how want to work on these automatically created pages? Merlissimo (talk) 10:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

We allready have Wikidata:Report interwiki conflicts, so those lists should be added there.
Bots should definatly automatically create wikiproject task force list for interwiki conflicts, and preferrably update them aswell. One suggestion though, it would be nice to have a list over duplicate links in the conflict (and perhaps also link to those duplicate pages). For example:
* [[:frr:Space Shuttle]] ([[Special:ItemByTitle/frrwiki/Space Shuttle|check]])
 : Duplicate links found for: lt, lv, ro, ta, pl, no, ja, nl, pt, ru, ar, id, zh, az, eo, el, 
af, es, ca, it, tr, vi, sh, si, sk, simple, ms, cs, bg, sr, sv, ko, ur, da, he, fi, fr, de, uk, hr
 : related items: [[QSXXX]], [[QSXXX]]

--Snaevar (talk) 12:43, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Bureaucrats and permanent admins

I'm looking for opinions at Wikidata talk:Bureaucrats.--Jasper Deng (talk) 07:00, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Lowercase and Upper case on language name

Hi,

Each language name in each article should be in upper-case, or be in lower-case, but not half upper-case and halflower-case... Example : In Q10000, there "English" and "français". It should be "english" and "français", or "English" and "Français". It is the same thing in the "Select Language" settings.

This summer, there was the same problematic on the interwiki and we stay with upper-case. --Nouill (talk) 12:52, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

This is as it comes from the source data, which is "the language name should be written as it would appear inside a sentence in that language". We can use text-transform to change the styles in the extension but that can also be set up as a gadget for those that want this. There is an example for changing your own personal CSS on User:Jeblad/common.css, add entries for more languages according to how those languages treat names. Jeblad (talk) 13:31, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
I am not very interested with gadget. On wikidata and on interwiki, those "Language name" is used in list and not in sentence, so the "the language name should be written as it would appear inside a sentence in that language" is just bad. --Nouill (talk) 07:05, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Why cant we have the language name translated in the user's language ? It would give a more consistent layout, and though I do not speak a word of Northern Sami, I would find it clearer to see Northern Sami: some link than davvisámegiella: some link. Plus, it should not be very difficult to implement with the #language: parser.--Zolo (talk) 07:24, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Seconded. --Waldir (talk) 11:37, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Could be done for logged in users, I guess… Jeblad (talk) 00:42, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
If you don't speak a word of Northern Sami, why would you need to understand "sámegiella: some link"? --Yair rand (talk) 00:58, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
I think it would be okay to do it for non-logged in users as well (all language names in the interface language).
I prefer "Nothern Sami" to "sámegiella" mostly out of curiosity: I find it frustrating when I see a language label that is completely ununderstandable to me (say தமிழ்). But even when I understand the language name, I find it more pleasing to have everything in the same language.
It may also has more practical purposes. Even if I do not speak Persian, I may want to check the fa.wiki article for a Iranian guy (with the help of Google translate it may still be usable). It will be much easier to find if it is called "Persian" rather than فارسی' or "fa".--Zolo (talk) 06:03, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
+1 for everything in the same language. Helder 17:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Importing content from metawiki

See m:Talk:Wikidata/Glossary#Please update translations. Helder 16:49, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Update of the Meta page done by me. Could a local sysop please look into whether importing the meta talk page is considered useful? --MF-Warburg (talk) 16:59, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Well I wanted to comment on one of the existing topics (that "label" is missing and the anchor #Languageattribute-label is broken), but since the content is now here I didn't do it on Meta, but would prefer not to create a duplicate topic here. Helder 17:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Translation administrators

Simple proposal: Let all admins be in this group if they want to, without the need for a separate request. If we can trust people to delete and block, I think that we can trust them to mark pages for translation. It's silly that these rights aren't just included with admin by default. Ajraddatz (talk) 16:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Labels and Descriptions Task Force

To make sure that labels and descriptions of all items are filled in, we need to systematically check all pages for these labels and descriptions and add the missing ones in the four mayor languages. To prevent double work I created Wikidata:Labels and Descriptions Task Force where we can mention which part is done already. Please help to make the pages multilingual. Greetings - Romaine (talk) 00:21, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure that labels and descriptions are needed at all? My experience is, that looking into a wp-link is enough to understand an item. --Goldzahn (talk) 02:19, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
In the past 9 years that I am active I have the opposite experience: besides the many obvious ones, there are also a lot of pages which aren't that obvious. Especially when you are solving interwiki conflicts, the page title is often not enough to solve it. Also I noticed theseach function often doesn't show items when they have no title/description. Romaine (talk) 03:10, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
My first edit was in 2004, so I´m not as experienced as you. About interwiki conflicts. I have already seen some, but the problem was in Wikipedia and so the label and the description doesn´t help. About the search function. I guess, you are speaking about Special:ItemByTitle My impression is, that it doesn´t look for the label, but for an entry. For example, Q898 has no german title, but you could find this item by typing Omsk in Special:ItemByTitle. --Goldzahn (talk) 03:54, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I think labels can be snatched from sitelinks, possibly with a script if we can find a simple solution. Descriptions could be partly automated with the translation extension, especially if we could get some of the special pages to work for missing labels and descriptions across languages and across entities. Jeblad (talk) 12:15, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Keep in mind that the labels and descriptions are meant to be used for disambiguation cases. I really talked about the search function, that is the tool that many many users will use as that function is on top of every page. When I used both the search and the ItemByTitle function, the first one didn't gave the result of what I search while the subject was existing (as ItemByTitle told me) because the item didn't had any label and description. But I think creating descriptions can be automated: we need a script/tool/special page which can select items based on a category on a local wiki. Romaine (talk) 01:11, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
I started the task force for the Spanish language, but I soon noticed that almost every item has no label, so there's a huge task ahead for the Spanish language. My question is, is it absolutely necessary to manually add the label and aliases? If bots are to take the task in the (near) future, what's the point to waste such an enormous amount of human resources? Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 12:25, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Actually, Korean community plans bot editing. But it is not all data, just including year(2012, 1990, etc..), date, templates, categories. Of course, if Wikidata permits bot using. --Sotiale (talk) 12:16, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Taxonomic names

Hi,

re: taxonomic names of organisms, like "Gorilla beringei graueri" for Eastern lowland gorilla and all other species. I added some of them as English aliases, but i think it may be better to treat them differently. Actually they are not aliases in the English language like the vernacular name, but rather more like a separate language. In Wiktionary we treat them as language code "mul" (Translingual).(wikt:Homo sapiens) Could we add a special language for them? Then they would be special labels. Or alternatively we could just use them as the default label in all languages and then all vernacular names would just be aliases. Hmm, i like to have them somewhere obvious one way or another because they are very useful to eliminate ambiguity in translations. Also i would like to link to Wikispecies and Wiktionary as both have taxonomic name pages as well. Thoughts? Mutante (talk) 16:16, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Why not use latin language code for this purpose? Torsch (talk) 18:02, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Two problems
  1. The la label is not the same as the taxonomic name (e.g. for Lion, Q140 is la:"Leo" vs. "Panthera leo")
  2. The point is that the taxonomic name is not just a label, it's a sort-of property that's shared between languages. Something to consider ahead of phase 2.
Jdforrester (talk) 18:26, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Meant this at latin translation. Conny (talk) 21:44, 4 November 2012 (UTC).
Yeah, but Latin != ICZN. Also see this discussion. Mutante (talk) 23:22, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
You have to keep in mind that in some Wikipedias taxonomic names are used as the title for the article. The reason is that there are lots of cases where a single name corresponds to several species of animals or plants, and not always all of the species have specific common names. Also, common names differ depending on the place of the world inside a same language. For example, avocado (Persea americana) is known in Spanish as aguacate, palta, cura, avocado or abacate depending on the region, and there is no special reason to prefer one name over the rest. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 13:42, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

On Wikidata main page we have links/logos to sister projects, but on main pages of sister projects Wikidata don't exist. Could we change it? I added Wikidata on pl Wikipedia main page. I hope, that community accept that change. BTW - does anybody know prefix of Wikidata? wd:/data: don't work. Przykuta (talk) 14:54, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Tio ĉi estas bonn koncepton. Mi favoras:) Marek Mazurkiewicz (talk) 15:00, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I didn't find any prefix at w:en:Special:Interwiki. So I think this still needs to be set up. Helder 01:09, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
“that'll happen, but not yet” — Arkanosis ✉ 14:46, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
The prefix for wikidata is d: and it has been set up.--Snaevar (talk) 12:53, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Why does it points to en.wikidata.org when used on enwiki instead of always being www.wikidata.org? (on ptwiki it links to pt.wikidata.org) Helder 15:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
As far as I know, that is done to display wikidata in the language of the wikipedia you are coming from. Note that this will not override the users language setting in the ULS (Universal Language Selector). In the future, it will also be possible to link to an item with an specific title (for example an d:Helium link from en.wiki would link to Q560). See meta:Wikidata/Notes/URI scheme for details.--Snaevar (talk) 19:41, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Adding the patrol right to the autopatrolled group

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Obvious consensus as none of the people here opposed to the proposal. Bug is filled on bugzilla --Wiki13 (talk) 20:58, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi everyone,

The autopatrolled group is currently associated with the autopatrol right only (see Special:ListGroupRights). It means that users in this group have their contributions marked as read automatically.

I suggest we add the patrol right to this group as well (which is currently available to sysops only). It means that autopatrolled users would see which contributions have not yet been marked as read, and would be able to mark them as read if appropriate.

We've done that on the French Wikipedia a few years ago (in 2009, if I remember well), and as far as I know, we've never had any reason to regret it since then: more trusted users are able to check unread contributions and to mark them as read.

Do you support this proposal? Thanks!

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Proposed changes to interface pages

I do not believe the following proposed changes will be controversial, but I'm posting here just in case.

  1. MediaWiki:Talkpagelinktext: "Talk"→"talk", capital is unnecessary and this is the custom on other Wikimedia wikis in English (including Meta and the English Wikipedia). This is what you see on your watchlist, logs, Special:RecentChanges, and Special:ListUsers; under this change you would see Example (talk|contribs) instead of Example (Talk|contribs).
  2. MediaWiki:Globalblocking-ipblocked: Replace "all wikis" with "all Wikimedia wikis". This is the notice shown to users editing from IP addresses which are globally blocked.
  3. MediaWiki:Grouppage-checkuser: Change to m:CheckUser policy until we are in need of our own policy. This is what is linked to in the error message when someone tries to go to Special:CheckUser.
  4. MediaWiki:Group-checkuser: Change to CheckUsers, per the capitalization normally used. Is the title of this group in Special:ListUsers, Special:ListGroupRights, and the error message when trying to go to Special:CheckUser.

--Jasper Deng (talk) 07:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

If you asking for an opinion; support as the changes would be changing things to how they are normally (usually) or to improve the wiki. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 07:32, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
I think it's a good idea to standardize this thing with other wikis, so if there aren't opposition to this proposals, I will make the changes tonight or tomorrow morning. Restu20 10:57, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
I agree to these things. Raoli (talk) 17:15, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

please added autoedit translation

MediaWiki talk:Gadget-autoEdit.js#Translation --DangSunM (talk) 16:19, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

DoneY Done Can you check if everything is ok? Restu20 16:30, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
yeah, evrything is okay, Thank's alot!!!!-- DangSunM (T · C) 20:54, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Enabling RL for gadgets

See MediaWiki talk:Gadgets-definition#Enable Resource Loader. Helder 23:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Autobiographies

I just saw the creation of Q50569 which looks like an autobiography. I am unsure of how appropriate it is; on one hand we don't have guidelines on what to include, but on the other hand this is of questionable verifiability and is probably too much personal information. Since we have no policy on this yet, I'm seeking comment here.--Jasper Deng (talk) 03:57, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I think that during Phase 1 we should limit items to those that have an article on at least one Wikipedia. In later phases, we can broaden it and make proper inclusion criteria. --Yair rand (talk) 04:45, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
I had a Google search around for this and found the Vietnamese Wikipedia sandbox vi:Wikipedia:Chỗ thử having similar content with a reference to Facebook, so it's probably not anybody worth note and we can delete the entry. Other Google search results don't pull back anyone by that exact name other than a Google+ account, I think. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 04:47, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
It should be removed, because the article about this item is not in any Wikipedia. --Stryn (talk) 10:36, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Proposed guideline: Wikidata:Notability

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Moved to Wikidata:Requests for comment/Notability. Zanka (talk) 19:43, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Since the above thread (Wikidata:Project chat#Autobiographies) brings up that we have no way to deal with such an issue yet, we probably need to draft or adopt a general notability guideline until a more thought-out, detailed one can be agreed upon. We have no measure of notability on the inclusion of a Q* entry. For the beginning phases of the project. We I think we can agree upon something simple:

  • As a general measure of notability for article namespace content, a Q* data entry should have at least one interwiki linking back to any language Wikipedia project to gauge notability.
  • If the local Wikipedia entry is deleted, merged or otherwise no longer exists as an individual article after the creation of the Wikidata entry, the data entry can be listed at Wikidata:Requests for deletion.

Again, this should just be a temporary measure until we make proper inclusion criteria. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 05:26, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

  • I wouldn't anticipate many occurrences of this, since most Wikipedia artcles that would be deleted probably wouldn't be brought over here to begin with. Assuming that they are though, and if we can identify which Q* page it was at before, it can be restored if it was the same topic. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 15:40, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Support, ATM we don't need any items where is not links. --Stryn (talk) 10:39, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Support, as a temporary measure. In the future links to the Universal Authority File and ISBN will imho result in a change of the notability guideline and the way Wikidata works. @Justincheng12345: I think restoring the old item no. would be the best way. --Kolja21 (talk) 11:25, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Support per above. --Sotiale (talk) 12:28, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Support as an rule for items. Having those rules for properties (phase II content) won't work. But then again property data entries will be P*, so it is ok as it is.--Snaevar (talk) 12:31, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Support I agree with all the views already expressed. Raoli (talk) 12:44, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Sounds like a good guideline, and something which we've pretty much been doing already. Ajraddatz (talk) 13:46, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Support seems a good idea. Per request by an IP I deleted the page which looked like a (spam) autobiography.--Frigotoni ...i'm here; 14:19, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Neutral per Jeblad --Morten Haan (talk) 15:06, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Support at least for now (in agreement with Jeblad): In the future, someone will want to create items about notable topics that don't have pages on Wikipedia, and will add the correct "infobox" information for them. Should we allow pages like that? They may in fact be more notable than German autobahn #XYZ is, but Wikipedians haven't yet created an article on this topic. In reply to Justincheng12345: that's a very good question, but I have no idea how to handle this. πr2 (t • c) 15:17, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Support at the moment this is the best thing to do. Restu20 16:26, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Neutral - Although I agree with the concept of notability on Wikipedias, ATM I'm neutral on this subject on Wikidata, we are in the infancy of this project and the development is ongoing, evolving and there are too many unanswered questions on how these datas will be used in the future, will it only be used on Wikipedias or also on wikis or projects that don't necessarily use notability, will the data be only used on infobox or can it be used inline on an article. I believe that data here is not necessarily useless if it don't have it's own article on a Wikipedia, that data can still be useful inline in an article even if that subject can't pass notabilty but important enough to be included as part of an article. What if an editor wants to create the data here first prior to creating an article on Wikipidia, do we hastily delete that entry too because it's not link to a Wikipedia (a tagging system may useful on this scenario to allow an editor some time to create the article to link to)? Just some thoughts.--Lam-ang (talk) 16:56, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Neutral. My reasoning (from Wikidata talk:Notability; didn't know this thread had been started here:
    This currently says that Wikidata should only have entries for entities that have a Wikipedia article (in at least one language). I think this is the wrong focus for Wikidata for a few reasons:
    1. Wikipedias and Wikidata have different needs; human-readable text should cover "enough" to be read usefully, so the topic cannot be small, but machine-readable data must be "precise", so topics cannot be aggregated as is common on Wikipedias.
    2. Wikipedias and Wikidata have different aims; though Wikipedias are building human-readable text, we at Wikidata are creating machine-readable data. That means that rules about "notability" apply differently here than on Wikipedias.
    3. Wikidata is its own project; though we want to serve the Wikipedias and other Wikimedia projects, Wikidata is a project in our own right and we should determine values for the project ourselves, and not follow blindly the decisions of the various Wikipedias.
    4. "Notability" is a very messy criterion; lots of our projects have struggled with having an objective measure for this and I worry about trying to come up with one here.
    For example, no Wikipedia currently has a seperate article for the city "Washington, D.C." (Q61) as opposed to the land "District of Colombia" (Q8705), but data about cities (e.g. current Mayor) and land (e.g. geology) are different and we would want to attach the different data elements to the right one. That doesn't mean that we are wrong, or that the various Wikipedias are wrong - we are working on different things, and so we shouldn't be surprised that we have different results. Instead, we should focus on what we want to achieve first, and then come up with some rules (probably about 'utility' rather than 'notability') after that.
    Finally, I'd suggest that this go to Wikidata:Requests for comment before any more is written up here).
    James F. (talk) 17:10, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
    I guess it would be clearer to move this section to a request for Comment, rather than creating a RfD from scratch. --Zolo (talk) 18:15, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Support temporary restricting item creation to topics, and also support accepting anything that has a Wikipedia page - with a few pre-definable exceptions like disambiguation pages. But there can be many reasons why something does not have a Wikipedia article, it does not have to be related with notability. So Wikidata:Acceptable items, or any more elegant phrasing I cannot think of ?--Zolo (talk) 18:15, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

language switching turned off for anonymous users

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 42186

Heya folks,

We unfortunately had to switch off language switching for anonymous users because of caching issues and people seeing random languages on wikidata.org because of it. It still works for logged-in users. We're working on getting it back for anonymous users too. You can follow https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42186 for the progress. Sorry for that. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:07, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Add mk text for 'Project chat'

Hello. Can somebody add MediaWiki talk:Villagepump/mk and MediaWiki talk:Villagepump-url/mk in their proper place, so that we may have „Project chat“ displayed in Macedonian? Thanks a lot --B. Jankuloski (talk) 02:35, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Done. Ajraddatz (talk) 02:45, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Cheers! --B. Jankuloski (talk) 03:03, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Admin: Please fix

Hi there — could someone correct this edit to make the footer edit counter links function correctly again? The database was changed to MetaWiki. (Just change the wiki back to wikidatawiki_p.) Thanks, Theopolisme (talk) 17:12, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

✓ Done sorry --Bene* (talk) 17:16, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Broken interwiki of Wikidata

FYI: the d: interwiki prefix of Wikidata has recently been removed. Should you have used it in any other wiki to link to here, it needs to be owerwritten now to wikidata: or else it will be redlink. Bináris (talk) 15:35, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

And now it has been restored. Both d: and wikidata: work right now.--Snaevar (talk) 17:39, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Writing style in descriptions

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
See Wikidata:Project chat#Help:Description above. --Zanka (talk) 21:29, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Are there any style guidelines for descriptions? At least it should have a consistent style if possible. Here is my proposition. Its intended to be a draft. And as I am not a native English speaker I'd be glad to get some feedback--Shisma (talk) 20:07, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Bad Good Why
Vaiano

an italian comune

Vaiano

An italian comune.

The Description should be treated as a complete sentence with. Capitalization and punctuation should follow the rules of the language. For English this means starting the sentence with a capital letter and end it with a punctuation mark. Write the description like an answer to the question: "What is [thing]?"
Latvia

Latvia is a country in Europe.

Latvia

A country in Europe.

Avoid to mention the name of the thing.
Galaxy

Massive, gravitationally bound system consisting of stars, stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and dark matter.

Galaxy

Celestial object.

Descriptions should be as short as possible. Just enough to distinguish the thing from other things of the same name. Don't simply copy and paste from the Wikipedia.

Earth

The third planet from the Sun (Sol) in the Solar System. Our planet.

Earth

The third planet of the Solar System.

Try not to describe other things connected to the thing if it isn't necessary.

Common name

A common name of a taxon or organism. Also known as a vernacular name.

Common name

A common name of a taxon or organism.

Don't use the description for aliases. Use the alias fields instead.
Quadri

is an italian comune.

Quadri

An italian comune.

Don't consider the Label as a part of the description.
Republic of Macedonia

Country in southeastern Europe. Not to be confused with Macedonia, a region of Greece.

Republic of Macedonia

Country in southeastern Europe.

Don't mention other things of the same or similar name. Just add the other thing as well.
A discussion is alredy started here. --ValterVB (talk) 20:13, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't think descriptions should start with uppercase and have a punctuation mark, because this is a database, not an encyclopedia, and thus there is no need to follow those rules. In fact, I think it's better to have no ending point for string chains to be processed by external webs or programs. "A common name of a taxon or organism" is not valid for Spanish, since in Spanish we are using the taxon name as the label. We are not starting the descriptions with "an" either, so this rule can't be applied for all languages. I agree with the rest of the arguments. Greetings. --Dalton2 (talk) 20:37, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Merging Items

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 38664

I just created a new Item and then found out, that an item for this object already exists. This will likley happen quite often, because if the name for the item you want to add isn't set in you language you wont find it with search, even if the wikipedialink to the Article in you language is already set (This is also an important bug in search). Is/Will the be an possibility to merge them? Today the only solution is to delete one and updated the other – isn't it? -- MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 16:24, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Currently it is not possible to merge items. Just have to delete duplicate. --Stryn (talk) 16:28, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
What's the equivalence of category in this project? Or to put it another way, how can I categorize items? Bennylin (talk) 17:56, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Metadata is being planned as the eqvaluent of an category. But we are not there yet, that will come in phase II.--Snaevar (talk) 13:25, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Little Bug: new paragraph in long description

If you have a long text in description-field and/or an small monitor, the text will be shown on two lines. But between these lines there's not only a linebreak but a new paragraph (more empty space). That's wrong, ugly and hard to read. (I using Chromium 18 on Ubuntu) -- MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 20:15, 7 November 2012 (UTC) PS: better example

I think this bug depends by the setting of CSS line-height Property. Raoli (talk) 20:37, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
You're right. The problem is in lib/resources/wikibase.css at line 177:
.wb-description .wb-value {
  line-height: 2; /* force height to be able to align toolbar */
}
…but I don't understand the comment. Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 22:37, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
But setting this value to 120% (or 20px) the empty space on linebreak should be go back to normal. --Raoli (talk) 23:48, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Our UI wizzzzard is aware of the problem, and says the site will explode if changed. ;) Jeblad (talk) 15:46, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
It'OK, so.. ;) Raoli (talk) 17:46, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Explode how? I tried changing it to 1.2em with firebug and everything seemed fine... --Waldir (talk) 15:02, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Search broken

Hello,

Searching for "Gujarat" and "Madhya Pradesh" produced no results, I decided to create these entries. Then when creating a new label, I got a message saying there is none by this name (No site-link for this item yet.), and then when adding the first interwiki link, I got an error message saying that one already exists by that name. Result: 3 duplicate entries created: Q18145, Q18143, Q18138. :(( This needs to be fixed urgently. Yann (talk) 16:28, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

It's a known problem, a few minutes ago I created an item for skycraper but it was already created. We need something like Special:ItemByInterwiki, I thing that would help. --Morten Haan (talk) 16:32, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I have that problem all the time, as I said in a thread above. What I'm doing is taking advantage of the item created and converting it into another one. In fact, what you have in Q18145 is just that, an empty item named Q18145, so it doesn't matter if you created it for a state in India or putherewhatyouwill. Just add another label and another interwiki and done. At present I have no way to know if an item was already created, so sometimes I have to try several times until I find a non-existent entry. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 16:51, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Use Special:ItemByTitle instead of searching. It should work in most cases, though I have found that if the title has an space, it won´t find the item.--Snaevar (talk) 17:02, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
This does not work either. Searching for Ahmedabad does not produce any result, although the page exists: Q1070. Yann (talk) 17:07, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, Snaevar, it works for me. --Dalton2 (talk) 17:33, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Did you tried Site: en, Page: Ahmedabad? --Stryn (talk) 17:50, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Ah OK. This is really not intuitive. :( Yann (talk) 20:06, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I just tried a title with spaces in it and it worked. Does it still have problems for you? If so please give me the title you were trying. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 12:22, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Is there another way to know if an item exists? [8] produces no result, but I would be surprise if it does not exist. Yann (talk) 16:43, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
The call Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/Orissa will return the item if a sitelink for English Wikipedia defines "Orissa". Likewise the Special:ItemDisambiguation/en/Orissa will return all items with "Orissa" in labels and aliases for English language. If that not happens there are bugs in the code. 82.113.99.55 20:32, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
OK, fine. The page didn't exist. Yann (talk) 08:36, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Special:ItemDisambiguation/en/oaxaca doesn't return any results even though Special:ItemDisambiguation/en/Oaxaca does. This is a bit counter-intuitive, especially because capitalisation of labels is somewhat "random" now, as far as I can tell. πr2 (t • c) 16:05, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Another example:
  1. Special:ItemDisambiguation/en/Kerb (UK spelling) no results.
  2. Special:ItemDisambiguation/en/kerb (UK spelling) no results.
    Should ItemDisambig should search for en-gb and en-ca under the same language code as "English"? It's the same language whether you like it or not.
  3. Special:ItemDisambiguation/en/Curb (NA spelling) no results. (capitalised incorrectly)
  4. Special:ItemDisambiguation/en/curb -- this is the only spelling variation that returns any results.
Why not also allow search by alias? πr2 (t • c) 16:12, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Search now really broken?

That you can't find links is a well known problem, but since today I also can't find items by there name! I was searching for Wolf, but didn't find anything - but there are two items named so: Q10571 & Q18498! Some days ago, this seemed to work, have you changed anything? -- MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 22:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Also #Possible bug, #Broken search? --Raoli (talk) 23:49, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Bah. Bad. We're looking into it right now. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 12:27, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
We found the problem. A fix should be live here within the next minutes. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 12:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Case problem

I had a suffer with the above linked special pages (ItemByTeitle &ItemDisambiguation). Both are very much case sensitive which is an explicit handicap for searching and not a good way to avoid duplicates. Try Leonardo Dicaprio or Leonardo diCaprio in either, they won't find the item! Only Leonardo DiCaprio will work. (This item was created by an anon today as a duplicate.) Not to speak about the search engine that doesn't work for any form. Bináris (talk) 16:23, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Fallback languages

We need to get language fallbacks working. This is a mechanism for using strings from other languages when necessary. It is really a whole bunch of problems, but the most important is "how do we chose a replacement language when a label or description (or something else) do not have a string in the chosen one". For example if I chose Icelandic language (one of the Nordic languages) and there is no label for Cosa Nostra, how should the software chose between available languages? The simplest solution seems to be a single language chain for all users of a specific language, but perhaps there is alternaives? Also, will our fallback languages be the same as other projects, like Wikipedia? Jeblad (talk) 23:27, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

If this is feasible, I would love to have a customisable chain. --Zolo (talk) 14:28, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
That would be ideal. Now, most people wouldn't bother setting up that customisable chain, so what about setting it up “lazily” (in the fp sense of the word)?
Scenario: user X wants item Y in language L, but there is no such translation and he has not fallback chain set yet. The system prompts him with the available languages. X chooses available language M and doesn't check the “add this language in my fallback chain” box, because he actually doesn't understand language M well. On another item, he will choose available language N and check the box, as he's learnt N a few years ago. Next time he wants an item that is not available in language L, the system will check if it's available in language N before asking him for which available language to use.
Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 15:13, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
There are two different fallback chains. There is one for cached pages, which should be global and usable for all. There is also one for pages that is not cached, and that can be user specific. We use the first for figuring out the labels on recent changes and other special pages, but if there is a non-anonymous user and a non-cached page we could use a user-specific fallback chain. Jeblad (talk) 15:52, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

We also have to consider the differences between a fallback in Wikidata, which is multilingual, and a client like a specific (e.g. French) Wikipedia. Here is a link to an earlier Notes document on the topic. G.Hagedorn (talk) 13:07, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Item by description

Is there any chance to search Items by description?--CENNOXX (talk) 22:14, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

There is a comment[9] in #Broken search? Jeblad (talk) 22:27, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
thanks, but thats not really what I meant. In this part they talk about searching the description via the normal search. With Special:ItemByTitle you can search just the labels. The Special-Page for a search by description doesn't exist. Or am I wrong?--CENNOXX (talk) 22:41, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Its nothing available for the moment, but it is not impossible to make something. Perhaps something for a volunteer? Jeblad (talk) 22:54, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Why would you want to search by description (but exclude labels, aliases, etc from the search)? Do you want to search for exact matches, or descriptions that contain your search terms?
While it's possible to make something to search by description, I don't see the point. -- Duesentrieb (talk) 21:40, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
If common phrases are reused for similar things within an context. Its like using a phrase instead of simple words as tags. Its also like an ad hoc category. And it makes it possible to detect vandalism because the vandalism will produce an outlier. Jeblad (talk) 21:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Aliases

I think we should have guidelines, so that we know what to include as aliases. I am not very clear can think of the following questionable cases:

  1. Plurals, declensions.
  2. Alternative transliterations of foreign names (for some languages there can be quiet a few)
  3. Names of foreign people in their native language (e.g. name in Arabic script for Arabian people ?)
  4. names that are likely to be also provided as a property of the item (eg. pen name for writers, reign name for Emperors)

I should note that if the answaer is yes to the last three points, people like en:Li Bai will have dozen of aliases, which would not look very pretty. --Zolo (talk) 15:04, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I think declensions should not be included in any case. There are languages which use dozens of those.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:51, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
I'd say: (usually) no Plurals or other grammatical forms. Definitely alternative transliterations, if they are used. Names in foreign/native language: yes, but as aliases for that language, not in yours! And yes, for now also include things that are likely to show up as properties. I like the idea of properties that are automatically also used as aliases, but It's not sure whether we'll ever get this, or when.
In general, include anything that you think people may use to refer to or search for this item. Except misspellings. I'd wait with these until we can flag aliases as "erronous". -- Duesentrieb (talk) 21:36, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Redirects as aliases

I want to collect input if redirects should be added as aliases for automatically created items. On my homewiki dewiki we have only few redirects for every article. Nearly all are valid as alias and removing the few invalid aliases is much less work that manually adding all valid aliases. Merlissimo (talk) 23:07, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

General rule: redirects containing an anchor, having visible categories or are static redirects (marked by a magic word) are excluded. Redirect having only different lower/upper case spelling are only included once.

de
dewiki: all redirect should be used
en
simplewiki: excluded because it contains many invalid redirects
enwiki: exclude redirect which include a template containing "misspelling" or "diacritics" in its name
mk
mkwiki: all redirects excluded because bot Brest-bot automatically added many useless redirects


  • I strongly oppose using redirects as a source of aliases. Almost all of the entries added by MerlIwBot have had incorrect aliases. Clicking a few entries at Special:Contributions/MerlIwBot shows up countless mistakes everywhere. Cleaning these up manually would be completely impossible. We would never be able to have a reasonable level of accuracy if these are used. Checking an alias to make sure that it is accurate or inaccurate is often very difficult to do on a large scale. We would have far more accurate aliases if they were gradually added manually. --Yair rand (talk) 23:17, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
    Removing aliases is a very simple job by just clicking on the X (i think this can be easily done by persons adding the desciption). Finding missing aliases later is complicated and manually adding them causes is much more work than removing. Missing aliases are also a lack of informations. Merlissimo (talk) 23:26, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
    Removing incorrect aliases is not simple. How would you find which are correct and which are incorrect? We could easily (okay, relatively easily) add individual correct aliases over time, as editors. Searching through literally tens of millions of aliases, an enormous amount of which are errors, and leaving only correct ones would be far more difficult. --Yair rand (talk) 23:29, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
    Also, we should not be supplying incorrect data at all. Giving false data is much worse than having some data just unavailable. --Yair rand (talk) 23:31, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
    That depends of your definition of incorrect data. The redirect won't exists if the title is unrelated, but some wikis having much redirects and not all are really needed as alias. Aliases are need to be able to find items by title on wikidata. That is the same reason why nearly all local redirects are created. Merlissimo (talk) 23:47, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Finding out which aliases are wrong is indeed a hard task sometimes (some other times, many other times, not), but I propose the following: if you find it difficult to get to know if an alias is right or wrong, you delete it. If it's clear it's right, you don't delete it. That way you let the bot do the hard work of adding the aliases and you clean everything that might be wrong. That's not so difficult to do. --Dalton2 (talk) 00:06, 12 November 2012 (UTC) P.S: In the es:Wikipedia there are lots of misspellings and diacritics in redirects, and, yes, there are bots adding them. :(
I'm not sure I understand. Wouldn't it pretty much always be the case that the user "finds it difficult to get to know if an alias is right or wrong"? None of us are knowledgable about every topic in Wikipedia. Are you saying we should keep the bot running just so that we'll have the "easier" job of having to only select things as opposed to having to type/copy-paste them?
Since I suppose some might have that view that selecting from a potentially useful list would be easier, I've created User:Yair rand/FindRedirectsForAliases.js, which would allow editors to select correct aliases from the list of redirects and add them, without leaving the alias space across Wikidata a completely inaccurate mess. We shouldn't fill Wikidata with incorrect items just to aid editors in pulling up correct ones. Anyway, I doubt anyone is ever going to look through MerlIwBot‎'s 10000 (and soon probably to be hundreds of times that many) created items in an endless amount of languages and manually check every alias. --Yair rand (talk) 05:20, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
That's good; I have just installed it. I copied the script to a subpage of my user page and translated it into Spanish. If you are planning to make the script multilingual, please let me know and I'll send you the translation. --Dalton2 (talk) 06:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure but I think it is better to manually add aliases from an autogenerated list then to remove erroneous entries made automatically. Jeblad (talk) 13:02, 12 November 2012 (UTC) (…still out thinking about this one!)
hu
huwiki: rather not, there are a lot of redirects that don't represent a valid alias name. Bináris (talk) 19:32, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Using redirects as aliases is ridiculous when it comes to things like this: Q23548. I don't think they should be added. A majority aren't other words for NASA, but things related to NASA that don't have their own article on en.wikipedia. Del♉sion23 (talk) 22:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

How to detect valid aliases

So far the discussion has been rather much for and against use of redirects to seed the aliases, bu is there anybody that has ideas for how we can figure out what is valid aliases from all the redirects? Jeblad (talk) 20:02, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that it's impossible. Users add millions of redirects, without adding any sort of information indicating whether it would be valid as an alias on Wikidata. We might be able to narrow it down a bit by looking for words also shown in bold in the article lead, but that wouldn't be really reliable either. --Yair rand (talk) 21:29, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Possibility to add description in more than one language

Good day, the only way I've found to add a description in an other language is to choose a different language in my preferences, which is pretty unproductive. I think there should be a way to select a language on every entry to add translation for the description. Amqui (talk) 04:23, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

You can use Jitrixis's LabelLister to do that. It's available as a gadget. --Yair rand (talk) 04:27, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
It should be implemented by default in my opinion. Amqui (talk) 04:38, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Agree. Bináris (talk) 05:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

So, should I fill a bug to have this enhancement? Amqui (talk) 04:12, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Page sections

Hello, I was just wondering whether we should allow sitelinks to page sections. If not, then slurpInterwiki may have a minor issue:

Earlier today I was adding interwikis to the page about "Latin grammar" (Q27716) but the frwiki interwiki went to a section of a page which was already used on another item (Q397, the page about "Latin" itself). I ended up removing the link from the "Latin" page, slurping the interwikis on "Latin grammar" and cleaning up the frwiki links. ([10], [11]) Sorry if I'm not making myself very clear, but I was perplexed by this situation at first (I didn't realize the link went to a section). Maybe something should be done about this? πr2 (t • c) 04:40, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Confirming this as I encountered a similar issue earlier. I believe it is not technically possible to have two of the same links pointing to an article, so perhaps the slurpInterwiki script should add a fix to avoid adding such links, at least for now? --Hydriz (talk) 10:50, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, the slurpInterwiki script should avoid adding such links.--Snaevar (talk) 11:35, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Should we allow links like en:Freenode#Rob_Levin (Q49815)? Just removed this sitelink, prevents creation of items about Freenode in English. πr2 (t • c) 20:17, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

No. Section links are not recommended, even on Wikipedia, and certainly not here. --Stryn (talk) 20:28, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Translation of the titles

Some items have no article in the English or German version of Wikipedia: Are there rules for the translation? I would like to note what kind of translation I add (officially, literally etc.) --Media watch (talk) 05:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Normally, I think that you should add the same kind of translation you'd use for a new article in Wikipedia based on a translation of the original one, but without further explanations between brackets, which should go to the description box. --Dalton2 (talk) 05:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Limits of an item

I found the item Q36551 which is about a basketball team in Italy. Its name is Pallacanestro Varese, but it was named Ignis Varese and Mobilgirgi Varese before. In Wikipedia these names are treated as synonyms, and they are put as redirects, but, is that rule valid for Wikidata? Is an item limited in space and time? In other words, should Ignis Varese and Mobilgirgi Varese be added as aliases? Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 05:22, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I think it depends on whether people still refer to it by its old names. On Wikipedia, editors would assume that someone searching for the former name of something would probably be most likely to find what they want in the target article, probably in the "Names" or "History" section. Here, the former name of something could well refer to a historical entity. We might at some point include data for what things were called when (or maybe call the old versions "predecessors"), but for aliases, we should probably just add those that are still used to properly refer to the entity. --Yair rand (talk) 05:28, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Think of aliases as cheap redirects that are included during automatic disambiguation. We don't have to be careful to avoid name conflicts. Jeblad (talk) 21:13, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
It's good that aliases act as redirects, and I think that many times it's a good option in lack of a fuzzy search engine, but I find it's not aesthetic to have a 4-line section of aliases full of misspelings, and maybe that's the reason why so many people complain. In Wikipedia redirects are hidden and they don't bother, but here in Wikidata aliases are visible and right on the top of the page. I think that, in case we accept misspellings, at least they should be in a second plane. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 01:39, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't think we in general should accept misspellings. Jeblad (talk) 02:34, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
But here somebody thought we may accept them. This topic should be discussed, and my position is against the use of misspellings too, because in the future a fuzzy search engine can solve that problem. --Dalton2 (talk) 04:16, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
I also don't think we should accept misspellings as aliases. All aliases should be names actually used to refer to the item. --Yair rand (talk) 04:26, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
The actual passage does not yous should use them, it says you could use them. The full paragraph reads "Besides the labels, items can have also further aliases which provide alternative names for an item to be found. "George H. W. Bush" might also be found under "George Bush", and so might his son. Aliases are meant to offer the user search convenience, much like redirects on Wikipedia, and thus even popular misspellings may be used as aliases." Jeblad (talk) 09:20, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

doubles in "Also known as:"

Am I right, that identical content in "Also known as:" over different languages makes no sense? For example abbreviations or short words (ANOVA for Q42297)? Conny (talk) 09:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC).

I think that abbreviations makes sense for search engines, as it is hard for them to guess that USA can be an abbervation of United States of America, but that HSS may mean Home Security Store, but probably not History of Sesame Street. However I do not think it makes sense to exactly duplicte the label in the aliases, as appears to be currently possible. Is that a bug ? --Zolo (talk) 11:39, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
In every language the same abbreviation? Is it senseful to have a abbervation "language" to prevent redundancy? Maybe a Also known field for all languages is better? Conny (talk) 20:06, 13 November 2012 (UTC).
Aliases are language specific, like labels and descriptions. Or really they are cultural phenomenons that by accident is approx the same as the language. Later on abbreviations will probably be added as a statement, but that is Phase II. Jeblad (talk) 21:18, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Language-independent default aliases would make things for many things that have a canonical name, like companies, or for (as discussed above) formal species names. I'd like to see this implemented. -- Duesentrieb (talk) 21:22, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
For many languages, it would be even more useful, if some language-independent aliases could be transliterated. Any chance to use something like MW:Extension:Transliterator, or should we rather let bots add transliterations as standard aliases ? --Zolo (talk) 09:29, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Genre and number in Also known as

I see there is a little problem in the Spanish pages. The title of the section for the aliases is "Also known as" in English, and it was translated as "También conocido como" in Spanish. The problem is that in English genre and number are not implicit in the participle "known", but they are in Spanish, so, for a female noun, it should be "También conocida como", and for plural nouns, it should be "También conocidos como" and "También conocidas como". An example is in Q15897, where the result is, to make you understand the point, something like: "Amy Winehouse: He's also known as Amy Jade Winehouse". I guess that this problem occurs in other languages too, and I think that a simple solution could be to change the literal translation to something like "Alias" (which is the same for singular and plural in Spanish), but I'm not sure is that solution is possible in other languages. Any ideas? --Dalton2 (talk) 15:06, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

You can change translation at translatewiki:MediaWiki:Wikibase-aliases-label/es. I think plural support should be added by developers for this message. After this is done according to you the message has to be changed to
{{plural:$1|También conocida como|También conocidos como}}
Merlissimo (talk) 15:22, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for the link. I'll change the text to something neutral. But, in case that your suggestion is implemented, how should genre and number information be included in the item? I think it should be something easy aimed at people with no technical experience at all. --Dalton2 (talk) 15:37, 13 November 2012 (UTC) P.S: As you can see here, Spanish dictionaries denote genre and number in the definitions (see f. for female and pl. for plural).
I don't think the genre/number info can be maintained in the item - it would need different valuers for different languages, and may even differ for terms ion the same language. This would be a mess and sometimes misleading.
Eventually, it will become possible to annotate labels with things like an IPA pronunciation - then, grammatical info such as genre could also be included. But I don't see any good short term solution.
How is something like this solved in printed forms? Could you live with an ugly-but-simple "conocido/conocida", or whatever other solution is popular in your language? -- Duesentrieb (talk) 21:19, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
I think this message should be neutral to gender and plural, otherwise this could be real messy… Jeblad (talk) 21:23, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Of course I can live with an ugly solution, but it's not about me. I was thinking about the future of Wikidata, when others proyects like wiktionary might be added, and in such scenario genre and number matter. Nonetheless I've been thinking about it and I suppose that the best (and natural) solution is to have additional items for that purpose; for example, there can be an item about "water" as the physical entity and another item about "water" as the noun, each of them with its own properties. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 00:45, 14 November 2012 (UTC) P.S: I changed the text to "Alias y nombres alternativos" (nicknames and alternative names). It's not neutral to number, but it's the best I could think about. I hope that the Spanish community grows and more ideas are given.

Watch/Stalk channel

Hello, yesterday the channel #wikimedia-wikidata-adminsconnect (I know, long name) was created after a discussion was made with User:John Erling Blad (WMDE). In the channel, we currently have a bot running (run by AlexJFox). The bot acts as a recent changes bot that sends messages into the channel if certain pages are edited. Currently the pages are;

Currently the bot is in beta and the channel is not official (which is why I am making this request for comment). The channel would be an admin only channel if the channel name is not changed. (invite only, special access list.) Before made official, it would be nice to get some consensus on if the title should be changed to something else or if non-admins would be allowed in the channel. It should be noted that this is not a channel that is exactly needed (nor am I trying to make it sound like it is) but this would serve as a bonus to administrators. Channel access will be given fully to Barras and PeterSymonds (and wmfgc). -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 15:48, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I was asked on IRC about the bot and gave my point of view as an ordinary user. The decision on the channel itself and if the bot is appropriate is up to the community. My personal opinion is that the bot is A good thing™ but a closed channel is not. Jeblad (talk) 21:37, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
After looking into this further, you're right, a closed channel wouldn't be the best. Since the original idea has changed so much (one page, deletions, admin only) to more pages and now to being open to everyone. The channel is being/has been moved to #wikimedia-wikidata-rcconnect. Name is nice and short this way, rc= recent changes. Admins will be be voiced to help identify. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 00:04, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for opening to more people. I'm not fond of closed chans, closed mailing-lists, closed wikis… It's against transparency and it does not encourage contribution. Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 00:46, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
  • As I've been memo'ed: I don't really care about the naming of a channel. It is important to have it in our namespace, which it is. I don't really care if it is #wikidata-admins, or #wikimedia-wikidata-admins, we own both namespaces. If you want an RC/countervandalism channel, that can also be done easily (and preferable) in #cvn-* namespace. This is also not really a problem. Regards, -Barras (talk) 07:43, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
  • An admin-only channel sounds silly, as does voicing admins in the -rc channel. The bot is a great idea, though, and it would be great to have a full CVN channel for wikidata. Ajraddatz (talk) 02:59, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Okay, nice to hear. So far it being an admin channel is out of the picture. I think a CVN channel for wikidata could be workable, but that would involve getting modifications done to a bot. Of course since pages are created with some or no content and then a minute later wikilinks are added, the only thing that would be targeted to watch by a CVN bot would be bad words, edit summaries and addition of possible spam. (if short pages were watched, we would be flooded) -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 04:02, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Empty items / repurposing deleted items

If someone empties an item, it would be helpful to make a redirect or a Request for deletion. If Ana Ivanovic (Q42345), a Serbian female tennis player, turns into the American science fiction magazine Analog Science Fiction and Fact linking to Wikidata will be like playing roulette. --Media watch (talk) 16:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Items should not be repurposed unless the original author immediately catches the error and repurposes it on the spot. If it's been under one name for more than an hour, it's better to delete than to repurpose. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:26, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
What Sven said, if the author catches it and repurposes it quickly, then it would probably be okay. If it was linked somewhere from "what links here" or it's been a while, it's probably better to RFD. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 21:17, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

See the talk above, #Recycle pages instead of deleting. Bináris (talk) 07:09, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

autoEdit and SlurpInterwiki

As you know, autoEdit and SlurpInterwiki have a common feature, that is to automatically add labels to the items. But I think they should be coordinated, since they don't add the same labels, so somebody who comes later may think that it's yet complete, when it's not. See this and, later, this. Or this and this. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 18:48, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree. The tools should be uniformed or maybe a script containing both functions would be better. --Bene* (talk) 18:57, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
I use only SlurpInterwiki, because it does both at the same time. --Stryn (talk) 19:05, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Autoedit is better at labelling as it adds the label to Candian and British English as well as generic English. If they could be combined into one it would be simpler though if the two features retained all of their positives. Del♉sion23 (talk) 19:29, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
I wouldn't say that autoEdit "is better", since slurpInterwiki adds de-formal and chinese variants. See here. I think that right now both should be used to get the optimal result. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 19:32, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Ahh so it does! A combination would be very useful in that case to save editor time and optimise labelling. Maybe also the combined version could add the Brazilian Portuguese along with the generic Portuguese too? Del♉sion23 (talk) 19:37, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
slurpInterwiki already add en-gb, en-ca, de-formal, zh variants and pt-br. example. Tpt (talk) 19:42, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Just as long as they're done right, does it matter how they're done? Some people like some tools more than others, for reasons we might never discover, or might discover and find irrational. Sven Manguard Wha? 19:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Adding de-formal isn't needed. It is always the same as de and fallback will show correct labels when this feature is live. I added de-ch to autoEdits which is different in few cases. Merlissimo (talk) 20:09, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
And... FindRedirectsForAliases. I agree with Dalton: we wil be able to get the optimal result combining this three tools. Why not? Raoli (talk) 20:12, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I've removed de-formal and add de-ch to slurpInterwiki as suggested by Merlissimo. Tpt (talk) 20:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd suggest to add variants only if the value for the variant is actually different from the value for the base language. We'll have language fallback soon enough, and maintaining redundant lables can become cumbersome. -- Duesentrieb (talk) 21:12, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

What about be-x-old? --Zanka (talk) 21:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
be-x-old is no language currently used on wikipedia projects. It is the former code of be-tarask. be-x-oldwiki and some other wikis like alswiki (code: gsw) are using a language codes that are different to their subdomains. Merlissimo (talk) 21:25, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
But the be-tarask Wikipedia entry does not exist, and the be-x-old exists and has a lot of articles. I do not understand why these articles can not be referenced from wikidata. --Art-top (talk) 21:53, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Simplified/Traditional Chinese characters are not considered. Simplified Chinese is used in zh-cn and zh-sg and Traditional Chinese is used in zh-tw and zh-hk. -- ChongDae (talk) 01:19, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Archive

I began to archive some old discussions from this page, because it is getting very long and slow to load. But the task was boring, so I gave up. I think we need an archiving bot on this wiki - it only needs to be active on this page, but it would perform a useful service. This, that and the other (talk) 00:29, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

There are some scripts on other wikis to make archiving easier, I think. We might also want to consider splitting this page into multiple discussion rooms. --Yair rand (talk) 01:08, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, I've offered to run an archive bot since October, and I have not as yet been approved to do so. I agree, it would be quite a useful task.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  02:57, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
I think certainly while the project is still establishing itself, one discussion venue is the best solution, so everyone can keep track of all the discussions. Fairly aggressive archiving (a week of no replies, perhaps) is needed while there is such high traffic and activity here.
We have so many duplicate themes here that at least all discussions finished with "see #..." should be archivated (manually, of course). As well as all discussions related to task forces (there is special page for them and everyone who wants could check updates on that page, not here). And I hardly believe that all discussions related to basic principles (item labels, descriptions, categories and so on should be redirected to special page that we also already have). I could do all mentioned above if people agree, at least I'll start with archiving, not redirecting. --Zanka (talk) 17:30, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Above, it is suggested that bot approvals be put on hold, but I think an archive bot for this page (and this page only) should be excepted from a blanket suspension on bot approvals. 124.170.4.67 07:35, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes archiving bots are not covered by the above request for stopping bots. (And as I already mentioned I'd love to have a bot do archiving on the conact the dev team page.) --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 09:37, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Soon we'll need specialized village pumps. Bináris (talk) 10:13, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Also, an archive bot would be great... but what would be even better is some admins who can run through this page and remove the finished discussions. I'll have time to do some of that tomorrow, but if more people could help it would be great. Ajraddatz (talk) 02:57, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Description text should have single line-spacing

See Q8497 for an example. Since there isn't a hard limit on the length of descriptions, those spanning more than one line should be properly displayed. Specifically, in the CSS 

.wb-ui-descriptionedittool .wb-value {
    line-height: 2em;
}

, line-height should be changed to something like 1.2em. --Waldir (talk) 14:25, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

See #Little Bug: new paragraph in long description. --Stryn (talk) 14:30, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Oh, ok, thanks. I'll comment there. --Waldir (talk) 15:01, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Non-constant values

I've been thinking about the possibility to include dictionary words in Wikidata in the future. Physical entities are always the same regardless the language we use, so a "ship" is a ship in English, German and Korean, and the population of New Delhi according to certain source is also the same in any language we use. But it's different when we are dealing with the language itself. For example, a ship is a female noun in English, but it's a male noun in Spanish or it may even have no gender in some other language. Also, words have different meanings or nuances between different languages. My question is, is Wikidata prepared for such eventuality or it will never be suitable for word definitions? Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 15:25, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Wiktionary takes a given written representation of a word and then specifies which languages it is found in and then, within that language, its linguistic features and the concepts it represents. Doing it in the other direction, starting with the concept and then specifying what words it represents, sounds tricky, but it's been done in other projects like Omegawiki and unified Wordnets, and WT does it in a messy way with its translations sections. Since as far as I can tell Wikidata is about centralizing the data already on other Wikimedia projects, importing WT's data would require taking WT's approach. Wiktionary puts a lot of data in its templates, and that sort of thing lends itself naturally to Wikidata. That data is about linguistic categories, not concepts of meaning denoted by the words, and unfortunately Wiktionary doesn't have neatly templated data about that.
Since we're on the topic, I'd like to mention that there's a separate project underway under the umbrella of the ISO which addresses linguistic categories: [12] --Haplology (talk) 20:10, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Please see meta:Wikidata/Notes/Future#Wiktionary for our plans on supporting linguistic entities on Wikidata. Items are modelled after Wikipedia topics, they are not well suited to represent words. It would be very nice to have support for this, but it will need some additional coding to get this right. -- Duesentrieb (talk) 20:24, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

It would be great to have such a powerful resource, and well coded it could be the source for really incredible things in connection with artificial intelligence, of course in a more or less distant future. I'm excited about this idea. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 21:22, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Authority control

Mockup 1 (click to enlarge)

When we move to storing data about Wikipedia subjects, I think an early win would be authority control IDs (e.g. VIAF, ORCID). I have started a discussion about the use of these in infoboxes, on en.Wikipedia. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:38, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

+1. But not (as priority) ORCID, it's rarely used. Most important would be the en:Universal Authority File (GND), LCCN and VIAF (see de:Hilfe:Normdaten). VIAF is very helpful, but only a collection of authority control data, not the original source. French Wikipedia also uses BNF and SUDOC, Czech Wikipedia NKCR and Japanese Wikipedia NDL and CiNii. --Kolja21 (talk) 19:05, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Definitely sounds like a natural next step. Would we want to just have some sort of neutral location on each Q* where one could select the type of control — be it VIAF, ORCID, NDL, or what have you — and then that would be converted to a link to the auth control page in question? We could then just have as many of these fields as needed for each item. Theopolisme (talk) 22:13, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi Theopolisme, sounds good but what do you mean with "neutral location"? I'm not familiar with the technical possibilities. Is there a place - beside IRC channel and mailing list - where we could follow and discuss the further development? A screenshot would be helpful for non-native English speakers. (BTW: Here's a link to the number of articles already using authority control: Normdatencount. We could add them by bot.) Cheers --Kolja21 (talk) 00:09, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi, sorry — "neutral place" was probably the most unclear term I could have used. I'll whip up a quick mock of (my) general grasp of the idea, one sec. Theopolisme (talk) 00:15, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Here's a very quick mockup (see right). Theopolisme (talk) 02:29, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
That looks perfect! Is it possible to integrate the parameter "TYP" (de:Vorlage:Normdaten), so it will read "Authority control (person): ..." or "Authority control (place): ..."? For machines it's not important, but for a human reader this info is essential if the item has less common titles like "Peter Smith" and "London". BTW: Since Wikidata itself is a form of authority control imho the item ID should been shown on the screen (somewhere close to the title). --Kolja21 (talk) 03:13, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
ORCID is very new, but over 17,000 people have registered for one already. Looking at the organisations involved, or pledging to support it, it;s clear its use is going to be widespread. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:42, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Note that we also hold authority control on Commons: commons:Template:Authority control. Jean-Frédéric (talk) 11:16, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Kolja21: I don't know if it would be possible or not — might be worthwhile to ask the devs about its feasibility. Theopolisme (talk) 11:56, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Good idea. Done: Wikidata:Contact the development team/Archive/2012/11#Authority control. Thanks again for the mockup. --Kolja21 (talk) 13:16, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

A doubt with items about names

I found this item. It is about a name or surname. In English, it is Andrew, but it was translated into several languages and/or connected with its variants, so a series of interwikis with different titles appears. As far as I know, proper names, at least in Spanish, are normally not translatable. Indeed, in the Spanish Wikipedia there is no article pointing to this item, and in turn now there is an item (which I created myself) about the Spanish name Andrés (Q51394) pointing to a Spanish Wikipedia article which contains (in my opinion, incorrect) interwikis that cause conflict. So my question is, is the item [Q389] correct? I think there should be items for every different name in every language, that is, items for Andrew, André, Anders, Andrés, etc. in every language each of them with all sitelinks (interwikis) pointing to an article with identical title. What do you think about this? Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 22:34, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

The interwikis of these articles are very odd. es:Andrew has an interwiki to en:Andrew (disambiguation), en:Andrew has interwikis to many pages that have entirely different sets of interwikis that don't link back, es:Andrés has interwikis mostly to pages titled "Andreas", but es: has its own es:Andreas page... Wow, that's a mess. This brings up another issue: From what I understand, Wikidata items are supposed to be about a single entity, independant of language, and are also supposed to manage Wikipedia interwikis, but it's possible that in certain cases these don't overlap, as some Wikipedias might want interwikis to an "equivalent" article on another Wikipedia, and not one about the same entity. No idea what to do about it... --Yair rand (talk) 23:47, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

In the long run I think Wikidata will lead to a more accurate way of interwiki linking. Right now the disambiguation pages for first names, surnames, places etc. differ strongly. A first step could be defining entities for Wikidata. Items connected to articles with different entities should be marked as "mixed entity". --Kolja21 (talk) 00:30, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

The homonyms, homophones, and heteronyms are always odd in interwikis. In kowp, we made seperate articles for english Charles(/ tʃɑːlz /, ko:찰스) and french Charles(/ʃaʁl/, ko:샤를). But Oakland/Auckland article is an disambiguation page(오클랜드). -- ChongDae (talk) 03:12, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Another example is in taxonomy. There is for example the species Butomus umbellatus which is the only species in the genus Butomus and even the only species in the family Butomaceae. On some wikipedias there is a single article dealing with family, genus and species. On other wikipedias there are 2 or 3 separate articles. For example en:Butomus is named after the genus, but is about all three. Most wikipedias have the article named after the species. Anyway the interwikis are not always pointing at the same subject (as defined by the title), although the content is about the same thing. Taka (talk) 09:12, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Maintenance and categories

In reply to Kolja21's comment in the previous thread, I say: Yes, it would be useful to have space in items for some internal content, not usable as valid database information, but as an aid for editors. What I have in mind is something similar to the <!-- --> but visible without accessing the code and only for users who request to have it visible. And there also could be normalized content, intended to establish groups of known problems with sitelinks or whatever. As I'm writing this I realize that this could be achieved simply by allowing categories to be used in the main namespace. Will they be allowed in the future? They may be a perfect solution for maintenance. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 01:24, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

We will use metadata instead of categories in the main namespace. That option will be available in phase II.--Snaevar (talk) 01:53, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
A nitpick that may prove important: item properties in phase II will be data (about topics), not metadata (data about data). There is currently no good place for meta-information about data-items except the item's talk page. -- Duesentrieb (talk) 20:28, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Prevent spam to descriptions

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 42064

Can we please prevent spam to descriptions ?

Wikidata demo repository is allready being spammed and I think it's just a matter of time when the same will happen here aswell.--Snaevar (talk) 02:10, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

First, we need AbuseFilter to be able to examine Wikidata edits; I think that's quite urgent.--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:25, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
There is a bug about this, see Bug 42064 - Make AbuseFilter aware of Wikibase content models. Jeblad (talk) 05:03, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Labels in German

Unfortunately it's the rule in German Wikipedia to write the title of an article (the "Lemma") in the original language and only to create a redirect with the German name. Indeed there are a lot of articles you will not even find the German translation in the text. So in Wikidata the German "translation" of New York City is "New York City", although the correct term is "New York" or "New York (Stadt)". Any idea how to deal with the problem? --Kolja21 (talk) 12:05, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Though I understand that you don't agree with the naming conventions of German Wikipedia, I fail to see how it's a problem for Wikidata. Though the label is the same as the article's name at the German Wiki, the description field (Stadt an der Ostküste der Vereinigten Staaten) and the aliases (New York City of New York Neuyork The Big Apple ) help disambiguating the terms. Please tell me if I misunderstood something. Syp (talk) 17:10, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi Syp, I think the German label of an item should be in German. If not, it's a problem for Wikidata because the names of the German redirects are not automatically included in the field "Also known as". The city Loslau has the lemma de:Wodzisław Śląski, a name that I can add with drag & drop but I have no idea how to pronounce it and of cause there are no "ł" or "ą" on a German keyboard. Heydar Aliyev (German: Geidar Alijew), the President of Azerbaijan, a German reader will only find in Wikidata if he uses the English translation or know how to spell de:Heydər Əliyev etc. etc. --Kolja21 (talk) 19:37, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

In German Wikipedia we only use the German name for cities etc., when the city is in a German speaking area or when a German designation is much more common than the official name. Therefore, the article names in dewiki are very inconsistently. I think every case should be examined individually. IW 21:10, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Template:User SUL

What about importing the template from commons:Template:User SUL? --Leyo 14:51, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

A multilingual project like Wikidata, where all of the original contributors came from elsewhere should definitely have this so that people can identify where they came from. I can't import it since it is from commons, so people can discuss this more while I get commons added to the list of transwiki-able projects :-) Ajraddatz (talk) 16:09, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
+1 But any reason why it can be imported an atributed with hyperlink? ToU ("it is sufficient to give attribution in the edit summary") and CC-BY-SA-3.0 text allows attribution that way; which IMHO is better than importing pieces of foreign databases into here :-) Regards, — MarcoAurelio (talk) 21:30, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Is the "main project" the technical homewiki in SUL or the wiki where you're the most active? πr2 (t • c) 21:33, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Maintenance categories for query pages with no label

I am missing maintenance categories for query pages with a missing label in a specific language, e.g. Category:Pages with no label in English. This would enable a user to find and add labels in his/her language. --Leyo 21:21, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm suspecting a new special page (e.g. Special:MissingLabels will be more appropriate, because the maintenance is easier. IW 21:29, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41597
(edit conflict!) Agreed: Having a special page automatically generate this would be even better (if possible): bugzilla:41597. πr2 (t • c) 21:30, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. I hope that we do not have to wait a long time for this special page. --Leyo 21:34, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
If this is done, somehow make Special:MissingLabels be able to find specific languages where an interwiki is provided but the language is missing. For example, when there is a page with 3 interwikis, English, French and Spanish, but missing labels in Spanish and French, we should be able to see Spanish and French on the Special page as a missing language. We shouldn't see Korean as a language missing. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 22:10, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
A drop-down to select either all languages or a specific language code should be efficient.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  23:30, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

What to do in cases of sub-articles?

I may be missing a previous thread (in fact, with this buggy computer setup, I probably am), but I'm curious as to what to do in cases of Q2639 and Q2638. On the English Wikipedia, rice coding (Q2639) is mentioned as a subset of w:Golomb coding, but rice coding has its own, separate article on the French Wikipedia (here). As the software doesn't allow multiple interwiki links to the same article (for obvious reasons), is there: Any method in place? Perhaps a workaround (I don't know, something to do with section links? No, that wouldn't work...) Or, alternatively, a discussion currently ongoing? Thanks, and apologies again for the computer trouble that's forcing me to post here rather than just ask someone else, Theopolisme (talk) 23:09, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikidata:Library task force

We should establish a Wikidata:Library task force that ensure that all articles about works (fiction and non-fiction) get a label and description. We have to decide if we allow sub-items for editions or if there is a better way to integrate the different editions of a work (2nd edition, translation etc.). Also we have to discuss what kind of identifier (beside ISBN for modern books) are suitable. --Kolja21 (talk) 13:05, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Use of Babel to list fallback languages

A pretty interesting idea is discussed about how to set and use fallback languages. One example page for fallback languages is Special:RecentChanges where both the label and the autocomment are using them. It is possible to use the babel extension as a source for those languages, and this also make it possible to rank the languages individually. If for any reason your session language do not have a defined label or description a replacement can be picked from the languages in the babel list. This kind of fallback will only be used in those cases where a page is not cached, that is more or less special pages and som API-driven stuff. What this mean is that you must list your languages on your user page, like I just did on User:Jeblad. The bad thing with this is that you must tell everybody which languages you speak. The good thing is that everybody will know which languages you speak. That makes internal communications easier, but can also be a problem for those that do not wish to publish such information. So, is this a solution we can use? I sort of like it, but some might dislike it due to privacy issues. Jeblad (talk) 21:44, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

In order to avoid the privacy issues, only enable it for those users that have an babel box.--Snaevar (talk) 22:18, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Note that the privacy issue is with the visual babel box, there will be no additional privacy issue. (Additional info: In many cases I think we can do a fallback to the existing fallback chain if babel boxes are missing.) Jeblad (talk) 22:31, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
My mothertongue is Russian, but my preferred fallback language is English. Does it mean that now I should remove my Babel template?--Ymblanter (talk) 08:40, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
No, if we do it this way you will either use English or Russian in the preferences (User profile → Internationalisation → Languages) and get the localized strings in the same language. If the lookup of the string fail in that language and you have a babel template on your user page it will then try to give you alternate languages from the first to the last in the list, and all languages already tried (because of uselang or its in your preferences) will be skipped. You can define English on top even if your mothertongue is Russian. If that also fails, for example because you have not defined a babel list, then definitions of fallback languages will follow the global chain defined for the specific language (like in messages), usually as a last resort that will be English, but if that too fails it will use an replacement string. The final replacement for labels are the id in whatever parenthesis the language (from uselang or preferences) defines. The final replacement for descriptions are an empty string. Long explanation, but that is how it would work I guess. Jeblad (talk) 19:16, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I see. Seems to me overcomplicated, but if someone is willing to write the code I have no objections.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:25, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Which road to take for help pages?

I made this proposal for some improvements on the help pages and policy of Wikidata. The discussion continues here. Raoli (talk) 16:41, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Glossary: new version

I made a proposal about specific improvements for Wikidata:Glossary. The discussion continues here →. Raoli (talk) 22:53, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Introduction  Introduction Community portal Community portal Editing  Editing Glossary Glossary Frequently Asked Questions  Frequently Asked Questions

The goal of this template {{NavHelp}} is to connect multiple help-pages of a specific topic. The user can read these pages in a short time. The white shaded icons are intensifiers of linked page title. The template is very flexible, it can be reused for other items and the single entry will change color if the pagename inserted is equal to {{PAGENAME}}. 

{{NavHelp
|page1=|pagetitle1=|pageicon1=
|page2=|pagetitle2=|pageicon2=
|page3=|pagetitle3=|pageicon3=
|page4=|pagetitle4=|pageicon4=
|page5=|pagetitle5=|pageicon5=
}}
  • page = name of the page (link)
  • pagetitle = title of the page (link)
  • pageicon = icon of the page (any content, is shown before the link)

The template was created and improved by the user Yiyi. What do you think about? Raoli (talk) 03:13, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

The license of the images Introduzione.svg, Portale comunità.svg, Contribuire.svg, Glossario.svg, FAQ.svg do not allow its use without attribution, then I restored the link to its description. Helder 12:45, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Now all these images have PD license without attribution and allow its use as page-link. Do you think it will be able to utilize as default in all the help pages? Raoli (talk) 16:55, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I like it.--Zolo (talk) 07:28, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support.--Snaevar (talk) 15:48, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Very nice. Theopolisme (talk) 11:58, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Great, it is very simple and neat. :) --Sotiale (talk) 12:02, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
And ... Raoli (talk) 18:00, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
  Tools   Files   Accessibility  Database download

I don't like very much about design, but it's ok until (if) somebody does better. I like more navigations where is a buttons, what we can click, not only small links. --Stryn (talk) 08:19, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I like the buttons. Too I might importing someone. If you are interested see this page and then tell me. Raoli (talk) 12:39, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Template:IntroductionLanguages

It appears on the top of Wikidata:Introduction/de or Wikidata:Introduction/zh-hant

By the way, as we would not get a T prefix, and it is possible for us to make T: for Template: .JC1 16:09, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I think the template hasn't been removed after the transformation to a translateable page. IW 12:05, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Is it better now? Raoli (talk) 16:36, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but I think it's no good solution to create an empty page instead of deleting the first line in the affected pages. IW 18:29, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Template:AdministratorsLanguages also, thanks. And agree what IW said.JC1 10:16, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
✓ Done, until someone removes these from translated pages. --Stryn (talk) 10:19, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Is it not possible for sysops to edit translated pages? IW 18:32, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

What is "Q"?

What does "Q" in the unique id's mean? Are there going to be other letters for other kinds of entities? This interests me because I was thinking about suggesting to the Openstreetmap project a new tag for our map objects. For example, a city like New York would get a tag wikidata=Q60. But if there are going to be other letters and types of objects, I would like to know so I can rethink the tags. Janjko (talk) 16:26, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Q means Query. I don't know more about this. --Stryn (talk) 16:33, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
There are three kinds of entities in work for the moment; items (q), properties (p) and queries (y). Even if the letters are quite obvious ;) there is a discussion if we should change them to i-p-q. They are lowercase but in the title they show up as uppercase. What do you think, keep them as is or change them? Jeblad (talk) 13:52, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I think that it's better to change them. It's more consistent. --Stryn (talk) 13:57, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Better change. Conny (talk) 15:24, 3 November 2012 (UTC).
Do the letters make any more sense in German? It is their baby, after all. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:21, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
If we change that, we should change the wiki's default language as well.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  18:35, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Why not using the entities of the en:Universal Authority File?

Typ German (official) English (translation)
p Person (individualisiert) person (individual)
n Name (nicht individualisiert) person (name)
k Körperschaft corporate body
v Veranstaltung event
w Werk work
s Sachbegriff term
g Geografikum place

They are part of the de:Vorlage:Normdaten (authority control) and are usually pretty helpful. New York City would be G60 (place) instead of Q60 and Barack Obama P76 (person) instead of Q76. --Kolja21 (talk) 03:38, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

That's not practical, since each item should have its type defined since the creation. --Dalton2 (talk) 03:46, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Sure we should ask "What typ of item do you want to add?" at the moment a new item is started. It would help a lot later. --Kolja21 (talk) 03:54, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

But the Universal Authority File is for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies. Wikidata stores much more than that: in fact, it can store data about literally everything in this world and all the possible worlds (abstract concepts). We should define extra types, and I think that it would make more trouble than help. --Dalton2 (talk) 04:16, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

i-p-q seems to be a good choice (although has mnemonic meaning only in a few languages); anyhow, this decision should be made and completed very urgently as the [[d:]] interwiki is already in use and there will be more and more interwikis to the current items wikiwide day by day. Bináris (talk) 07:02, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I would strongly prefer another letter than "q". The URL is the brand, and q is non-memnonic, whereas p is memnonic. The question "what is q?" was one of my first when I looked at the test installation. The trouble with "i" is, that if it is turned into uppercase, it is somewhat difficult to distinguish from a digit (Q10100 versus I10100). Since we are Wikidata, I would favor using "W" as a prefix. G.Hagedorn (talk) 13:00, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that there are so many languages that it's difficult to find a proper letter for all of them at the same time. In any case, the mere fact of using the latin alphabet disfavors all the non-latin languages. What is undoubtful is that we have to use some reference, and it seems that Wikidata prefers the English language. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 15:03, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Do we really need a letter at all, actually? Just asking. Best regards — Arkanosis ✉ 16:26, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we need a letter, becouse properties (phase II content), items (phase I content) and queries (phase III content) will all be in their seperate namespaces; items in the main namespace, properties in the properties namespace and queries in the query namespace.--Snaevar (talk) 16:55, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
If properties and queries'll get their own namespaces, then I don't see any problem with getting rid of that stupid Q. A single number as page title is OK. --Morten Haan (talk) 17:28, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Now there's something I can't understand. Stryn stated before that Q means "query", and now Snaevar states that we are in phase I (items), while queries belong to phase III... Am I missing something...? Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 01:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I was wrong. As Jeblad said, items (q), properties (p) and queries (y). --Stryn (talk) 08:02, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
So queries starts with a "q", but "q" stands for item? This should be changed. --Kolja21 (talk) 12:09, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I propose something easy, like A, B and C, or X, Y and Z. In any case, it's senseless to search for a proper letter, since there are nearly three hundred languages. --Dalton2 (talk) 23:49, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
If it's right that properties and queries get their own namespaces, then we don't need any letter. We should change the page titles to single numbers. It would work for all languages including the ones w/o the latin alphabet. --Morten Haan (talk) 23:56, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
The prefix letter comes from a need to form valid member names in JSON structures and is somewhat independent from namespaces, the namespaces are just places to put the pages holding the stuff. Jeblad (talk) 01:07, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Koavf's deletion of Category:User simple

I don't entirely agree that this category was useless. It's actually not that easy to write completely in simple English, so it's useful to have this category. --Jasper Deng (talk) 06:02, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

(copied from User talk:Hydriz) You (Koavf) probably could have, alternatively, repurposed it for Simple English Wikimedia project editors (to collaborate) instead of it saying they spoke the language, rather than delete it. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 06:03, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Repurpose It fits into a larger scheme of users by language, so I'm not sure why I would do that, exactly. Simple English isn't a language and this project has little prose, so I'm not sure why or how it would be helpful to have someone who is good at writing simply in English. Alternately, that would be just as helpful as someone who could write simply in French or Russian or Spanish... Are you suggesting collaboration in all of those languages? By all means, if someone wants to recreate it, do, but I just can't figure out how this would be useful. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:08, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Simple English is quite valuable for communicating with people not 100% proficient in English.--Jasper Deng (talk) 06:10, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
I figure the most use people get out of these categories to begin with is to find other contributors to their language projects. We don't write Arabic at the English Wikipedia, but we have a lot of editors who are in the user categories :) Regards, — Moe Epsilon 06:13, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Babel Just go to Category:User en and look for the 0s, 1s, and 2s... Why would This be necessary? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:24, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Maybe I'm not communicating what I want correctly. Maybe: just because someone speaks English and appears in Category:User en doesn't mean they contribute to Simple English Wikipedia? The simple category can find those who contribute to the simple wikis. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 06:38, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Babel These categories aren't about which other projects you contribute to, though. Why the Wikipedia and not the Wikibooks? Why not do this on Meta? Or on simple.wp anyway? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:08, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for bring this up. I understand that Simple English isn't really a language on its own, and there are many people out there that contest against the existence of the Simple English Wikipedia. Koavf, your stand of deleting the category is justified of it not being a language, but since its provided by the babel extension, we are free to use it. Even if we have a decision of not allowing this language to be placed as part of the babel portion of a userpage, someone else will put it there down the road without knowing of such discussions. I agree with Moe Epsilon on using this as a gauge of who contributes to the simple wikis, and it does have a good way of showing who is and isn't 100% proficient in English. Cheers. --Hydriz (talk) 08:24, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Might as well keep it to identify the people who contribute to the projects. Ajraddatz (talk) 13:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Which projects? This category doesn't identify someone who works on another project (categories do that much better anyway.) I know simple English by virtue of knowing actual English. That doesn't mean that I work on simple.wb. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:52, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
simple.wb? That wiki is locked ;)  Hazard-SJ  ✈  23:35, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Okay So simple.wikt--you got me. Either way, you're not understanding how these categories ostensibly work, nor is anyone addressing this issue. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:26, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

If no one can justify why this exists or how someone can be a native speaker of simple English, then I'll delete the category again. It's not clear how or why this aids in collaboration, nor is it intelligible. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:54, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

My reason for opposing the deletion is that simple English skills are valuable when speaking to people who don't entirely understand English, and thus a category like this assists communication with them.--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:24, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Is this (sub)category for users that speak a language or contribute to a project? The code for Simple Wikipedia is not a valid language code in the usual sense, even if it is a valid language id on this project. It is also a valid site id on this project, and that is why I ask if the (sub)category tries to list the contributors to that project. Some of the site ids might have been included as language ids even if they are not valid codes, and those should be removed so we avoid confusing users. Jeblad (talk) 19:56, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Speakers It's not for other projects (which projects?) but language codes by speaker/reader of a certain language. It's an implementation of the #Babel from Meta and since it's impossible to be a native speaker of Simple English, it should be deleted. As you point out, it's also a non-standard name. Furthermore, there is no "espanol simple" or equivalent for any other language simply because there is a simple.wp and simple.wikt (formerly simple.wb as well.) It's a non-standard anomaly which is not helpful for collaboration and if you do want to find users with low proficiency in English, I've already explained how you can do that with the existing category structure above. The supporters for keeping it are simply ignoring all of these facts. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:53, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
That's not the reason I'm supporting this category. It's not the finding of users not proficient in English. It's finding people who can communicate with them. Either way, I don't see any reason to not keep this category.--Jasper Deng (talk) 07:57, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't see the big deal at all in the category existing anyways (regardless of it's use as an actual "language" category or whatever it is used for, such as finding users who have some knowledge of English.) Why are you so set on having it deleted and what harm is it doing by being a sub-cat of the English language category? I understand your position on it, but it's just not too important to worry about to consider wheel warring its existence. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 21:06, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Pause item creating bots

Denny Vrandecic is saying (in a presentation in Boston right now) that they don't want bots creating items yet, because we're still looking for errors. Since there's only one bot running now (and it's not running very well, apparently), I'd like to ask for community endorsement for a pause in the approvals process for item creating bots, and a pause on MerlIwBot itself. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:19, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Update: Denny said that there's a major batch of code coming (it's being reviewed right now), and it will include significant changes to the API. After that goes live, we should wait a week or two to catch all the new bugs, and then we can run bots. Sven Manguard Wha? 23:40, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

* Support Close the bot-flag request section with a notice that no bot-flags will be given until the developers have finished looking for errors. I don´t agree with blocking all bots right away. Contacting the bot operator works better. However, if their bot makes a single edit after they have been notified, then block the bot.--Snaevar (talk) 23:11, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

  • There can be problems with interwikis that I have seen, though it's not a fault of the bot but rather the people editing interwikis on other projects. The bot created Q34344, an unlabeled page on the unspecifed topic of Yurok, which mainly linked to pages related to the en:Yurok people. However, there were several interwikis to the en:Yurok language as well that went unchecked because they had the same "Yurok" title. I created Q34685 for the Yurok language and had to go to each individual language project to fix the interwiki mess. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 00:28, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
    Interwiki conflicts between language/ethnic group and country/island are common in practice. For example, Republic of China/Taiwan and Republic of Ireland/Ireland. And for island countries, there are no island articles in Wikipedia. For example, en:Madagascar island is redirected to en:Geography of Madagascar. -- ChongDae (talk) 04:34, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Support acknowledgement of and further review for errors/bugs before in order to minimize potential errors.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  03:01, 14 November 2012 (UTC)


  •  Oppose Neutral. From what I see, bot-created items are least as good as human created ones. I doubt it will be more difficult to fix bot edits than the messinness introduced by heterogeneous practices in humans editing practives. Of course, everything should be done to make the bots as good as possible; --Zolo (talk) 08:22, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Did you read why we're making this proposal right now? The developers asked us to.--Jasper Deng (talk) 08:27, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
      • Yes, I probably focused too much on other support arguments that I found unconvincing :|. So let me restate it this way: if there are technical reasons why we should not create too many items at the moment, I think it would be at least as important to limit human creations as bot creations, as bot-created items are well standardized, which makes them easier to deal with. Of course limiting human creations is socially more-challenging, but I would support a "caution, not very stable, dont create too many items" message. --Zolo (talk) 08:41, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
        • I think we should listen to Denny as he takes the responsibility at the moment. This wiki is like a fresh built house that is still not handed over to the owner. Bináris (talk) 10:18, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
        • IMO, opposing a action from Denny as the project manager of Wikidata is like opposing an action from Tim Starling as an system administrator. That´s just something people should never do. Besides, I have talked with the developers for months and I know Denny wouldn´t make an decision like this one, unless there is an very good reason behind it.--Snaevar (talk) 11:22, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
          • Note that Denny has not left a message here to explain why bots should be stopped. I am perfectly ready to believe that he has good reasons for that. Actually I tend to think it would be better to make a pause in editing the main namespace until we have better defined policies about labels, aliases and descriptions. Few manual edits are not aimed at bubugging, so I do not get what is different about bot edits (it would probably be bad public policy to block editing of the main namespace now, but it would be nice to have directions about what would and would not be useful/troublesome for Wikidata development. --Zolo (talk) 13:35, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
          • I have changed it to neutral, as my view is not so much that we should is not so much that we should not stop bot as that we should have a more coherent edit policy. --Zolo (talk) 14:20, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Support Sj (talk) 16:55, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Oppose As long as i cannot find an official statement from Denny Vrandecic on this wiki.
    I fully agree with Zolo's comments. There were few mistakes added by my bot. Some because i did not know about different handling and some because of wikidata bugs (i created many of them in the last weeks). Error during automated creation of items/entities easy repairable by the bot itself. The quality of these items are in gerneral much better than most human created items. Of course humans can create perfect items that my bot can never do, but most items are created by people without checking e.g. for interwiki conflicts. Many items can be created automatically and humans should concentrate on the rest which is really important and hard work. E.g. my bot completed importing frrwiki and left 94 pages because of problems. (see #Wiki poject task forces)
    Btw: My bot is fully compatible with the new version and can switch automatically. I had to readd code from old revisions before my bot could start working on this software version. All feature requests and bug reports on my talk page are implemented at the current revision. Merlissimo (talk) 18:31, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
    @Sven_Manguard: What is the difference between scripts used on a bot account and scripts used by your account not having a bot flags? You are currently mass importing items from enwiki: Special:Contributions/This_is_also_Sven_Manguard. Merlissimo (talk) 19:48, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Neutral  Oppose per Merlissimo (Denny Vrandecic should add a comment here please) --Bene* (talk) 19:06, 14 November 2012 (UTC) After the comment I do not see any reason against bots, so still oppose. --Bene* (talk) 19:12, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Of course I understand that the developers want to wait until the api is stable and most of the bugs are fixed. On the other hand I think if we use bots very carefully, it would not be such a problem and they would help us a lot to grow Wikidata. I think, we should wait until the developers are ready, but then I do not see any reason to pause the bot activity. --Bene* (talk) 19:06, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I wrote to Denny and asked him to come here. Bináris (talk) 20:18, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

  •  Support --LadyInGrey (talk) 20:39, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Neutral DO NOT PANIC (until I say so). I don't know any urgent reason to stop bots. I have not seen any statement from Denny here nor on the mailing list. So I don't think there is any urgent action required. If you think there are good reasons now to stop or slow the bots, fine. But I'd expect if Denny wanted you to stop the bots, he'd tell you. -- Duesentrieb (talk) 20:43, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Neutral DO NOT PANIC per Duesentrieb. If something is urgent, you will be told so in nice friendly letters. :D I would also like to say that there has gone a lot of work into the bots, and their operators do a great job. In the past they have followed what they been told to do in the months were we tested on the test servers, and I guess they will do so in the future if we need some time to test out problematic code. Sometimes we will need bots to test code without humans interfering, sometimes we need humans to test without bots interfering. And it is pretty amazing what both humans and bots have pulled off so far! :D Jeblad (talk) 23:51, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry. I didn't want to cause any issues. I met Sven at a talk, and I said I would prefer that the bots would not really start yet, because I prefer to have humans edit on Wikidata, because Humans will uncover and report more bugs and issues than a bot will, especially in the User Interface. I most definitively do not want to interfere with the communities decisions about whether to use bots or not, I regard the community to be autonomous in this regard. I also did not mean to comment on any of the bots that are out there right now or that have run already.

There are no technical reasons not to use the bots. We will break the APIs, so the bots will need to change once this happens, but this does not mean that they should or should not run. There is also no technical need to have all the language links transfered before starting on the Hungarian Wikipedia, so there is no deadline. So it is completely up to the community to decide on these issues. I have stated my preference and my reasons, but they should not be taken as an absolute or anything else, just as my opinion as the director of the technical development side of the project.

If we should ever have the technical necessity for something like switching of the bots or to change some other behavior, we will communicate that very clearly and obviously.

Sorry again for any confusion that have come out of that, and I want to completely clear Sven here, he did ask if he can post the wording etc., so it is entirely me to blame for any misunderstandings. --Denny Vrandečić (WMDE) (talk) 15:27, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi Denny Vrandečić, I don't think anybody is to blame. We were just a bit unsure and confused because of the missunterstanding. Concerning the bug reporting in my opinion there are so many items missing that humans will be able to create items, too, for a long time. If I am understanding you right only this is the only problem. In my opinion bots won't be bad because humans are creating items as well. --Bene* (talk) 17:24, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Oppose per Bene; the English Wikipedia has currently 4,098,115 articles and they will become more. So we need bots to create lost of items. There're also a lot of humans who create pages and can report bugs, especially when bots have problems with an entry, e. g. when an interwiki conflict occurs. --Morten Haan (talk) 17:39, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
    I expect that we need about 15 mio items for linking all 23 mio wikipedia articles. There are about 6 mio articles not having any langlinks (this value includes incubator and species). Merlissimo (talk) 20:10, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
    We can reach that only if bots and humans work together, than everybody will be happy including Denny. --Morten Haan (talk) 21:22, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Bots are doing the same as the auto import languaglinks script. Errors can occur to bots and humans, if wikidata goes live the interwikilinks will be corrected by humans as they are doing it today on the wikipedias. --Sk!d (talk) 13:09, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Should this poll be still considered valid, as it appears to be based on a misunderstanding ? --Zolo (talk) 08:12, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Should bots now be allowed or not? At the moment they aren't working at all. I think there should be a desicion. --Bene* (talk) 21:18, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Announce votes on special:watchlist

I would like to suggest that all votes like on this talk page, RFCs or admin and other special right votes must be announced a special:watchlist. E.g. there is a vote Wikidata:Project_chat#Pause_item_creating_bots which blocks my bot. But nobody except bot operator have voted at the last five days. I don't think that a few person should be able to stop bots if most users don't even know about this vote. This projects should be based on consens, so more people should be involved in votes. Merlissimo (talk) 12:48, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

You're talking about MediaWiki:Watchlist-details, right?--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:51, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure if its a good idea to use the special pages for this kind of stuff. Over time it tend to bog down the page with unrelated stuff, and then shortening the available space for what the page is really about. That will over time have an impact on quality as the total time vandalism is exposed in those pages are shortened. In short, find a better place and method to announce important stuff. Jeblad (talk) 11:28, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikidata – Wikipedia’s Game-changer

Linux User & Developers article about Wikidata is now available on the web, see Wikidata – Wikipedia’s Game-changer. Jeblad (talk) 13:08, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we should create Wikidata:Press coverage. --Stryn (talk) 13:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
There is meta:Wikidata/Press. Feel free to extend (and move). --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:25, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
+1, with a link to Q55642 (Wikipedia:Press coverage). --Kolja21 (talk) 14:27, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Done. There are more pages that should move to Wikidata: see here. --Kolja21 (talk) 14:35, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

There is a timetable in the text: Phase 2 - end of 2012, phase 3 - March 2013. If they found the money, than there will be a phase 4. (for example: store global identifiers) --Goldzahn (talk) 06:48, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Adding the rollback right

Hi my friends,

Whether on Wikidata will be added rollback tool in the future? Wagino 20100516 (talk) 02:41, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Admins like you and I, as well as global rollbackers and global sysops, have access to it already. Are you talking about splitting out rollback as a separate group? If so, I don't see the need.--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:54, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
For global sysop (for now), local sysop and global rollbacker, it tool has built-up, but for many other registered users they need it. Sure? Wagino 20100516 (talk) 03:15, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't think there's much need for non-admins to have it yet. Once vandalism/spam picks up (it's been very low so far), we should consider it. At this point I think it's too soon.--Jasper Deng (talk) 03:16, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
I also agree with Jasper. I don't think many vandalism and mischief occur. In addition, Wikidata has many active admins. --Sotiale (talk) 04:20, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Okay, it's not this time, maybe the next day. Wagino 20100516 (talk) 05:21, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Agree that we should wait until there is some actual vandalism. Perhaps not even then, since the two-click method forces people to think through their actions a bit more. Ajraddatz (talk) 18:42, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Category:Task force

The capitalization of pages in this category needs to be consistent. I favor lower caps. Opinions? --Leyo 12:36, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

  • I happened to create the first ever task force, and that was in capital. And then Lydia created the category, and that was with lower caps. So I personally would prefer to keep capitals for the task forces, but lower caps for the categories.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:39, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Wikidata:Automobile manufacturers Task Force combines both and we have Wikidata:Languages taskforce, it's realy a mess ;) I think the best solution are lower caps like on the other project pages. --Kolja21 (talk) 13:09, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't mind either way. Feel free to rename. --LydiaPintscher (talk) 00:06, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
1x done: Wikidata:Languages task force. --Kolja21 (talk) 01:42, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Done the rest. --Leyo 17:15, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
I disagree on using lower-case - these Task Forces are the direct equivalents of WikiProjects which are capitalised as such even on the English Wikipedia, which is very strong on using lower-case everywhere it isn't absolutely required. James F. (talk) 20:33, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
A bit late, unfortunately. Please keep in mind that we are not in the English Wikipedia here. BTW: WikiProject is CamelCase and the W needs to be a capital letter, because it's directly after the namespace (Wikipedia:). --Leyo 22:06, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
A bit late? This didn't wait for wide consensus, the change was just made with only three people commenting after only 13 hours. I'm well aware that this is not the English Wikipedia. However, you are wrong; we did not pick "WikiProject" because of CamelCase, nor because the namespace forces a capital (and you do know that these two requirements didn't happen at the same time, right?). :-) Consensus can change; decisions are never "too late". That's the whole point of a wiki. James F. (talk) 22:29, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Here I guess some speakers prefer uppercase and some others lowercase. It's true that there was no consensus for the change, but it's also true that there wasn't consensus before either. If I had to choose, as Spanish I'd prefer lowercase, so now we have three people who prefer lowercase (Leyo (German), Kolja21 (German) and me (Spanish)) and two who prefer uppercase (Ymblanter (Russian) and Jdforrester (English)). LydiaPintscher (German) doesn't mind either way. In any case (if you'll forgive the repetition :-)), I consider this to be a trivial issue. Best regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 05:53, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Help:Description

I think the examples in Help:Description are contradictory. The "Italian footballer" will always be a footballer, even if he is retired or dead. The next examples says Margaret Thatcher: No: "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom" (she no longer is) / Yes: "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990". Imho the dates should be part of the info boxes not of the general description. David Cameron should keep the description "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom", instead of "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 2010" and tomorrow "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 2010-2013 and 2016-2018", no matter what the future will bring. BTW: Right now Thatcher has the description: "... and the only woman ever to have held the post." --Kolja21 (talk) 15:24, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

How about "Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom". The dates will be added later when more parameters become available. Descriptions don't need to be very detailed, more of a disambig than anything else. I've seen some descriptions that are an entire lead section copied directly from Wikipedia... Del♉sion23 (talk) 15:36, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

If we write "former Prime Minister" then we should write "former footballer" as well. But what happens, if this guy decides to play football again or a politician is reelected? Kant, a "former philosopher", sounds odd. --Kolja21 (talk) 15:40, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Kolja21 for reporting me this discussion. If you do not add dates in the description field we can not set persistent data. The addition of former (in Italian ex-) is useless since it is clear that a person has done many activities in his life. it is possible that at first he made a job and then anothe one! Many former football players are now for examples football coaches but were also football players then, logically, you leave the job without pure "former." I think in this first phase the dates should be added only where necessary and in the second phase could be moved in any statements. Raoli (talk) 16:26, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

If you have new ideas and changes to improve Help:Description, they are welcome. If the examples are not clear, you can update them. You must not use the Italian examples because they may not understand in your language. The purpose of a page about description field is to provide a practical guide that all can understand immediately. I.e you can replace "Giorgio Napolitano" with "Xxx" etc. --Raoli (talk) 16:32, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Note that for Margaret Thatcher the string "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom" can be used as a topic but "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990" can't. Said another way, we can group all persons with the description "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom" in a faceted search but we can't group more than one person in "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990". It also makes it possible to detect outliers, that is faulty descriptions, but it could make it difficult to disambiguate some persons. Jeblad (talk) 19:26, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I update the page then. --Raoli (talk) 20:19, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Is the description field of an entity on Wikidata as the category of an article of Wikipedia? --Raoli (talk) 20:27, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
We can use it as a topic (think "tags" in blogs but as a phrase), but it is not at all clear that we should do this. The only thing we are missing to do this is something like Special:ItemDisambiguation but for descriptions, and then it will work out of the box. The database table for this already exist, it is in the same table as labels and aliases. The problem is what to do when someone is known for the same thing, then both label and description will be the same and we have a violation in the database. The nice thing would be that a lot of the descriptions could be reused and we could also create hints to which descriptions should be used, basically go from writing each description manually to reusing descriptions for the same thing by simply clicking in a list. That needs some additional work though. Jeblad (talk) 20:41, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
But "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom" it's a wrong information. She was a Prime Minister, but now no. --ValterVB (talk) 21:07, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I think that the description of Margaret Thatcher should be "british politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990". The description in a biography should always begin with the nationality and main occupation. --Beta16 (talk) 22:33, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi Beta16, this would be the first sentence of an article, the description is something else. It's only purpose is to identify a person. @ValterVB: "She was Prime Minister" and "She is Prime Minister" are equal. --Kolja21 (talk) 23:23, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Few things for now: 1. "municipality of province of Pescara (this province could be suppressed)", the same could happen with a country too. Plus we could have more than one municipality with the name in a country. 2. "Italian footballer" and generally speaking "The description in a biography should always begin with the nationality and main occupation" (see discussion above). Nationality is a huge problem in some cases and it is very difficult to find out a consensus. In ruwiki we have common problem with Russian (from Russian Empire), Soviet (from Soviet Union) and Russian (as nationality), it is three different words actually. 3. "oldest known indigenous language of Egypt and branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family" - I really thing this is too long. --Zanka (talk) 16:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I stopped using local Wikidata search several days ago, since it gives everything where name, description or at least one interwiki mentions the search phrase. This makes it useless for the time being. I just go to Wikipedia and use the extension which links me the Wikidata link in the toolbox. All my efforts to solve the situation by making different item descriptions were removed. From this perspective, it does not really matter what to write in the description, it can even be left blank. At least until the search is considerably improved, and/or the descriptions starts to show up in the special pages.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:26, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I think it is important that the combination of label and descriptions uniquely identifies an entity. Otherwise you have to read every article to decide of a local wikipedia belongs to this item. So for cities i would not write only "italian city", but add administration unit (province) and if needed other details. For persons i would add profession, nationality and date of birth/death. The last two things will be also added as properties later, but they are very mostly very important for identifying a person. The name is not unique. Temporary job should be added with care and only if this is very important. To avoid necessary changes later we could write "x th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom" Merlissimo (talk) 22:13, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
It's a problematic point, see above the Jeblad's words "we can group all persons with the description". Raoli (talk) 01:12, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
What is the description for disambiguation pages like Q1518 (Abou Dabi)? "disambiguation" or should we wait till we've got a way to mark different types of items? --Kolja21 (talk) 05:32, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
I've added "disambiguation page" for these. Better it than nothing or wrong descriptions, like here and here. --Stryn (talk) 06:11, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanx. I've added the example to the list of recommendations. --Kolja21 (talk) 06:23, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
I've been adding "several meanings". --Dalton2 (talk) 06:31, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
The thing is, neither "disambiguation page" nor "several meanings" are actually descriptions of the topic, they are descriptions of the linked page. This is an important distinction to make. I added a proposal on what to do about these types of items at the bottom of Wikidata:Requests for comment/Inclusion of non-article pages. --Yair rand (talk) 07:13, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't see the problem; I find that "several meanings" is a description of the topic, since it's an ambiguous word. When you search for a word in a dictionary, you find several acceptions, i.e., several meanings. You can find the description of each topic in each acception, which in Wikidata happen to have the same label. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 07:32, 20 November 2012 (UTC) P.S: I also can see that in some disambiguation pages it's not several meanings of the word what are shown, but just articles that contain that word or even just a derivative word. Those cases are indeed difficult to describe, and the only thing that comes to my mind is "disambiguation page", which, as you say, is a description of the linked page.
I'd prefer if we start descriptions with capital letters. Ajraddatz (talk) 18:09, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
The description is not a sentence, but a definition. Read Jeblad's words. --Raoli (talk) 18:17, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
I know, but I still wouldn't want it to start with a lower case letter. Even when intentionally using sentence fragments in English, we tend to start them with a capital letter, so IMO the same should be done here. Ajraddatz (talk) 18:41, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
I've read through more of the discussions above, and perhaps capitals/punctuation isn't a good thing. This topic should really be moved to an RfC, or some means by which more input can be cultivated. Ajraddatz (talk) 13:31, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
The German template:Personendaten begin with lowercase, no ending point: "Ferdinand Magellan. KURZBESCHREIBUNG=portugiesischer Seefahrer, der für die spanische Krone segelte" (de:Hilfe:Personendaten). --Kolja21 (talk) 18:48, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
See earlier discussion of this above. Capitalization is much harder to automatically remove than to automatically add. --Yair rand (talk) 08:09, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Description content policy

See also Wikidata:Project chat/Archive/2012/10#Purpose of "description" field.

The "description" field, in which we are instructed to "Enter a short description in [language]", is getting quite a lot of variety in the length and style of content. So far, there seem to be mostly three types: (I'm aware there is a lot of room in between these.)

  1. The field contains usually one word, kept as concise as possible, and is usually the kind of thing you would see in brackets at the end of a Wikipedia title. Things like "politician", "city", "country", "element", "film", "physicist", etc.
  2. The field contains a somewhat short (perhaps 2-6 words) description, containing as clearly identifiable attributes as possible, as though there is always a possibility of another similar entity that it could be confused with, whether there is known to be or not. Things like "capital [city] of Germany", "country in [Southern] Europe", "28th President of Guatemala", "Romance language", "[free] online encyclopedia", "[fantasy] book [by xxx]" (contents in [] are types of things sometimes omitted), sometimes with articles ("a/an") at the beginning, sometimes without, sometimes capitalized, and sometimes not.
  3. Descriptions are full, extensive sentences, containing many details about the subject entity, beginning with a capital letter, ending with a period, containing multiple consecutive statements.

My personal preference is #2, without preceding articles, without capitalization, and without a period. Capitalization is much easier to add then it is to remove. If the descriptions are to be used externally, we should make it as simple as possible. I also think we should try to generally include significant distinguishing points in descriptions, basically as though we were assuming that there were many other similar entities with the same name.

Right now, they're all very inconsistent, and I think we really need to this fix by building a policy as soon as possible. What are everyone else's opinions about how best to have the descriptions? --Yair rand (talk) 22:58, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I've genally copied the first sentence or two from the lede on en.Wikipedia. It might be more sensble to include the full lede, automaticaly, in whatever languages are appropriate. One less job for people, and one less thing for people to worry about. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:08, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm open to being convinced otherwise, but I don't really like that idea. I'm much more in favor of #2 from the above list. Enough to disambiguate easily. The articles are all linked, if people are interested. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:15, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
The advantage of Point 3 is, that you could use such a description outside Wikidata too, for example in a mobile-app. And, there is no need for one policy for any language version. We should distinguish between what has to be part of a global policy and a local policy. --Goldzahn (talk) 03:18, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I think #2 is the best option. There's no need to copy whole sentences from the Wikipedia article leads. A mobile app should use the articles instead of the Wikidata descriptions. --Morten Haan (talk) 03:23, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Agreeing with that. BTW: Simply copying the first sentence of the lead of the Wikipedia article without providing a hyperlink to the Wikipedia article's history is potentially a copyvio. --Matthiasb (talk) 09:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Note: Even if there was a hyperlink, it would be a copyvio because CC-0 is not compatible to CC-by-sa. --Morten Haan (talk) 17:05, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
+1 on #2 option. We just need a short but exhaustive sentence. If you want to deepen your knowledge, you either waut for phase 2 or follow one of the interlinks. :) --Sannita - not just another it.wiki sysop 10:49, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
+1 to #2 I'm using these option to fill the description label in Spanish, because it's simple and descriptive (pe: Comuna de Chile or País de América del Sur). Superzerocool (talk) 14:23, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 +1 to #2 I think it's a good compromise --Bene* (talk) 14:29, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm...Sure, but how do those rules fit with descriptions in asian languages ?--Snaevar (talk) 19:08, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
#2 is the best option imo. Ajraddatz (talk) 23:11, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I like #1, and in most cases it is sufficient, but I see that sometimes #2 is necessary. Can these be mixed? Sometimes one word is enough, isn't it? I am not in favor of #3. - Soulkeeper (talk) 10:18, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
2 only --Guerillero | Talk 20:13, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
#2 Onlly one word ist bad. We musst work with key descriptor. And this can be, for definitely, musst be more then one. Adnam Smith and soccer is not anough, he give more than one (en:Adam Smith (disambiguation)). It is an bit complex, and can be differentiated by Toppic. The description is not a artikel. But he must clearly indicate the data set. It is a Person, why not with bipographical details (born-dead) an the point of relevance? It is a location, why not with coordinate and administration unit? The short question needs must be, it is a key-word to diffrend with other data-set with the same name?. Can I this anser with Yes, than it is a good descriptor. But I dont forget, the descripton musst be short. --Bobo11 (talk) 11:40, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
In your examples I believe that coordinates, born\dead and so on will be in the next Phase of the project, sort of properties. Question: how describe current political leaders? Today he is major but tomorrow may be not. Zanka (talk) 11:52, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Can be, but the coordinates ist unmistakable. The same often with born\dead. The first phrase of an artikel ist not so bad for the description. But I can the phrase cut in key words. --Bobo11 (talk) 12:01, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I would prefer #2, but I'm not sure if it should have articles ("a/an") at the beginning and/or punctuation at the end. This may also vary with the language. I agree that capitalization is easier to add than to remove, so it may be good idea no to use uppercase in the first word if it is not a proper name. Helder 21:31, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 #2 and #3 for rare cases but no more than two short sentences. Raoli (talk) 21:04, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Please note that one of the main use cases for the description is to be shown in drop-down boxes listing items. This is not yet visible, but once we support infobox data, there will be a widget for linking to other items. When you type something in, you will get a list of suggestions, each along with the description, so you know which Henry Miller to select from the list. Another use case are listings on Special:ItemDisambiguation and similarly (hopefully, some time soon) in the search results. -- Daniel Kinzler (WMDE) (talk) 20:59, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

That's very helpful to know, thanks. I assume we'll probably have many more cases both on Wikimedia and externally that make use of the descriptions in many ways.
It looks like there is a consensus in favor of using #2 as described above. We still need to resolve the issues of capitalization, articles at the beginning of descriptions, and punctuation at the end. Some of these issues are specific to certain languages. I'll start subsections on each issue below. --Yair rand (talk) 01:48, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm using #2 in Spanish. --Dalton2 (talk) 02:19, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Capitalizing descriptions

Capitalizing the first letter of a description where the first word would not be ordinarily capitalized (due to being a proper noun or a name, for example), is unproductive, in my opinion. Such capitalization is much harder to automatically remove than to automatically add, so I think it would be better to generally leave descriptions uncapitalized. Thoughts? --Yair rand (talk) 01:48, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with this; for context, this is going to be like a ready-reference textbook. In that, you might have:
  • Smith, John - Philanthropist and aristocrat, 1920-1996
  • Smith, John - Entrepreneur and yahct racer, 1894-1953
  • Smith, John - Irish painter, 1964-
… and the descriptions are meant to be "potted" very brief sentences describing the topic. In a comparable ready-reference work you'd expect these to be capitalised as a (partial) sentence. Of course, this is for English; I can't speak for what would make sense in other languages. Though it might be nice to be consistent between them, it's more important that we make a useful resource. Jdforrester (talk) 07:51, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
But that can be made by the software, for display. On the other hand, if all first letter are capitalized, as in (just a fictitious example)
  • Smith - John's father
  • Smith - Irish painter
how could a software now that "irish painter" can be used but "john's father" can't? Helder 12:41, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
Actually, neither of those can be used - "Irish" is a adjectival form of a proper noun and so should be capitalised. But I'm not seeing a use case where the description isn't a sentence - if you could suggest one I might be convinced. :-) Jdforrester (talk) 17:23, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
Would substituting "philantropist" for "Irish" make the example more illustrative? Anyway, even if the following doesn't apply to English, in some languages, like Norwegian, a sentence needs to have at least one verb and one subject. Example: The year 1682 can be described with one word in Norwegian; "år" (which means "year"). The word "år" is not a complete sentence. Therefore it should not end with a period. Also, because it's neither a proper noun nor a sentence, the word "år" should not have a capital Å. Because of this, and for technical reasons, I agree with Yair rand. It's trivial to capitalize the first letter in software, because it can be done without any knowledge of the context(*). It is non-trivial to de-capitalize it, because this requires knowledge of context. Therefore the data should be stored in a non-capitalized format. Btw, this should apply to labels as well as descriptions. I see no reason to treat them differently. Wiktionary has got it right. (* with one exception that I can think of, namely iStuff. IMO the preservation of grammar-breaking product names is less important than the preservation of grammar.) - Soulkeeper (talk) 09:28, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
We surely will have different conventions for different languages. Taking your examples from above into German, we get:
Smith – Johns Vater
Smith - irischer Maler
So a genereal capitalization is not possible. --Matthiasb (talk) 06:43, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
I agree that automatic capitalisation for particular purposes won't work (and sorry, but attitudes like "there's a hard rule for my language, except for the exceptions but I don't care about those" isn't a great one if we're aiming for correctness :-)) - Helder, Soulkeeper, your thoughts? Jdforrester (talk) 06:27, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
We should not enforce or automate any specific kind of capitalization, or sentence terminators, but we should say something about what kind of content should go into the description field. Especially we should say something about keeping them consistent, or not, between languages. I'm for using sentences and keeping them in sync between languages. Jeblad (talk) 12:45, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 Oppose per Jeblad.--Snaevar (talk) 14:41, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
This... isn't a vote. :-) What are you opposing? What are you proposing? (Maybe we should move this to a policy namespace page rather than have it lost here?) Jdforrester (talk) 06:27, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Sigh. Jdforrester, you are overthinking this. You might figure out what I disagree with if you replace "oppose" with "disagree with Yair rand´s proposal to capitalize the first letter". However, I expect you to understand "per Jeblad" on your own. (Look "per" up in the dictionary, if you don´t).--Snaevar (talk) 01:34, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support Soulkeeper. Descriptions should start in lowercase when language rules allow it. For instance, in Spanish, all common names start with lowercase and all proper names start with uppercase, and I guess that such rule is also followed in many languages (except, for example, German). Why not to apply the rule in those languages where it's applicable? Of course, as a recommendation. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 01:51, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

This is very much language-dependent, so rules should be laid at most by language. For example in Hungarian this description would be lower case if in the same row as the title, e.g.

  • John Smith ír festő
  • John Smith (ír festő)
  • John Smith – ír festő

but is to be capitalized when regarded as a subtitle. Bináris (talk) 18:54, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Placing articles at the beginning of descriptions

At the moment some descriptions have articles ("a", "an", and "the", in English) at the beginning, while some don't. My personal opinion, as mentioned above, is that we should not add articles to the beginning. In cases like ItemDisambiguation, search results, or on infobox data widgets, it doesn't really make much difference whether or not there is an article at the beginning or not (except for it being slightly shorter without), but I can think of certain external use cases where it would be useful for the article to be left out. Suppose one wanted a program to use a text response of something like "Did you mean the [description1], the [description2], or the [description3]?". If the article is left in, the description could begin with any of a variety of articles, making such a text response difficult. This isn't a very strong argument, especially in English where there are only three common articles (which could theoretically be removed on the spot the the program), but it is still a reason to prefer leaving articles out, in my opinion. --Yair rand (talk) 01:48, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure; I've personally done a mix of these. For example, Q9430 (Ocean) is referring to an abstract concept, so it should take an article - without one, it would be unclear weather "large body of water" is meant as a noun or an adjective. Also, the split between the definite and indefinite articles are important in some cases - is this just one of the kind, or is it the only example? E.g. Q14214 (UK's Secretaries of State, multiple at a time) vs. Q14213 (the US's one). Jdforrester (talk) 08:03, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support Yair rand. The cases exposed by Jdforrester are just exceptions, and most descriptions can start without an article. I think the editor is intelligent enough to discern when to apply each rule. --Dalton2 (talk) 02:06, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
 We should NOT add articles to the beginning in English, and in Spanish and Italian too. Raoli (talk) 03:59, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Adding periods to the ends of descriptions

Adding periods to the ends of descriptions is a pretty uncommon practice so far. I suggest we have a straight rule against them. Thoughts? --Yair rand (talk) 01:48, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

 Support Completely agreed. Jdforrester (talk) 07:52, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
Support. They are not complete sentences, therefore they should not start with a capital letter (unless a proper noun) nor should they end with punctuation. -09:17, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 Oppose Discourage? Sure. Strongly discourage? Eh... sure. Formally legislate against? No. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:48, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
 Oppose As a rule, no. As a guideline, maybe. The main thing is the content of the description, not whether there is an punctuation or not.--Snaevar (talk) 14:57, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support as a guideline. It's a healthy practice to use recommendations instead of prescriptions. --Dalton2 (talk) 01:58, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support Completely agreed. Raoli (talk) 04:52, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support Don't need them. This, that and the other (talk) 05:55, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
 Oppose As a rule, no. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 05:45, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support as a guideline. --Stryn (talk) 18:23, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support as a guideline – it may be language-dependent. Who of us knows the rules for all languages? In Hungarian, a period there is definitely incorrect and I will fight against such vandalism against my language. :-) Bináris (talk) 19:01, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support guideline against periods at the ends of descriptions. Theopolisme (talk) 11:52, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support - descriptions aren't complete sentences. –sumone10154(talk) 06:50, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Trying to sync descriptions across languages

Should we try to have the same description in all languages ? and if so, does that mean should we consider the English one as the reference ? It would probably not be easy to enforce, but may have some benefits, such as making sure everyone talks about the same thing, especially for abstract concepts where labels may be a bit hard to translate exactly. This comment was posted by Zolo. --Dalton2 (talk) 15:17, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I can't see why English should be a reference about short definitions of concepts. In Spanish, for example, there's an Academy specifically dedicated to keep the integrity of the language since 1713 whose publications are references for word definitions in the Spanish-speaking world, and in French there's an Academy since 1635 with the same purpose. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 16:03, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
IMO, that is one of the reasons why having a reference version may be useful. There is not always a one to one translation from one word in a given language to another word in a another language but item properties have be the same in all languages. Having a reference description could help ensure that Spanish users and English users are talking about the same thing, and if it turns out that the Spanish concept is too different from the English concept, splitting into two different items might be the only workable solution. --Zolo (talk) 16:30, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
I understand your point of view, and I see it could be a solution to that problem, but why should we use English? Why not Spanish? Or French? Or Chinese? Under which criteria should we choose the reference language? Should we attend the number of articles in Wikipedia, the percentage of people speaking a certain language, the quality of the institutions -if any- maintaining that language...? Language is the essence of thought, the human experience is intimately attached to the nuances of language, and a language defines the idiosyncrasy of a culture. Personally, I oppose to extending the Anglo-Saxon idiosyncrasy all over the world overriding the rest. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 17:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC) P.S: In Spanish, Anglo-Saxon also means "relative to individuals and peoples with an English provenance and language.", and not just the old Germanic tribes and Old English.
I've been thinking about this, and I reached the conclusion that maybe the best solution would be to create a manual where recommendations on particular topics were explained. This manual should include an advertising on the top of the page clarifying that, when some Wikipedia had reasonable arguments supported by a local consensus about not following the general recommendation, it could be added as an exception. In any case, recommendations should be about content, not about grammar or writing style, which should be set locally for each Wikipedia. Starting from this point, I believe we could use English as a reference. Any opinions? Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 19:13, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I think I agree with that, it could be useful to have specific info about what to include or not in the description depending on topic. Actually I had been thinking as things like:
  • administrative units : "a <sort of administrative division> in <larger division> (<in some cases another division>)
  • scientists: <nationality> <profession>
  • politicians: most important office held + dates
  • books: type of book + author

(these are just potential examples, not acutal proposals)--Zolo (talk) 08:11, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Better for writing label

Hello there,

Which one should I follow for good writing label:

  • Alaminos, Laguna or
  • Alaminos only

I'm waiting for the opinion from fellows. Wagino 20100516 (talk) 10:45, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

If the official name of the city "Alaminos", then the label should be "Alaminos", possibly adding "Alaminos, Laguna" as an alias.
If the official name if "Alaminos, Laguna", then I think this is a point that we should decide an add to a help:Labels page: should we use the most commonly used name, or the most official name ? --Zolo (talk) 11:08, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
I would choose the latter. Many Wikipedia's add the province name into brackets (en-wiki not), and because it's not recommended to add brackets in to the label, I prefer the latter. --Stryn (talk) 11:09, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
I also prefer the latter. Labels are not like Wikipedia titles in that (among other things) they do not need to be unique. If the name of the municipality is just Alaminos, that should be the label, and we don't need to add extra text to distinguish it from all the other places named Alaminos, because that is not the label's purpose. --Yair rand (talk) 11:15, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
This is very interesting opinion, is there any other ideas and suggestions? Wagino 20100516 (talk) 12:48, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Alaminos as the label and then mention the provience in the description.--Snaevar (talk) 15:18, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, the label doesn't need to disambiguate. That is the description's job.

  • Label: Bob. Description. Politician
  • Label: Bob. Description: Footballer

And so on. Del♉sion23 (talk) 22:04, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, from this discussion seems I've been getting way better to writing label. Thanks. Wagino 20100516 (talk) 13:21, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Template:Languages

Please do not make changes that affect *every* language. In this template, each language name appears in its own language, and each language has its own preferences about capitalisation (as shown in the universal language selector), so nobody can arrogate power to do such changes without universal consensus. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 12:15, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

By the way, the second part of Old Church Slavonic (cu) appears to me as unrecognized characters (словѣ́ньскъ / ⰔⰎⰑⰂⰡⰐⰠⰔⰍⰟ), and it happens the same in other projects like Wikipedia or Metawiki. Is it a problem of the system or it's necessary to install the corresponding font? --Dalton2 (talk) 13:11, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
It's not mojibake to me. I can't read it, but looks like legitimate writing. I think it's your font setup. -happy5214 14:11, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
It is his font setup. However, there is an extension, mw:Extension:WebFonts that embeds the fonts in the wiki and solves the problem that way.--Snaevar (talk) 14:58, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
I can't make an installed font work for me, but thank you anyway. --Dalton2 (talk) 10:01, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Bug in Special:ItemDisambiguation

When I put something in the search, thing there and there isn't already a page on that item, and the search request is two words or more it doesn't include it when you click the create now, it instead puts the last word before the link on the create item now link, and the first word in the label box. --Clarkcj12 (talk) 05:24, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Strange, this doesn't even work in master now… See also Bug 42358 - The create item link in Special:ItemDisambiguation. Jeblad (talk) 13:08, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Help:Label

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Moved discussion to Help talk:Label, please continue there. —Theopolisme 16:12, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't we have a help page for labels like we do have one for descriptions? This help page would need to contain guidelines on the capitalization of labels. Currently, I do not find an agreed basis for such changes. --Leyo 14:27, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Some relevant discussions: 1 2 3 4 5. --Yair rand (talk) 14:37, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. As far as I see only #4 is on the capitalization.
Would you agree that we need the proposed help page? --Leyo 14:40, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, that's why I linked to relevant previous discussions, so we have what to build a standard from. Still, the issues could use some further discussion. --Yair rand (talk) 14:44, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
I also support making a help page for labels — however, much like Yair rand, I think some more discussion is in order. —Theopolisme (confess>) 18:38, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Strong support. Wagino 20100516 (talk) 23:32, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
What exactly needs to be discussed more in addition to the capitalization? --Leyo 13:17, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

I think there should definitely be a Help:Label page. If someone creates a proposed guideline for Labels we could then discuss the specific guidelines and publish it when consensus is reached. Things other than capitalisation that need to be explained are:

  • No disambiguation in the Label, leave it to the Description. (e.g. "London, England" should just be "London")
  • What happens if there is no page in your language, use a foreign Label, or translate it? Is no label better than a non-translated one?
  • Labels for varients within one language such as Canadian and British English (though this could be covered by the language fallback).

There may be others but that's all I can think of for now. Del♉sion23 (talk) 13:24, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

No disambiguation: agree. Translation of labels: from which language? Maybe it's better to leave it blank, since searches will also find the interwikis. Besides: no attributes forming part of the name, like "New York City" or "City of New York"; it should be "New York" as label and "city" as description, I think. (At least in my language, I'm not sure if that's also applicable in every language). Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 14:47, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Agree with Delusion — no disambiguation in labels. I think we should go ahead and start working on a draft at Help:Label...when that page is relatively stable and has community approval, we can go about thinking about how to publicize it (and Help:Description, for that matter) - perhaps tooltips/links on Special:CreateItem ... but for now, I agree, writing it is the goal. —Theopolisme 15:26, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
OK, I was bold and drafted Help:Label. --Leyo 16:05, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

MediaWiki talk:Common.css: Message boxes

Hello, I added a request for the css for message boxes to be added so that they look like the notices on enwiki. Could an administrator who is good with css make sure it is in correct order and add it if you think it will help? Any comments would be appreciated too, the code was copied from MediaWiki:Common.css on enwiki. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 19:51, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

You should indicate the author and the function of the code in a comment. You could also add the codes of all types of boxes. --Raoli (talk) 20:39, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Technical issue

Hi. Sorry for my ignorance. How can I include a link to the corresponding main talk page (Template talk:Page besides Template talk:Page/es) in this template? Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 00:35, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Does this help, or am I misunderstanding what you would like done? Regards, — Moe Epsilon 00:55, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
What I'd like is to have a link inside the template which leads to the main page name. For example, if the template is included in the subpage Help:Label/es, the link should lead to Help talk:Label instead of to Help talk:Label/es. Is something like that possible? Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 03:28, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Oh, yes, you just have to remove the {{TALKPAGENAME}} from the specific language template and add it in manually. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 03:35, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Does this help? Regards, — Moe Epsilon 03:38, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
It helps when the template is included in Help:Label/es, but it doesn't work when the same template is included in Help:Description/es. What I'd like is something that automatically links with the main page (i.e. the talk page in English) of the subpage where the template is included (i.e. the page in Spanish). Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 03:43, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Oh I see what you're talking about now. Right now, it's not possible to do that, but I'm sure I could add some kind of variable to make it like {{proposed|target discussion page}} and you could link to it like that. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 03:54, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes that's it. It would be useful since any language might link to the English talk page directly via the template. Thanks for your concern. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 04:08, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
No problem, I'll try to resolve the issue in a bit. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 04:13, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
The problem should be resolved. See Template:Proposed/es. You have to use the text
{{Proposed/es|Template talk:Proposed}}
And that will direct you to the correct talk page. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 06:45, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
See here and here on examples of it pointing to the English talk pages. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 06:58, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Perfect! This will give the possibility to centralize discussions for all language versions. Thanks a lot! --Dalton2 (talk) 07:43, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Another technical issue

Have I done this correctly? It doesn't work for me when I change my gender in the preferences. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 05:37, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

It looks correct, but it's not changing for me either when I specify female. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 06:28, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
You need to specify a username instead of $1. Since there is no magic word to find the current user's name, it won't work. This, that and the other (talk) 11:00, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Q95449

I created this item yesterday but I can not load the interwikis by script (I get an error saying the external server provided no information). I tried yesterday night and today (without restarting the computer), and I still get the same problem. I can load interwiki links for other items. Could someone try please. Thanks in advance.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:35, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Does not work for me, too. I cannot understand the problem because there are so much interwikilinks to import. very strange... --Bene* (talk) 07:41, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Now is OK, Problem was with: "http://diq.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnitogorsk", deleted page. --ValterVB (talk) 07:49, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, when a local language interwiki points to a deleted article, it voids the entire interwiki slurp as there being nothing to interpret. There probably should be some kind of change to the gadget the tells the end user that there was a problem with the one interwiki much like it does when there is a repeating entry somewhere on Wikidata. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 07:53, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks very much to all of you. Hope it will be taken over.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:59, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Aren't people supposed to check all the interwiki links before automatically slurping them? Kaldari (talk) 11:56, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
I think this is what we have scripts and bots for, no?--Ymblanter (talk) 12:48, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Bots check for interwiki conflicts before importing, this gadget does not. You can create really wrong items linking to different topics if you do not check all langlinks before importing. Merlissimo (talk) 13:02, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Magnitogorsk has 43 interwikis, that means, you must check about 43² = 1849 links! That is hardly possible, better let bots create pages with many interwikis. --Robot Monk (talk) 15:54, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
There is still an link to the deleted diq article on lt, lv, ro, tl, tg, no, ja, nl, pt, tt, ru, tr, ar, pnb, id, zh, eo, es, et, cs, vi, os, war, ca, sr, lmo, ko, mhr, fa, he, fi, uk, hr, bg and be. Importing interwiki links from these wikipedias for this item will not work.--Snaevar (talk) 16:03, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
In fact I think that we (humans) should focus only on correcting and/or completing what the bot left behind, since it's clear that the "interwiki thing" will never be made more efficiently by a human than by a well-programmed bot. Human mistakes or incompleteness will always be more, in any case, unless we spend a long time for each item, checking and trying to add interwikis from every single language. Also: does the bot check non-empty items? I think it should search for human mistakes and/or omissions in already created items. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 16:14, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Automatic descriptions

I think, language-specific descriptions, the way we have now contradict the idea of Wikidata. Will it be possible to populate descriptions with data from statements after phase II? So an item can be marked as "town" and the description will automatically become "city in the Netherlands" or "Stadt in den Niederlanden" or something in other 100+ languages? It wouldn't be possible for every item but if we can automate the descriptions of millions of villages, people, species – it would greatly simplify our work here. --Robot Monk (talk) 08:22, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Incomplete user rights log

The user rights log seems to be incomplete:

… changed group membership for User:… from autopatroller and administrator to

To what? There should be e.g. “administrator” or at least a “–” if applicable. --Leyo 10:40, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I've noticed this before too. It might be worth tracking to bugzilla. I think it might have to do with removing a right from someone who has a right we are unable to remove (like administrator). Regards, — Moe Epsilon 10:48, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Do note how this also happens on enwiki. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 11:23, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Known bug. It already has three entries in Bugzilla. See bugzilla:42211. --Krenair (talk • contribs) 12:44, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Wrong link to Norwegian Main Page

When setting interface language to "norsk (bokmål)" (nb), the Main page link in the left menu points to Hovedside, not Wikidata:Hovedside. I believe this is because MediaWiki:Mainpage/nb doesn't exist, right? Btw. MediaWiki:Mainpage/no exists and should probably be deleted (or moved). In general, there is a great deal of confusion arising from the unfortunate mixing of the iso-standard "nb" and the commonly used "no" (for example, we have no.wikipedia.org, not nb.wikipedia.org). Danmichaelo (talk) 15:23, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Done and done. Ajraddatz (talk) 15:28, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Here is three Norwegian codes, "no" (bokmål), "nb" (bokmål) and "nn" (nynorsk). Where do we need "nb", because "no" is the same language? --Stryn (talk) 16:45, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Restored the /no page. I don't understand the difference myself, but if both pages exist and direct to the one then that should work? Ajraddatz (Talk) 17:14, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. The problem with "no" is that it may refer to Norwegian language as a whole (both bokmål and nynorsk, which are similar anyhow), so ideally "no" should not be included in the language selector. I'm not sure why it's there, but I guess for historic reasons. Danmichaelo (talk) 17:35, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
I think we should list all variants which have to discuss about.--JC1 17:44, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
nowiki uses "no" as content language http://no.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=general&format=jsonfm and not "nb". That's why my bot also uses no an langcode for labels. If that is wrong it must be changed on nowiki config first. (related Wikidata:Contact_the_development_team/Archive/2012/11#language_code_problems). Merlissimo (talk) 17:56, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, that's interesting. I could initiate a discussion about a change on nowiki. If we reach consensus, is it a matter of a bugzilla report? Danmichaelo (talk) 18:20, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
We should not try to enforce any action upon any external community, this must be solved in Wikidata. We have site ids and language codes, and those two are not the same. The language codes are partly in sync with the site ids, but that is by accident and not a necessity. Don't rely on the initial part of the site id to be a valid language code, or the sub-domain of the URL. To my knowledge we never said they will be language codes so don't do that assumption.
The language code no is for Norwegian, and covers both Norwegian Bokmål (nb) and Norwegian Nynorsk (nn). The Wikipedia project for Norwegian was initially a bi-lingual project. It still uses no as code, but in the site matrix this is published as "norsk (bokmål)".[13] It is still bilingual but all Norwegian Nynorsk is moved to another Wikipedi that supports Norwegian Nynorsk solely. We could set up no as an alias for the language code nb, that is our language specific strings would be nn and nb, but that is about as far as I would go on this. Jeblad (talk) 05:43, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Would an alias be specific to Wikidata? That would be very helpful indeed! Apart from that, Merlissimo referred to ['query']['general']['lang'] returned from [14], which I believe is not the site id (having the name "lang"). Also, for als, ['query']['general']['lang'] = "gsw", not "als", so it seems to be independent of the site id. Danmichaelo (talk) 11:33, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Languages on Wikidata will only reflect the content language setting from Wikipedia in the sitelinks table, and then only if we chose to do so. Otherwise Wikidata will use the local user language set here for each user. The only problem we need to handle is how we want to handle language codes like no in Wikidata. We don't even have to support the language code no at all for localized strings, and could only rely on nb and nn. Still note that we need a general solution because no is not the only problematic language code. Jeblad (talk) 12:16, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
As i wrote: The wiki and page content language (both always equal on all wikipedias) at nowiki are "no" not "nb". If nowiki is "nb" then this should be changed on nowiki. The content language is independent from interwiki prefix or wikiid. alswiki is another problem because als is accepted as language code for terms by wikidata but als is not wiki content language on alswiki. Merlissimo (talk) 12:30, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
The majority of users on nowiki have decided that "nb" being the language on nowiki is just a minority opinion. As a consequence, nowiki gets to keep the main language code "no" to itself. So, should wikidata follow the ISO standard and allow "nn" language in both "no" and "nn" entries? Or should wikidata follow nowiki's lead and only allow "nb" language to be used in "no" entries, and disallow "nn" language in "no" entries, despite the fact that both "nb" and "nn" are sub-languages of "no"? The situation on nowiki is not likely to change any time soon. - Soulkeeper (talk) 23:41, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Is a-property for item

Most likely it's been thought of allready, but anyhow: Would it be possible (and feasible) to state about an item, that it "is a(n)" other (more general class of) item. In our general case, we could state, that Berlin (itme) is a captial (class item). Hence under capital it could be stated, that usual properites (statements) are country, mayor and population. This would make it easy to generate a list of usual properites, when e.g. Kampala is opened by logged in users in wikidata.

The is-a property does the same as catagories in wikis. This implies "multiple inheriantence" as Berlin is both a captial (of Germany), a Town (with population and geo-location) and a political town-unit (with mayor).

Poul G (talk) 14:15, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi Poul--you may want to take a look at this page on meta, in which you can read about the different phases of the project--which appear to include what you're suggesting. —Theopolisme 16:34, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Tanks. It wasn't obvious to me, that P2.5 implies my suggestion, but I very much hope so. Poul G (talk) 20:29, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Have contributions show item title the way watchlist does?

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 41624
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
This has been fixed by Jeblad. Awaiting deployment here. --Yair rand (talk) 08:19, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

So when I look at my watchlist, an item comes up as "Leela (Q121841)", but when I look at my contributions, it comes up as "Q121841". I happen to feel that the first format is much more useful than the second, and was wondering if anyone else felt that way, because if so, I'd like to have the my contributions readout display in the "Leela (Q121841)" format. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:09, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

 Support think so too --Bene* (talk) 17:13, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support --Raoli (talk) 17:15, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support Sounds wise, and not too difficult. —Theopolisme 17:17, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support would be handy--Ymblanter (talk) 18:56, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support as I just fixed the test that made this fail on the contributions page. ;) Unfortunately this is in master, but we're getting close to a new rollout. Jeblad (talk) 19:56, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support - Would be very helpful. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 20:46, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support of course. --Stryn (talk) 20:58, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support. Would be very helpful when looking at edits. --J36miles (talk) 21:56, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support –sumone10154(talk) 01:49, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 Support Regards, — Moe Epsilon 05:04, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Capitalized labels created automatically

According to Help:Label sentence case is to be used, that is, labels should start with lowercase unless there is a reason to capitalize them. However, Import interwiki --> "Auto-complete empty labels with the name of the related link" creates Capitalized labels. Do we agree that it is a bug? Syp (talk) 08:15, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking about that too. However there are many labels that should be capitalized (people, places etc.). As it is probably worse too have a lower case label when it capitalization is required than the other way round, I do not know exactly what should be done. Perhaps look at the first occurence of the word in the article than is not at the beginning of a sentence and see if it is capitalized or not, if that is technically manageable. --Zolo (talk) 08:21, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
I think it's easier than the user can choose (via flag or drop down menu on popup) if the initial letter must be uppercase or lowercase. --Beta16 (talk) 08:28, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
The importing tool adds labels for many languages. The user wouldn't be able to tell whether it should be capitalized in which languages. --Yair rand (talk) 08:35, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

This, however, is a bug IMO. If a label starts with a lower case in en, the same has to be assumed for en-ca and en-gb. --Leyo 08:49, 26 November 2012 (UTC) PS. Reported.

Yes, this one is a bug with AutoEdit.js, not with importing interwikis. However, I think importing interwikis would have produced the same bug, unless Slurpintewiki relies, as bots do, on the displayed title instead of interwikis. --Zolo (talk) 09:05, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Reporting bugs

Feedback on bugs with known solutions

First, you folks are great at reporting bugs! Could hardly do without you, at least we would spend a whole lot of additional time debugging!

When someone in the community posts a bug it should usually be for Mediawiki extensions and then the component WikidataRepo or WikidataClient. The bug should get the status unconfirmed or new, first one if you find that something is broken but don't know if it is a real problem. The unconfirmed bugs must somehow be verified and turned into new bugs. A minimum requirement for a bug to go from unconfirmed to new is a reproducible example. It is also nice if you include information about browser and OS.

When the confirmed bugs are handled by the dev team the bugs are first defined as new, and if the bug is picked up for the current sprint it goes from new to assigned. If we during a sprint figure out that we can handle an additional bug, then we also mark it as assigned but usually only after we have made the necessary code. A link to the code in Gerrit should be posted in the bug, and likewise the commit in Gerrit should contain a reference to the bug. After it is marked as assigned and coded it will go to resolved – fixed when it is merged with the rest of the code. Then it will be demoed and marked as verified – fixed if it becomes an accepted solution.

If a volunteer handles a bug he (or she) should also mark the code as assigned and post a link in it to the code in Gerrit, and also when it is coded it should go to resolved – fixed. Remember the links from Gerrit to Bugzilla, and from Bugzilla to Gerrit! After that it will be handled as other commits from the dev team and can become a verified accepted solution.

And one final thing; when something gets merged it means merged into master. It will then first be visible on the dev system, then just before demo time it will be visible the test system, and then bi-weekly rolled out to the production cluster when we start to do that. From something is merged (resolved – fixed) it can take up to three weeks before it reaches this site. Jeblad (talk) 11:58, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Possibility to add description in more than one language

Good day, the only way I've found to add a description in an other language is to choose a different language in my preferences, which is pretty unproductive. I think there should be a way to select a language on every entry to add translation for the description. Amqui (talk) 04:23, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

You can use Jitrixis's LabelLister to do that. It's available as a gadget. --Yair rand (talk) 04:27, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
It should be implemented by default in my opinion. Amqui (talk) 04:38, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Agree. Bináris (talk) 05:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

So, should I fill a bug to have this enhancement? Amqui (talk) 04:12, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm bringing this topic out of the Archives, since it's unresolved. Amqui (talk) 01:11, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I've clicked on "labelLister" a few days ago, but nothing happend. (I'm using Opera.) --Kolja21 (talk) 02:01, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Gadgets are implemented by default by adding them to MediaWiki:Common.js. An administrator can do that, and no don't file a bug for that.--Snaevar (talk) 10:50, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Better than adding it to Common.js would be adding [default] next to its listing in Mediawiki:Gadgets-definition. --Yair rand (talk) 10:53, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Per Yair rand. Sounds like a good plan. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:06, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I have done a number of mass stub creation projects (such as all the remaining entries in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_New_Zealand_Biography ) and I was wondering whether there's any way to maintain the semantic correspondence though wikipedia and into wikidata. Currently I use a template for the references, and I was wondering whether there was a way to enhance the semantics of the reference. 130.195.179.80 22:56, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Special project pages

I came across Q53352 while tackling the list of pages without an English label, and quite honestly had no idea what to do with it. How do we handle project-specific special pages? Sven Manguard Wha? 03:36, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm very apathetic to these kinds of pages staying into existence. Something project specific doesn't meet the goal of Wikidata, in my opinion. If there is a Wikipedia article with one interwiki, that's one thing, because that means it can be built upon and expanded later. A project specific Special, Wikipedia, User, etc. namespace page clearly doesn't meet our scope; that would be more information for information's sake. (Just for clarification, I have no problem with an entry for 'Special:Recent changes' or 'Wikipedia:Village pump' because these are around all projects for the most part; entries like Q53352 which exist only for one specific local project is something that I feel should be avoided.) Categories are one subject being brought up on RFC, but other namespaces are iffy at best, especially ones without interwiki links. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 05:03, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
This kind of data (bibliographic information about a book source) belongs to Wikidata (at a later stage)... not the interwiki information, but the content of de:Vorlage:BibISBN/9783494014241 could be included here at a later stage. Syp (talk) 06:12, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
ISBN data certainly belongs here in the future, along with the author, title, etc. but I think the German Wikipedia page listing this probably doesn't ever need it's own page. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 06:22, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
Q53352 was not meant as a special project page. It's a book page (Taschenlexikon der Pflanzen Deutschlands und angrenzender Länder, Wiebelsheim 2011, ISBN 978-3-494-01424-1). The (international) Wikidata item should replace the (locale) template that is used in about 100 Wikipedia articles. I hope this will be possible soon. --Bookman (talk) 06:02, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Help needed for import

As suggested on WD:Forum, I'd like to import Wikidata related pages from Meta. However there are two things that I am not sure about:

The contribute page doesn't necessarily help an editor contribute to WD, so it should probably go in the WD namespace. Help is usually for step-by-step instructions and the like to help guide users through editing. The contribute page servers more as a "Village Pump"-style page. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 09:19, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. I have imported a few pages. Translation is still needed. But as texts have to be somewhat updated, I am actually not totally sure translations need to be automatically imported from Meta. --Zolo (talk) 08:55, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Remember that some of those pages are technical in nature and is not meant to be newcomer introductions. If we can keep the technical nature of the pages there should be no problem moving them to Wikidata and maintainig them here. Jeblad (talk) 22:39, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Naming guidelines page

Do we have a page with all of the agreed upon naming guidelines? If not, we need one. I was looking for guidance on whether to use the binomial nomenclature (scientific) name for plants and animals, or use the common name for plants and animals. I think I've done both already. These are the kind of things we should standardize. This is also Sven Manguard 15:41, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Created a draft: Wikidata:List of policies and guidelines.--Snaevar (talk) 17:25, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Languages spoken by admins

I thought that we would have more pages watched by admins, not only RfD, and contributors who don't necessarily speak English. So I wrote a little script that lists all the languages spoken by any of the admins (except WMDE admins who don't use their bits), and this could be inserted into the header of any admin-related page as a template and updated by bot. Perhaps with a link to the admins' list so that once a user determined the desired language is available, he/she can check for admins who speak it. Is it interesting? It can later be enhanced to display the maximal available level for each language.

Cheers, Bináris (talk) 22:16, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Is this uninteresting or just seems to be too perfect to comment? :-) Bináris (talk) 06:44, 28 November 2012 (UTC)đ

It sounds like a good idea :) something like a link to administrators who speak a particular language would be helpful on administrative pages. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 06:49, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
What about something like commons:Commons:List of administrators by language? --Leyo 15:04, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
A page like this would be perfect. Restu20 15:12, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Welcome template

Hello, I think welcoming users is a great idea, and so is the template ({{Welcome}}) but has anyone thought about adding a smaller version of {{WelcomeTemplateLanguages}} to the bottom so that if we welcome a user in the wrong language or don't know the language they speak, the user can just click on their language if available? Any comments or suggestions appreciated. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 20:35, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

That is probably becouse it is missing an <noinclude> tag in the four tildes. E.g. It should be ~~<noinclude><noinclude/>~~, not ~~<noinclude/>~~.Good night.--Snaevar (talk) 01:38, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
It might be necessary to substitute the entire thing so REVISIONUSER doesn't change after a different user edits.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  05:45, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
There's a few ways we could do this:
  • Have users substitute the template, with the template leaving an autotranslate template followed by a signature.
  • Have users substitute the template, with the template leaving an autotranslating system with a signature as parameter to be passed to the later template.
  • Have it non-substitutable, and have users just add the signature after the template.
I prefer the last option. --Yair rand (talk) 08:32, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, if this question was discussed already.

Does Wikidata support links between sister projects? Like Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, Commons, etc? Such possibility will simplify navigation between projects and its maintenance. For example:

  • Writer could have article in Wikipedia, media on Commons, texts on Wikisource, quotes on Wikiquote.
  • Species could have article in Wikipedia, media on Commons and definition on Wikispecies. Or Wikispecies could be replaced with Wikidata completely?

How interwikis for projects other then Wikipedia are supposed to be maintained? Should separated entries be created? Or it'll possible to do in one item?

EugeneZelenko (talk) 11:47, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

"Links to sister projects are not possible yet but likely in the future. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 16:25, 30 October 2012 (UTC)", - WD:Project chat/Archive/2012/10#Two questions: Deleting a dataset, and "other projects". --Yair rand (talk) 11:51, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
The ability to link to other things than Wikipedia articles would certainly be useful, but to me, Wikidata would be a great occasion to revise to way Wikimedia content is organised. Take the case of Commons, which I know best: it revolves around a pretty messy and very labor-intensive categorization system. Replacing it with a Wikidata-based tag system could be a major improvement, making it possible to automatically generate links to Commons. --Zolo (talk) 12:58, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
The Wikisources do have the need to link by languages to their WPs, and to link across the languages between Wikisources. This can be for people, or it can be for works. For instance, Charles Darwin will have an author page across the wikisources, and his works will be translated into many languages, especially Origin of species. Surely we want to be able to link the Commons {{Creator}} template to the authors in each of the wikipedias, each of the wikisources, +++, then we want to link the image scan at Commons, to each article about the work, and then to each language version at the wikisources. To note that VIAF identifiers are starting to be entered, and if we can start being able to link to OCLC then we can be linked in appropriately to these sources of free text.  — billinghurst sDrewth 13:38, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

From all of us to all of you

The Wikidata Barnstar
To all of the amazing people in the Wikidata community! Jeblad (talk) 01:23, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
seconded! -- Duesentrieb (talk) 10:47, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely amazed. --Denny Vrandečić (WMDE) (talk) 10:49, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
\o/ Thanks for your work! Silke WMDE (talk) 15:24, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Keep on rocking! Danwe (talk) 21:59, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Wow, thanks! :D  Hazard-SJ  ✈  05:44, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
:-) Thank you! Bináris (talk) 06:42, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! :) --Beta16 (talk) 09:10, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! xDD --Sotiale (talk) 10:54, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
OMG, thanks! Superzerocool (talk) 11:51, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
<dances> :) —Theopolisme 11:57, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
yeah :-) --Bene* (talk) 15:39, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
:D *happy* Lukas²³ talk in German Contribs 15:40, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
*le me happy* :) --Wiki13 (talk) 15:42, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks and nice to meet you... Wagino 20100516 (talk) 17:52, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Weeeeeee! :D Raystorm está aquí 18:14, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! :)-- DangSunM (T · C) 21:01, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
I want to thank whomever designed that!--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:18, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
I commissioned it from our resident master-of-logos, Isarra. There's also an SVG version by Zscout370, in case, you know, you decide to blow it up to poster size and stick it above your bed . Sven Manguard Wha? 05:47, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Autowikibrowser

Is it possible to use the autowikibrowser on wikidata? I tried to and managed to log in, but when I wanted to save the statusbar said its saving and then it restarts from 50 seconds. Any ideas?--CENNOXX (talk) 15:43, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Not sure if it would work here, since editing is so js-based. Ajraddatz (Talk) 16:00, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
AWB does not work on Wikidata when editing in the mainspace, haven't tested outside of it yet. It is able to make the lists and such, just not edit. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 16:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
That's logically because the api for main namespace is not the same as in the wikipedias. It's also the reason why there is no edit button at an item. --Bene* (talk) 18:38, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
It seems like it could be made to work here though. It might require a custom module though. Does anyone have any idea what we could use it for? The only think I could think of were to check for spelling mistakes but I don't really know much about this project yet. Kumioko (talk) 03:18, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Is one article enough?

Is an article on just one wikipedia enough to have a corresponding wikidata page?--Cattus (talk) 18:24, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes. See WD:Notability. Greetings, Lukas²³ talk in German Contribs 18:40, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

(Editconflict) Yes, I think it is definitely enough. Theoretically, each Wikipedia is equal for us, and one article is the possibility to have more someday. Wikidata is to collect data from the entire WikiEmpire. Practically, it may help people creating the second article to find the first one and connect them; it is easier to search on Wikidata than to search in all the wikis if there is a corresponding article somewhere. Bináris (talk) 18:41, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

  • Another aspect why its enough: later properties will link to items so if the item is about a super small city e.g. in Germany with only a German wikipedia article it might still have a property with population major .... --Sk!d (talk) 19:35, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
I understand now, thanks for all your replies.--Cattus (talk) 20:26, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

autoEdit "null"

This is a really nooby question, but what does "null" actually mean when using autoEdit? I'm getting edits that are supposedly "null" when additional sub-labels are added. Hurricanefan24 (talk) 19:23, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

It's null if you don't choose any descriptions from the list. --Stryn (talk) 19:27, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
'kay, thanks Stryn. Hurricanefan24 (talk) 19:30, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Clarification: Don't select "Update: descriptions", if you want to update labels only. Because you can't update descriptions, if you (or somebody other) has not done any lists about hurricanes (what's you're currently doing). Greetings, --Stryn (talk) 19:38, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Two (mostly) unrelated issues

Despite reading what help pages I could find, I've not yet figured out — why can't I do anything with mainspace pages? Finding that they weren't editable, I figured that it was a matter of some sort of protection, but going to http://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q12345&action=edit takes me to the same place as http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12345. I was expecting it to be like a normal protected page (the &action=edit command lets you view the source code), so I'm surprised that I can't even do that.

Meanwhile, if you're able to create or edit pages, could you create tour 1997 Live at Southampton as a soft redirect to w:en:D tour 1997 Live at Southampton? The proper title for that page (which it had until quite recently) was "D:tour 1997 Live at Southampton", and people who search for the old title will end up getting dumped on a nonexistent page here. I'm thinking of something comparable to species:Wikispecies:The Awakening, which is meant to help people trying to read the en:wp article on the movie Species:The Awakening. If you do that, it might help to create similar pages at Ream (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_Ream) and Fuse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_Fuse). Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 02:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

To the first point, that's because mainspace articles don't exist in the conventional sense here. If you go to a random page, you'll find the title to be a serial number, which is attached to a topic with links to the related Wikipedia articles. Such interwiki redirection as you suggest is not possible, due to the nature of this project. Read more at Wikidata:Introduction. Ajraddatz (Talk) 02:25, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
I've already read the introduction page, and that's largely why I'm confused. What that page says makes it sound comparable to other WMF projects: "The data in Wikidata is entered and maintained by Wikidata editors, who decide on the rules of content creation and management in Wikidata". Sounds just like Wikipedia articles or Wiktionary entries, but there's no way for me to create Q111111111, for example, or to edit the already-existing Q1; how can the data be entered or maintained by Wikidata editors when pages don't have an edit option? Nyttend (talk) 02:35, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
There are edit buttons beside each of the modifiable fields (the label, description, aliases and links), and new pages are started through Special:CreateItem. Honestly, the intro page is a bit vague - we need better documentation on stuff here, but are working on it. Ajraddatz (Talk) 03:04, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
The content of the pages are serialized data and not ordinary wikicode. In theory it can still be edited, but as the serialized data is partly used to construct additional database tables ordinary editing would be very fragile. Because of this there are specialized editing interfaces, including a specialized API. Ordinary editing interfaces are although disabled. Jeblad (talk) 03:19, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
It's also worth noting that most of Wikidata's featured aren't deployed yet. We're mostly sure that the next batch of them will be coming in during the month of January, if not earlier. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:45, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Timeline needed

I really miss a timeline for the project. It would be a great help for the introduction page. Some basic infos about the steps that are planned (3 phases) and when they should be reached. --Kolja21 (talk) 16:48, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Here is an draft:

Interlanguage links between all languages
Current system:
interwiki links
between all languages 		=> links of all languages to one central point, Wikidata
Wikidata:
links of all languages
to one central point
  • The first phase (interwiki links) will provide a centralized interwiki system as an alternative to the current system.
  • The second phase (infoboxes) will gather infobox-related data with the goal of filling the infoboxes with data from Wikidata.
  • The third phase (lists) will allow the creation of lists.

--Snaevar (talk) 00:10, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

You're great. This is very fine. :) Raoli (talk) 01:08, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
See en:Help:EasyTimeline_syntax#EasyTimeline_code_with_a_template_parameter_is_not_allowed. :)
So Phase 2 starts on January 1 and Phase 3 starts on April 1? Am I understanding this correctly? --Yair rand (talk) 11:46, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
We have already started coding on phase 2. I can't say when it'll be live here though. That's not predictable at the moment. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 11:50, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm really looking forward to phase 2. Are there mockups? From the thread "Zeitplan" on the German language forum we've started a Wikidata:Infoboxes task force. --Kolja21 (talk) 15:39, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
@Yair rand: The white lines show when the phases are planned to be deployed, not when the coding of the phases begin. Phase 2 is sceduled to be deployed in December 2012 or January 2013.
@Kolja21: Yes, there are mocups for phase II: File:20120711 phase II grid 1.png, File:20120711 phase II grid 2.png, File:20120711 phase II grid 3.png, File:20120711 phase II grid 4.png, File:20120716 phase II grid 1.png, File:20120720 phase II grid 1.png and File:20120807 phase II grid 1.png.--Snaevar (talk) 17:37, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Great. Would it be considered untimelely to start implementing infoboxes in wikis stating "data awaiting wikidata phase 2 (expected january 2013)"? Poul G (talk) 14:01, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Perfekt! Thanx for the mocups. So the heading ("Berlin") will be the same for items (q) and properties (p). The item page (Q64) will list the interwiki links and the property page (P64?) the fields for the info boxes? --Kolja21 (talk) 23:47, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
The heading might be different, becouse it is editable. The property page would be in the property namepace and would be Property:P* (Property:P30 perhaps). The property page would list the fields for the info boxes, yes. Note that it won´t be possible to add an field (f.e. the population of berlin) without an source.--Snaevar (talk) 00:36, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
But why does it have to be so complicated: two title fields and two different numbers? If I add the name "Berlin" it should be possible to show it on every page that is about this city. Why not reserve property no. P64 for item Q64? Or why not using tabs: 1st tab properties, 2nd tab interwiki links? --Kolja21 (talk) 01:33, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
So wikidata will don't unite the differents codes of the Navboxs and others templates ? --Nouill (talk) 16:21, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
@Kolja21: Sorry, but I can´t really answer your question properly. All I know is that design was rejected by the Wikidata development team (see page 3 of File:UI Layout Concept.pdf). Perhaps you should ask the developers about this.
@Nouill: Navbox is not an infobox, so Wikidata phase 2 won't affect it in any way.--Snaevar (talk) 10:34, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Properties (P#) are used within items (Q#) as a kind of reusable identificator for specific values and relations with items. It is also possible to use data from the items to implement other types of templates than infoboxes. For example think succession boxes, parent-children relationships, municipalities within a county, geographical closeness between entities, and so forth. Later on it can also be possible to connect queries with templates, or even do further processing by Lua. The items are not something that will be turned into a fixed template, they are pages with data about real world entities stored in Wikidata that are connected to articles in Wikipedia about the same real world entities. Individual data slices (claims) can then be extracted in the Wikipedia articles by templates. Those templates are not limited to be infoboxes, but can be any kind of template where the specific data they can provide are usefull. Jeblad (talk) 02:00, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
In the mailing list you can follow the discussions about the technical background. If you're lucky you will find the clarification for one subject out of 500 ;) We should talk more about content and what the goal of Wikidata is - apart from the technical implementation. --Kolja21 (talk) 23:06, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
One month ago or something like than, I remove my inscription in the mailing list, just because I don't understand nine-tenths of the content. :) --Nouill (talk) 16:43, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Can redirects be added as sitelinks?

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 40755

In situations where a Wikipedia does not have an article about a topic, and instead has the page redirect to a more general page that covers that topic as well as other topics, is it acceptable to add the redirect as a sitelink to the Wikidata item on that topic? --Yair rand (talk) 13:31, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

At present the redirect will be followed to the final general page in those cases. Jeblad (talk) 14:24, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
See also Bugzilla. Syp (talk) 13:57, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

ETA for Hungarian pilot

Is there any estimate for when the Hungarian wiki will start using Wikidata data? Kaldari (talk) 12:03, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Like a week, a month, a year? Kaldari (talk) 23:55, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Less than two months, more than a week, see: #Timeline needed. --Kolja21 (talk) 01:58, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Right now we are just waiting for Reedy to deploy Wikibase Lib and Wikibase Client on the Hungarian wiki.--Snaevar (talk) 01:09, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Guidelines for sock puppetry

See also Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Sock puppetry. There also should be a guideline Wikidata:Sock puppetry. I'd like to know what the community thinks about this and the guideline structures. Lukas²³ talk in German Contribs 20:29, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I think we should not take the blocks form enwiki automatically into Wikidata. In my opinion it is not enough to say "he is blocked in Wikipedia" to block him here. We should only block accounts who already made an edit. Than we can say he made a mistake and it would be a reason. --Bene* (talk) 20:42, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
I remember a conversation I had with some people at Simplewiki about banned editors being sent there to prove their ability to work without breaking rules. Mind you that was something that the simplewiki people didn't really like happening, but their general policy was that if you came over to Simple after being indeffed or banned on en.wiki, you were on thin ice, but they wouldn't automatically carry over the block. I view that as sensible. This is also Sven Manguard 20:55, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
I would like this rule. Of course we should watch their work very detailed, but we should not block them. If they do only one vandalism edit they are immidiately blocked, just like probation. --Bene* (talk) 20:57, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Is there a reason to deal with just this guideline at this phase? Generally, I would prefer building the neccessary guidelines from various Wikipedias' patterns to following enwiki customs. Bináris (talk) 21:03, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

 Oppose First we should not adapt rules form enwiki. If we adapt some we should do it from commons because we all use it. Second it is neccessary because there are some sock blocks made and we need a consensus. --Bene* (talk) 21:05, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
I think a blocking policy should be started before this as it is going to be mentioned majorly. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 21:07, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, we need seperate blocking policy that makes clear what constitutes a ban from Wikidata. Del♉sion23 (talk) 21:10, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 Info Have a look at the cu request. --Bene* (talk) 21:11, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
Likewise oppose adopting any enwiki policies here. When it comes to any sort of blocking, I tend to have the same stance: If a user is disrupting the project, and know it, then don't allow them to continue. Anything else --> common sense. Ajraddatz (Talk) 21:14, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
  • A general guideline on being unresponsive and persisting with disputed and/or disruptive behavior should probably be the bar we set. That would cover (new) editors mocking a similar editor like a sockpuppet would. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 21:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't think we need a blocking policy of any kind at the moment. Instead, we should redirect Wikidata:Blocking policy to a small section of our admin policy, which states that admins are required to explain any block on request from a user in good standing. Provided that admins meet this requirement, they should then be trusted to exercise common sense. There will come a time when this isn't enough, of course. But I would prefer that we write a blocking policy in response to problems we are familiar with, rather than guess what these problems might be. Drafting a blocking policy now might give relatively unintelligent pests ideas. It might also encourage the more competent vandals and trolls to exploit holes in the policy – detracting from the project in the first instance, and then doing so again, wikilawyering in the reasonable hope of not being blocked, à la en.wp. —WFC— 21:56, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
  •  Oppose a direct duplication. Let's use other projects' guidelines as examples, but not copy them directly. As for my blocks, I said "abusing multiple accounts", but my main reason was that they were spambots as well.--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:06, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Q-gaps

(Note: Thanks WFC for finding this)

There've been some gaps in entries (e.g. Q193951, Q193952 and Q193953), which are unexplainable. 1. Why? and 2. Can these gaps be 'closed'? Hurricanefan24 (talk) 23:35, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

1. Some items are deleted, leaving gaps. 2. No, and there is no reason to fill them. We have an indefinite number of possible tags. Ajraddatz (Talk) 00:07, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
Those entries do not appear in the deletion log. This appears to be a bug (unless the deletions have been somehow hidden)? Even with as many possible Qs as we have numbers, it seems untidy to randomly skip over some.--Esp261 (talk) 00:38, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
Quote from Daniel Kinzler, one of the Wikidata developers: "It's true that IDs may be "swallowed" by unsuccessful attempts to create an item. But I don't see this as a problem." Infact there is an bug about this - bugzilla:42362 (the previous quote is from that bug) and it is marked as wontfix.--Snaevar (talk) 00:46, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Day-by-day page # data

Just another quick post: is page number data available day-by-day? It'd be interesting to observe the growth curve of this new pilot. Hurricanefan24 (talk) 23:36, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Just made this graph. It gives a good idea of how many items are being added to Wikidata on a day to day basis. And it shows that item creation is going up, likely because of bots. It plots the day a certain Q# value was reached so i guess it doesn't account for deleted items. But it approximates it. Del♉sion23 (talk) 00:53, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

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