Re: [Wikidata-l] What is the point of properties?
On 29/05/14 21:04, Andrew Gray wrote: One other issue to bear in mind: it's *simple* to have properties as a separate thing. I have been following this discussion with some interest but... well, I don't think I'm particularly stupid, but most of it is completely above my head. Saying here are items, here are a set of properties you can define relating to them, here's some notes on how to use properties is going to get a lot more people able to contribute than if they need to start understanding theoretical aspects of semantic relationships... Good point. The thread has really gone off in a rather philosophical direction :-) As Jane said, examples (of places where a property should be used *and* of places where it should not be used) are definitely much more useful to help our editors on the ground. I usually use items I know as role models or have a look for suitable showcase items. Markus On 28 May 2014 09:37, Daniel Kinzler daniel.kinz...@wikimedia.de wrote: Key differences between Properties and Items: * Properties have a data type, items don't. * Items have sitelinks, Properties don't. * Items have Statements, Properties will support Claims (without sources). The software needs these constraints/guarantees to be able to take shortcuts, provide specialized UI and API functionality, etc. Yes, it would be possible to use items as properties instead of having a separate entity type. But they are structurally and functionally different, so it makes sense to have a strict separate. This makes a lot of things easier, e.g.: * setting different permissions for properties * mapping to rdf vocabularies More fundamentally, they are semantically different: an item describes a concept in the real world, while a property is a structural component used for such a description. Yes, properies are simmilar to data items, and in some cases, there may be an item representing the same concept that is represented by a property entity. I don't see why that is a problem, while I can see a lot of confusion arising from mixing them. -- daniel Am 28.05.2014 09:25, schrieb David Cuenca: Since the very beginning I have kept myself busy with properties, thinking about which ones fit, which ones are missing to better describe reality, how integrate into the ones that we have. The thing is that the more I work with them, the less difference I see with normal items and if soon there will be statements allowed in property pages, the difference will blur even more. I can understand that from the software development point of view it might make sense to have a clear difference. Or for the community to get a deeper understanding of the underlying concepts represented by words. But semantically I see no difference between: cement (Q45190) emissivity (P1295) 0.54 and cement (Q45190) emissivity (Q899670) 0.54 Am I missing something here? Are properties really needed or are we adding unnecessary artificial constraints? Cheers, Micru ___ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l -- Daniel Kinzler Senior Software Developer Wikimedia Deutschland Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. ___ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l ___ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
Re: [Wikidata-l] What is the point of properties?
On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 9:04 PM, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: One other issue to bear in mind: it's *simple* to have properties as a separate thing. I have been following this discussion with some interest but... well, I don't think I'm particularly stupid, but most of it is completely above my head. Saying here are items, here are a set of properties you can define relating to them, here's some notes on how to use properties is going to get a lot more people able to contribute than if they need to start understanding theoretical aspects of semantic relationships... Definitely, I cannot agree more. TBH, the original question of this thread was already settled some messages ago. I understand that it might result confusing that we have wandered off into other realms, so I consider that it is better to consider this thread closed and I will consider opening a new one with the right topic (which is quite different as it started :-P) Cheers, Micru ___ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
Re: [Wikidata-l] What is the point of properties?
And to summarize the answer of the original question to future readers. The point of properties is: a) to help humans to better understand Wikidata b) to help programmers (also humans :P) build the software running it c) to make a distinction between concepts found in the world and the concepts that have been interiorized by the community There might be more, but those are the main points that suggest that it is better to keep properties and items separate even if their essence is the same. Thank you all for this learning experience :-) Micru ___ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
Re: [Wikidata-l] What is the point of properties?
On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 10:06 AM, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: Do we have an easy way of highlighting a gallery of good examples or even a plain wikipage of topical guidance? Would be very useful if we could say 'here's a politician, here's a French city, etc' https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Showcase_items :) -- Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher Product Manager for Wikidata Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 10963 Berlin www.wikimedia.de Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985. ___ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
Re: [Wikidata-l] Tables
Simple tables that are in wikipedia: * league tables with columns for games won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, points, rank and rows for each of the teams in the league. * election results with columns for votes for each party and seats won by each party and rows for each region, state etc. * population numbers with columns for each tab (races, religion etc.) and rows for each census district. In all of these cases I suspect that this information might be more useful as a series of statements. These could either be broken up with a statement corresponding to each column on the item for each row or alternatively with all the information in the table on one item, a statement for each row and qualifiers to each statement corresponding to each column. What is the advantage to having this as a table instead? Joe On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 9:12 PM, Jan Kučera kozuc...@gmail.com wrote: Well what I meant was just an ordinary 2-dimensional table (rows vs. columns)... Excel was just an example to make it clear. So I guess simple tables are not any roadmap yet right? Further step would be an n-dimensional structures... arrays etc. I wouldnt care about format CSV, JSON... Jan 2014-05-27 14:24 GMT+02:00 David Cuenca dacu...@gmail.com: Please, leave your comments here too: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/How_to_deal_with_open_datasets I've been gathering comments from several people, and in the next days I will try to summarize these suggestions to be discussed on irc. Thanks, Micru On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 2:12 PM, Ilario Valdelli valde...@gmail.com wrote: I am not an expert of Wikidata but I work a lot in integration of databases with several middlewares or tools. I think that the best way is to ask a solution to store and to download data in a format compatible with datasheets like CSV. Excel is considered also a tool to do some basic analysis, but it can be connected easily to a data source (if well structured). Excel itself is not a good approach to store data, so it's not a good solution to keep the data in excel format in a database. Doesn't make sense to store a 2D tables in a database in my opinion because the data have no sense and they are not helpful to anyone. They can be stored like a text file, but I would not imagine the series of errors that can be generated importing these data again. Regards On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 1:15 PM, Jan Kučera kozuc...@gmail.com wrote: Hi there, can tables be stored within wikidata database? I mean simple 2D tables like excel spreadsheets... Jan ___ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l -- Ilario Valdelli Wikimedia CH Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera Switzerland - 8008 Zürich Wikipedia: Ilario https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ilario Facebook: Ilario Valdelli https://www.facebook.com/ivaldelli Twitter: Ilario Valdelli https://twitter.com/ilariovaldelli Linkedin: Ilario Valdelli http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=6724469 Tel: +41764821371 http://www.wikimedia.ch ___ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l -- Etiamsi omnes, ego non ___ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l ___ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l ___ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
