This is in my opinion an upstream issue for MediaWiki proper. I do not think that templates and images from Commons are that different. Take this image for example:
< https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Treaty_of_Accession_2011_Ratification_Map.svg > It always reflects the current state of ratification. Take the templates that display the conservation status of species in Wikipedia. It encodes a whole lot of knowledge about different preservation status systems, and if they change, this is also not preserved anywhere in the history. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conservation_status> I agree that this is an issue. But our solution is consistent with the way it is done in other parts of Wikipedia, and a solution should not be partially addressing Wikidata but Wikipedia as a whole. One way would be to great HTML dumps of Wikipedia at regular intervals, as, e.g., the Internet Archive does it. A much more thorough discussion of this issue can be found here in a RENDER deliverable I was co-authoring in 2010: <http://render-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/D1.1.2.pdf> Cheers, Denny 2013/4/4 Gregor Hagedorn <[email protected]> > > when templates (or, in the case of wikidata, properties) get deleted or > renamed. > > Nobody has come up with a good solution yet. > > I think we did discuss a simple, working solution: Saving the value > together with the Wikipedia page. > > The major argument against that was: it is a waste of storage to > create a new Wikipedia page (perhaps daily) when property values > included in a page are changed in Wikidata. I personally value trust > and documentation of change much higher than disk storage, but even > then, there are ways to balance this. So perhaps a modified proposal > that matches the current development stage: > > If an editor saves a page with {{#property:population}} the parser > looks up the current value and changes this to: > {{#property:population|current value=2348732}} > and stores this wikitext version in the Wikipedia. The same would > apply to updating, saving {{#property:population|current > value=2348732}} may result in {{#property:population|current > value=2348700}} being saved. > > This would mean no additional "waste" of storage for articles that are > regularly changed. For those that are not, one could imagine a > bot-based monthly update check to make past knowledge transparent. > > I realize that this would require a pattern, where the > Wikidata-derived values would remain editable on the topic/article > pages, i.e. the property function would have to be inserted in the > template call, rather than in the template definition. Those wikidata > properties automatically called inside templates with a dynamic item > decided by the current template call would not be preserved. However, > both editing patterns would be available and it would be up to the > community of each Wikipedia to choose the preferred one. > > (As I said previously: although similar to the issue of commons images > and templates, the issue at stake for Wikidata is different. Because > of the problems in preserving a transparent editing history, updates > to commons images are generally restricted to truly minor improvements > (contrast, cropping, better resolution, etc.). I am not aware of > cases, where commons images regularly are replaced with updated > content that is different in substance and thus automatically changes > all Wikipedia pages, representing different knowledge. I don't want to > exclude this, but even for changing company logos the usual solution > is to create a new name, preserving the old logo. Similarly, templates > may fail to work in old versions (big problem!), but I am not aware > that a template would render out-of-time information when viewing a > past revision. Thus, the problem of Wikidata with respect to > endangering the trust basis of Wikipedia, the version system, is > related, but different). > > Gregor > > _______________________________________________ > Wikidata-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l > -- Project director Wikidata Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Obentrautstr. 72 | 10963 Berlin Tel. +49-30-219 158 26-0 | http://wikimedia.de Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
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