Sure, I'm just wondering if it might be better to just go ahead and approve 
something like "number of floors" as a string, and then once numbers are 
supported we could try to automatically convert all of those strings to numbers 
and either delete or manually fix the errors that we find.

From: magnusman...@googlemail.com
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:27:15 +0100
To: wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikidata-l] phase 2 live on the first 11 Wikipedias

AFAIK the hold-up is because the "numbers" data type should also be able to 
carry an uncertainty, and a unit. Not really necessary for "number of floors", 
but for plenty of other applications.




On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 11:21 AM, Michael Hale <hale.michael...@live.com> wrote:





Well, there is a trade-off. If we have too few types then it is harder for 
clients to use the data and inconsistencies might slip in. But if we delay the 
approval of too many properties because we want more types then we risk 
unnecessarily slowing the growth of the database. It's all binary information 
ultimately. Datatypes just add some constraints that block certain binary 
sequences from being stored in certain areas. The list of properties that are 
awaiting specific datatypes are standard datatypes found in many databases, but 
it is just an artifact of history that we consider those datatypes to be 
standard. For example, you see that "number of floors" is awaiting the number 
datatype. That's nice because it will prevent someone from entering "abc" as 
the number of floors in the Burj Khalifa. But just constraining the information 
to be a number doesn't prevent someone from entering -10 as the number of 
floors. So should we add an additional datatype for positive integers? If we 
try to specify too many server-side constraints on the information then our 
efforts to be supremely responsible become irresponsible because, for example, 
we are just slowing the ability of Wikidata to provide better templates to less 
popular language Wikipedias.



Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:56:37 +0200
From: kozuc...@gmail.com
To: wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org


Subject: Re: [Wikidata-l] phase 2 live on the first 11 Wikipedias

Why are there so many properties waiting on 
http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Property_proposal/Pending then???




2013/3/29 Michael Hale <hale.michael...@live.com>






It would be nice to never have to do any additional validation on the client, 
but in general I'm pretty sure it's impossible to specify server validation for 
every type in advance. Let's assume I want to upload gene sequences. I could go 
through the long process of waiting to get a new type approved and code added 
on the website just for the minor check of making sure this is a string of just 
As, Gs, Cs, and Ts, or I could just use generic strings and start right now.




Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 17:42:29 +0100
From: kozuc...@gmail.com
To: wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org



Subject: Re: [Wikidata-l] phase 2 live on the first 11 Wikipedias

> parse it into a date on the client-side.



this is exactly why I do not want to do. we should validate inputs, not (try 
to) parse outputs


2013/3/29 Michael Hale <hale.michael...@live.com>







It doesn't hinder the expansion of Wikidata because the current types are 
flexible. Added types will improve performance and simplify client access for 
some scenarios, but every scenario I can think of is possible with the 
currently available types. If you have data that you would like to enter, I 
suggest doing so and then you can switch some properties to the new types when 
they are added if you want. The three types currently supported for properties 
are lists of items, media, and strings. You can group different types together 
for a single property by creating a new item to hold them. Soon you will be 
able to add an extra property that can be used to differentiate values in a 
list, called a qualifier. Other types are coming, but for example, if you want 
to use a date now you can just use a string and then parse it into a date on 
the client-side.





Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:54:23 +0100
From: kozuc...@gmail.com
To: wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org




Subject: Re: [Wikidata-l] phase 2 live on the first 11 Wikipedias

Contrats! Anyways, I still miss various data types to be available for 
properties - unavailability of these greatly hinders the expansion of wikidata 
database. Any plans on how fast new (and comprehensive) data types will be 
introduced to wikidata.org?






2013/3/28 Daniel Kinzler <daniel.kinz...@wikimedia.de>





On 28.03.2013 11:24, Lydia Pintscher wrote:

>> In the announcement blog, {{#property:chief executive officer}} is not

>> ready, do you know the rough plan on this? maybe end of Q2?

>

> It should come soon. Hopefully already in the next deployment but no

> promises. We're currently figuring out the schedule for that with

> Easter complicating things a bit.



To give some idea in addition to what Lydia said:



I wrote the code for that just now, while on the train from Berlin. Now it needs

to be reviewed, tested, and, if all goes well, deployed. When that would be I'm

not sure, with people taking vacations over the holidays, but I'd speak of

weeks, not months. But it's quite a hunk of code, so delays are possible.



cheers,

daniel





--

Daniel Kinzler, Softwarearchitekt

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.





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