Another option would be to store the query on your Wikidata home page using the
{{SPARQL}} template and then sending a link to the page section for it. Here’s
an example:
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Template:SPARQL#Examples
Jeff
From: Wikidata <[email protected]> on behalf of Crystal E.
Clements <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, February 18, 2021 at 12:02 PM
To: Discussion list for the Wikidata project <[email protected]>
Subject: [External] Re: [Wikidata] Identifiers for WDQS queries
James,
I work with Wikidata in an academic library setting, and frequently use the
WDQS in my work and to demonstrate the power and value of Wikidata to
colleagues. I found myself copying and pasting a whole query into the notes of
a presentation slide yesterday rather than trying to paste in the URL from WDQS.
I would use identifiers for queries in my daily work, and I think this is a
fantastic idea. A place to save and share queries, like Quarry, would be useful
for sharing SPARQL/WDQS expertise as well.
I don't have privacy concerns about my WDQS queries, but I could see that
objection happening. Maybe saving and adding identifiers to queries could be an
opt-in kind of thing?
Best,
Crystal Clements
University of Washington Libraries
-----Original Message-----
From: Wikidata <[email protected]> On Behalf Of James Heald
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2021 5:33 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Wikidata] Identifiers for WDQS queries
Dear wikidata list,
One of the key things we do as Wikidata people is go round the internet,
hassling people to create nice identifiers for their things, with URIs and
landing-pages that we can link to.
It brought me up quite short to realise that actually applies to *us* too --
there is an important thing of ours that haven't got a linkable identifier for,
that it would be useful if there was a short linkable url for, and that is WDQS
queries.
So here's the use-case:
[[User:PKM]] and I have been working with a new external project who want to
build a "Gazetteer of Early Modern England and Wales" (EMEW) -- basically a
historical GIS for 15th & 16th century England and Wales, able to plot things
on this map:
https://viaeregiae.org/index.php/map/?layers=l9001l0007<https://viaeregiae.org/index.php/map/?layers=l9001l0007>
There's huge scope for collaboration with Wikidata, with deep linking both
ways, as we both try to improve our coverage of C16-C17 England and Wales
(expect WikiProject [[:d:WD:EMEW]] just as soon as we can get the pages made)
Something that we realise we want to be able to do, from the EMEW site, is for
a user to be able to give it the URL for a WDQS sparql query, for the site to
send that to WDQS, get back a file of EMEW ids, and show the results on the
EMEW map.
Now of course that *can* be done with full WDQS query URLs. But they are
horribly long and awkward.
What would be much nicer would be if each time WDQS ran a query it hadn't seen
before, it generated a new short identifier, that the UI would display, and
which could then be used to refer to the query.
So on the EMEW site, one would just put in the short identifier, that would
send it to WDQS with some appropriate URL-start to show it was a request for
data rather than for a link, back would come the results -- and all the user
would have had to copy in was a short identifier.
Of course to some extent the URL-shortener does this, but there are some
issues:
1) The maintainers point-blank refuse to let it allow URLs of more than
2000 characters. (
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T220703<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T220703>
) Gnarly WDQS queries can often be longer than this, sometimes a lot longer.
2) The short URL could be for anything on any wiki site -- the EMEW site can't
be sure that it corresponds to a SPARQL query
3) The short URL needs to be adjusted, to turn it from a WDQS url that's a link
to the query in the GUI into a WDQS url that's an external request for query
results. This is not straightforward.
A short identifier for a WDQS query would get round all these things.
It also might be one step forwards towards creating a place like Quarry
(https://quarry.wmflabs.org/<https://quarry.wmflabs.org>) where users could
save their queries, share them, document them, see other people's shared
queries, and come
back to them later. But that's another ticket
(https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T104762<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T104762>
open since July 2015).
All I am suggesting, first, is an identifier.
One objection that I thought of might be that if identifiers were automatically
assigned, without having to actually request them, then people might be able to
"spy" on what other queries people happened to be writing at any one time. I
don't know how serious an objection this is - it doesn't seem to be a problem
for Quarry - but could largely be avoided if the query-number was hashed to
make the sequence less predictable.
(Or alternatively, query-numbers could just be issued on request).
Anyway, just putting this out here, for thoughts.
Best wishes to everybody,
James.
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