Wikidata talk:Notability/Archive 6

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At the moment we are often not capturing data that is available about spouses and other relatives (parents, children, cousins, etc) of notable people.

Should we be more generally encouraging people to create items for spouses of notable people, even if perhaps all we have is the spouse's name and the date of the marriage?

Or, is it sometimes more appropriate to record such names as strings, eg using the spouse (P26) = somevalue, object named as (P1932) = ... idiom?

A discussion has been started on this topic at Wikidata:Project chat#somevalue + stated as, as to how much that latter mechanism should be used, but wider input would be useful. Jheald (talk) 12:27, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I strongly tends to create items for all relatives with known names. This 1. allow they to be found in various ways 2. provides potential links to other databases 3. provide spaces for additional data and further improvement.--GZWDer (talk) 08:57, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I remember that I read under Hsarrazin's pen that it is wise creating items for all members of noble families - fulfilling a structural need by their mere belonging. But what about others? Should we define a threshold for prominent historical figures? Or allow there only dead relatives (to prevent potential privacy concerns)? Nomen ad hoc (talk) 09:48, 20 October 2019 (UTC).

respect privacy Living people is very important…

to protect privacy, I would be strongly opposed to create items for "living" spouses of famous people for which the only cause of notoriety would be to be married to someone famous - i.e. the husband of an actress who is nor actor, writer, filmmaker, etc., the wife of a politician who takes no part in his political campaigns, and is not famous otherwise, etc.

for writers, it would obviously be wrong to do so, as most writers are only notable in relation to their works, and most writers are not "public" people...

IMHO, when spouses themselves are not famous, only when concerned person are dead should we store this info...

as a general question, I would strongly  Oppose against storing the even name of a (living) non-famous spouse on the item of a (living or recently dead) person for which we have a structural item (even through "somevalue+stated as") because this could be a very dangerous way for hidden doxxing… --Hsarrazin (talk) 14:29, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

What if the names of the spouse or parent have been mentioned multiple times in a bigger news paper such as The Washington Post? Would it still be a breach of privacy then? --Trade (talk) 14:36, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Trade could you give an example, please ? --Hsarrazin (talk) 14:40, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Can I create an item about Irnerio Seminatore, head of IERI (Q3152239)? Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 17:24, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Can I create an item about Sandy Frazier [1] [2] [3] [4] [5], Counterjihad (Q3374768) activist and spokesperson of ACT! for America (Q20990738)? Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 17:27, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

@Visite fortuitement prolongée: As long as you have good sources of information on a person, and you're sure there isn't already an existing item, you really don't need to ask here before creating the item. Please see Wikidata:Living people for items about living people though. ArthurPSmith (talk) 23:22, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I do not know any reliable source or authority control about this Sandy Frazier, and my last creation (Q75158470) was deleted because such lack. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 21:19, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

@Visite fortuitement prolongée: As there was no deletion discussion, you can ask the deleting admin to undelete Q75158470, so long as you can make a case that they meet one of the criteria at [{WD:N]]. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:02, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Can I create an item about L'opium des imbéciles, a book by Rudy Reichstadt (Q47539797)? Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 10:13, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@Visite fortuitement prolongée: I think an item for any book is welcome on Wikidata, did you get an impression somewhere that it was not allowed? Just be sure you're not creating a duplicate! ArthurPSmith (talk) 23:20, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

 Done L'Opium des imbéciles (Q76658954) Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 21:14, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I think that this discussion is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, don't hesitate to replace this template with your comment. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 17:03, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi, if we consider wiki templates and modules are notable, why not wiki gadgets? --Dvorapa (talk) 21:33, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

There are several. --Infovarius (talk) 10:42, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Some were deleted recently due to notability, because gadgets are in MediaWiki namespace (Q61866606, Q61870979), that's why I'm asking. --Dvorapa (talk) 02:35, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Dvorapa. We should change this policy. --Martin Urbanec (talk) 22:24, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

I think gadgets important enough for inclusion in Wikidata should have a documentation page somewhere, which is a better description of what a gadget is than its implementation pages (especially when there are more than one, or when the implementation is a simple mw.loader.load to another wiki), and is already accepted by the policy. Are there counterexamples? Ltrlg ^[as Ltrtst] (talk) 13:31, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I think we should have items about tools even if they don't have a dedicated page on some wiki.

It would be odd if we only created items for templates or modules, but not for more developed tools.

If the source code is in MediaWiki namespace, linking it with source code repository URL (P1324) is possible (sample at Q14633239#P1324).

As it's not part of the standard MediaWiki GUI, maybe an item would be helpful as well, otherwise tracking of usage across projects might be more complicated .. --- Jura 13:20, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Shall we create an item for the special page of Extension:ArticlePlaceholder (Q21676433)?

It's only available on a limited number of projects (5 or 10)? and key to Wikidata. --- Jura 15:20, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

As far as I know, Wikidata interlanguage links don’t appear on special pages. If that’s the case, there’s not much point in creating a such item. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 23:05, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't really expect users to go from the cy-special page to the eo-special page, but

you can still get the sitelinks on Wikidata and users from Wikidata can navigate there and track usage. Not everything is about Wikipedia ;)

Also, it means that "subpages" of these will generally work, e.g. cy:Special:AboutTopic/Q1981020. --- Jura 02:20, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata is basically a database more or less independent from Wikipedia, but non-topic items (i.e. items about pages not in main namespace on Wikipedia) are just a convenient way to store interlanguage links. Of course not everything is about Wikipedia (or any other Wikimedia project), but for non-topic items IMO it is. (Actually, I don’t understand yet how Special:AboutTopic works, so I may miss a point there, but otherwise I’m pretty sure about my opinion.) —Tacsipacsi (talk) 00:02, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I  Oppose any inclusion of Special pages, because they are by themselves not editable, nor bots/gadgets-accessable, if the reason of this thread is just sitelinks, try to ask how Ripuarian Wikipedia (Q3568041) (ksh.wikipedia) proceed them. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 06:02, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

What does "MediaWiki page" refer to exactly?

Is it a page in the "MediaWiki:" namespace? A page on mediawiki.org? Something else?

I guess that it's a page in the "MediaWiki:" namespace, but it should be made less ambigous. --Amir E. Aharoni {{🌎🌍🌏}} talk 15:55, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

I made it more clear now, it meant a namespace as you guessed. When it was written links to mediawiki.org was not enabled yet. Stryn (talk) 18:37, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata items exist for a number of photographers with a long history of contributions to Wikimedia Commons, such that the Wikidata item is used to feed data to their Creator template.

The page User:Multichill/Questionable_notability_Wikimedians suggests that this practice is frowned upon (as the contributors are not notable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article).

Can someone clarify whether the Notability criteria permit this purpose for creation of a Wikidata item, or should this practice be avoided? --Bobulous (talk) 17:08, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

@Bobulous: please avoid it. Multichill (talk) 22:00, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

However I believe our notability criteria do permit this, especially if it is structurally useful for Commons (as your question suggests). ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:17, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I'm getting mixed messages here. It's permitted but should be avoided? Could the Notability page be clarified to declare this forbidden, or to endorse it? The grey area is not a fun place to dwell. --Bobulous (talk) 18:10, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

@Bobulous : Our current notability criteria are so lax that you are probably technically permitted to add anyone from the phone book here, that doesn't mean you should.

Commons has no structural need to create items about these people we're doing just fine without. So trust me on this one, don't. Multichill (talk) 18:24, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

@Multichill: Shouldn't some cut of such items be excluded by your list, if and when at least one Wikiquote edition is available? TBH, because most Wikiquotes' criteria for their articles are 999.999‰ same as what Wikipedias defined, and sometimes a non-Wikipedia-notable man can serve their Wikiquote page, and vice versa. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 11:46, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Nah, I doubt Christian Frates (Q47691741), Vladimir Medeyko (Q50233421), Puzzlet Chung (Q72808477) & Nataliia Tymkiv (Q40640648) would meet notability on any Wikipedia. Multichill (talk) 12:00, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

@Multichill: Nataliia Tymkiv (Q40640648) is a former member of WMF Board of Trustees so I don't see why it can't meet, if it can't then we even should not have, you know, the Amir Sarabadani (Q28992601), one of the WMF server admins. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:00, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Would be a bit self centered if being on a board of the WMF or working for Wikimedia would make you notable enough for a Wikipedia article, but who knows. So yes, these people on the list is very intentional. Multichill (talk) 10:40, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

I know it is still not in the process of recognition as sister project but can we have WikiSpore.org added to the list for notability? Few of us are working on content there that is under-documented and we need more time to establish notability standards for different subject areas (would not follow only the logic of dominant English Wikipedia norms). Zblace (talk) 14:53, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

•  Support (not that this is a vote), this would make a lot of sense as it looks like a great potential "sister project" and its items would serve the general goal of Wikidata and vice versa quite well. Although this would automatically become the case once the project is launched, but as that could take years maybe we should create a separate way to organise items created for "unofficial sister projects". -- Donald Trung/徵國單  (討論 🀄) (方孔錢 💴) 15:19, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

 Comment Wikispore ID (P7721) is currently a Wikidata property for an identifier that does not imply notability (Q62589320) (added by @GZWDer:). Why? --Haansn08 (talk) 16:25, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikispore does not have a clear inclusion criterion.--GZWDer (talk) 10:55, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Maybe so but it is fairly clear on exclusion and getting more so each month. It is fairly unconventional approach for Wikimedia project, but its core focus is innovation and experiment in wiki-making formats - so it is the adequate way to go forward. No? --Zblace (talk) 21:18, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

•  Oppose I think WikiSpore is for experimentation and as such shouldn't provide notability for Wikidata. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 15:49, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Q76833338 is an item for the Spanish translation of the privacy policy on meta (item: Wikipedia:Privacy policy (Q4994089)). Should there really be a separate item for these translated pages? --Pyfisch (talk) 13:40, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Since it is a metawiki sitelink, it is per policy a "case-by-case decision". I would recommend to nominate it for deletion, and elaborate a bit why this is a special case (metawiki per criterium 1.9, but translation page per 1.1). Should be a clear case to delete the item IMO. ---MisterSynergy (talk) 22:37, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

@MisterSynergy: Additionally, we should let users know what's the meaning of "To be valid, a link must not be ... translations page, ...". --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:56, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

"1. It contains at least one valid sitelink to a page on [..] Wikimedia Commons."

".."

"4. Category items with a sitelink only to Wikimedia Commons are not permitted, unless either a) there is a corresponding main item which has a sitelink to a Commons gallery or b) the item is used in a Commons-related statement, such as category for pictures taken with camera (P2033)."

Somehow the revision debated at Wikidata_talk:Notability/Archive_5#Change_to_1._4._regarding_Commons can be misread as allowing to create items for Commons categories or Commons galleries as long as they are linked from items that are not category items. Was this intended? --- Jura 17:21, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

@Jura1: What you call a "misreading" was I think the case per the letter of the policy even before Ghouston's diff and that discussion. Taken together with 1.1, it essentially means that if something has a category on Commons, but is describable as a thing in its own right (ie not just as a category on Commons), then it can have an item here. That doesn't seem a bad thing to me; and is allowing c:template:wikidata infobox to be used on a lot of Commons categories, powered by items here on wikidata. Looking at the two sides of that diff, that seems to be what the policy text said both before and after the conversation you linked to. Jheald (talk) 18:19, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Seems like the main change went through in March 2018 ([6], change by User:Mahir256). Odd that I didn't notice it back then. --- Jura 18:33, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

There have been several discussions over a longer period, starting roughly in late 2017 or early 2018; some of them were held on the Project chat. To my understanding the reason for those discussions was that the Wikidata Infobox was deployed to Commons categories in large numbers at that time. Overall, the tendency was indeed to implement something like the Status Quo, so I do not think that this was unintended in any way. Yet, the various problems with this approach have not changed, unfortunately, and Commons problems have now become Wikidata problems. Wikimedia Commons is still pretty much dysfunctional regarding notability and deleting spurious content, there is a serious spam problem which quite some promotional editors exploit because of that, and Commons content remains to be generally unsourced. —MisterSynergy (talk) 18:40, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think most of these discussions would have happened if the change in March 2018 had been noticed. If one just reads point 4 and not the beginning, the result is somewhat different. So we now end up with people creating items for anybody with a category on Commons --- Jura 18:49, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, unfortunately. And with spammers dropping content at Commons to become Wikidata-notable. These things have explicitly been discussed, but there was nevertheless clearly more support for the now-Status Quo than opposition. I'm still not a fan of this change, but I accept it. —MisterSynergy (talk) 19:12, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Somehow I like to think that there are still plenty of things with Commons categories that need an item, but doesn't need this (possibly unintended) change to be notable. I don't really see why we need to include all potential problems as well to make this happen. --- Jura 19:29, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

@Jura1: Are you saying that the problems Wikidata has with Commons are coming from people continually discarding the "if and only if" clause in my rephrasing of that point at that time? I'm not sure what the change I made then has to do with the change @Ghouston: proposed more than a year later. Mahir256 (talk) 20:41, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• @Mahir256: Depending how the text is read by deleting admins, it may not matter. The first line of #1 says a sitelink to Commons is sufficient. The rephrasing allows to (mis-)understand #1.4 that only sitelinks from category items are limited further. (Maybe it should be mentioned that many items are notable for other reasons and can include a single sitelink that is to a Commons category, if it exists). --- Jura 11:55, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, the benefits for creating an even broader acceptance of Wikimedia Commons categories will outweigh the negatives. Wikidata already has more pages than Wikimedia Commons (from memory 96.000.000 Vs. 87.000.000) and Wikidata has myriads of pages dedicated to celestial bodies an astronomer has maybe viewed once vaguely through a computer-generated zoom on a telescope, while sometimes nationally operating companies and businesses that have hundreds of franchises aren't "notable" enough for Wikidata purely because nobody on a Wikipedia has taken their free time to write about that subject. I think that Wikidata should just "bite the bullet" and accept Wikimedia Commons categories outright and face "a spampocalypse" that will require a lot of interproject work to clean up because without Wikidata items Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons (SDC) is a lot less functional. Wikimedia Commons also faced "the Selfiepocalypse" when it opened up to mobile users and I find random Indian and Thai selfies scattered across random categories all the time, but for each of those hundreds of good edits are done by mobile users every day. The question isn't even necessarily about if this broader definition is needed, Wikimedia Commons is the only Wikimedia website with no notability guideline but it still has a project scope that excludes a large number of things as all content should be deemed to be educational. What is “spam” is also a vague definition as uploading an image of a local business may be deemed “educational” by some but “promotional” or even outright “spam” by others, though usually such photographs tend to be categorised by the building (house number + street + human settlement) as opposed to the current occupant, products are a similar thing, but someone with the intention of uploading a photograph of let’s say a sports car might own that vehicle but not have any stakes in the financial success of its producer (some may see this as “a conflict of interest, while others wouldn't) so what constitutes “spam” is always left to the interpreter. Anyhow, the true value of accepting all Wikimedia Commons categories remains with the benefits for the whole Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons (SDC) project which is currently developing and many editors have often complained that items for a certain category may be missing, now Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons could become “an inferior version of the Commonswiki category tree” if it can only use more broader representations of the subject at hand, Wikimedia Commons categories can also be more specific indexes like “underwear -> blue underwear -> blue striped underwear -> blue striped male underwear -> blue striped men's underwear” (fictional example, but such methods are often employed), if using Wikidata for this then the person doing the search using SDC may only look up more general terms and then the old Wikimedia Commons category system remains superior for media discovery. Broadening the notability standards to allow ALL Wikimedia Commons category would allow the SDC project to start expanding much faster and much more efficiently, at the end of the day Wikidata should first and foremost exist to provide data that help with the structural needs of Wikimedia websites, not be the arbiter of what is and isn’t allowed to be properly structured. Of course, the current phrasing is already broad but not broad enough. -- Donald Trung/徵國單  (討論 🀄) (方孔錢 💴) 22:36, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I think you miss the point here, completely. The Wikidata project is generally open for more content from Commons, and I think it is safe to claim that many here would love to see a prosperous SDC project. Yet, in the current situation the content from Commons is often a threat to Wikidata, for basically two reasons:

1. Commons content is generally unsourced, and thus difficult to verify. One of the core principals of the Wikidata notability policy is that content needs to be at least borderline verifiable in the sense that practically any user, not just insiders, can directly and without own research understand what the item describes, and can ideally verify (parts of) the data provided in the item. This is usually being achieved by links to serious external resources, or links to Wikipedia pages which typically contain sources themselves.
   The auxiliary content at Commons, such as categories, are however usually unsourced. You can drop and claim practically anything at Commons and it is highly likely that nobody will ever question your claims as long as your edits seem otherwise technically fine. This unsourced data is then being imported to Wikidata, in order to be displayed in the Wikidata Infobox at Commons. Commons's problem with unsourced content is now Wikidata's problem as well, and (potential) data users complain that Wikidata is a messy and unsourced pile of dubious data.
2. The other issue is the vague definition of the "educational project scope" at Commons. Aside from the fact that everybody seems to understand it differently and the widest possible interpretation is often applied, it seems pretty much to me that most new content is in fact not even actually compared against this scope policy, and Commons just takes whatever is uploaded technically correctly. This is not totally surprising, given that content is unsourced and difficult to verify anyways.

You need to be aware that Wikidata cannot grow indefinitely. Even a 10 times larger Wikidata is not feasible in many ways currently, both from technological and sociological standpoints. A setting where "everything is notable" is not possible here, but the Commons policy is not far from that in fact.
We also regularly see spammers who drop some content at Commons, in order to create notable Wikidata items which they think boost their Google ranking. Apart from the fact that we cannot verify their data—it usually stems from themselves only and cannot be verified against independent sources—this is a clear abuse of community resources purely for their commercial purposes. You need to be aware that data needs to be taken care of occasionally, and each and every item creates some workload every now and then. All of this meanwhile happens on a pretty professional level: you can hire agencies which then automate the creation of promotional content here at Wikidata, including images and categories at Commons (and in fact promotional articles on a couple of websites which are then being used as "references").

Another risk is that the lack of sources for Commons content can be exploited for libellous activities. Since content can be uploaded by anyone anonymously, and barely verified, it is not difficult to deliberately add wrong content about someone else, in order to potentially cause harm to them. Although we do not see this very often, there have been cases like this, so suddenly there is another Commons problem which is now Wikidata's problem as well.

If the Wikimedia Commons project was to adapt a more sourced-content-based workflow for their auxiliary content, I would not worry about larger imports from there. In the current situation, however, it seems that Wikidata does accept quite a lot of extra risks and it should solve problems which got out of hand at Commons, all of that without having much influence in Commons itself. Not really a desirable situation, if you ask me. —MisterSynergy (talk) 23:50, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I think the problems of spam are similar on Commons and Wikidata. If spam is linked between the two, the solution would be to delete it on both projects. I'm not convinced that intersection categories on Commons, like the "blue striped men's underwear" example, really need to have category items at Wikidata, and this has been discussed here in the past. That's why when I proposed my change to Commons notability a while ago, I tried to restrict it to fix only the specific problem that I had, which was that once a Commons gallery had been linked to Wikidata, there was nowhere to link the Commons category. Ghouston (talk) 00:41, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Those are all good points raised, regarding the "blue striped men's underwear" example, this is mostly for the search feature of Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons (SDC) search engine (as Wikimedia Commons has its own Google-like or Ecosia-like search engine based on SDC), and as for the spamming issue the solution might be technical, let's say that if a Wikidata item is created that only links to a Wikimedia Commons category but doesn't link to any sources then it could be no-indexed for search engines by default by the software, if a source is added then this will automatically be overrided. Spammers can continue spamming but will be unaware that their efforts won't accomplish their goals of higher rankings in search engines (Google, Microsoft Bing, Yahoo! Search, Ecosia, Lycos, Etc.). Lowered notability standards won't be an issue if certain items won't appear on search engines, then Wikidata can both fulfill Wikimedia Commons' structural and keep its reputation. -- Donald Trung/徵國單  (討論 🀄) (方孔錢 💴) 00:29, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm afraid this is not feasible. The search engines might use their regular crawler bots to feed the search results, but I am pretty sure that many data users, including Big Tech, use the SPARQL endpoint or data dumps for their products, particularly for the interesting ones. "Noindex" does not work there if it is not the regular web search engine.
Besides that, Spammers are not stupid. The clear majority of them meanwhile manages to drop some promotional articles on a couple of websites and use them as sources here. I delete quite a lot of promotional content and occasionally have email interaction with some of those editors who are either complaining about deleted items, or request deletion of their content because they were not happy with it. Some are pretty open about their motivations. The scheme they describe is roughly that if you want to appear prominently on the Internet, you hire a web reputation agency; this company places (promotional) content/articles about you on several websites that sound important, and creates profiles on relevant platforms—Wikidata is just one of many, and it is used because the general assumption is that it secures them a Google Knowledge Graph entry. I would not even be surprised if many of the spammers would not care about the Wikidata item any longer, once they made it to the Knowledge Graph.
In general, Wikidata's reputation is closely related to the reference situation. References are crucial for this project, in order to be able to verify information and to even justify its existence on this platform. We often talk in a context where everybody assumes that a Wikidata entry would be generally desirable, but this does by for not apply to all persons and companies described here. When building a database such as this one, one should always consider the ethical responsibility that comes with collecting and publishing data about others. It might be seen as helpful and promotional by some, but also—rightly—as infringing on privacy or in some way damaging their reputation by others. If we rely on information that is already published by independent third-parties elsewhere and link these sources, we are pretty much on the safe side. Otherwise we are on dangerous territory as the project might harm people because it publishes information that should better not be published, or is abused by bad-faith actors who deliberately publish wrong or libellous information about someone else. —MisterSynergy (talk) 01:15, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Before listing three criteria, the project page reads: "An item is acceptable if and only if it fulfills at least one of these two goals, that is if it meets at least one of the criteria below"

So should an established regular user (with permissions) change this to "three goals"?  – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dimmer (talk • contribs).

I don't think so, the previous sentence lists only two goals. Ghouston (talk) 01:27, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I've mentioned "three" but MisterSynergy reverted it; care to clarify why three "was semantically incorrect"? Fgnievinski (talk) 14:25, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

You messed up the top-level numbering by mixing list syntax (#) with indentation syntax (:). —MisterSynergy (talk) 15:12, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

What is the policy regarding people that are only in the serious and publicly available sources because they are victims of some events, and there are no sources that describe them except in connection with the event? I am thinking especially about murdered children like K. Tharshan Q107369376 and Zohra Shah Q106998995 where their murders are items. I find it hard to see how they are notable as entities outside the item that describes their murder. Sjö (talk) 11:07, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

They are notable per criteria 2 & 3. Ayack (talk) 12:49, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Is having good statement references, sitelinks, and Google knowledge panel enough for notability?  – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mr.VaiBH (talk • contribs) at 18:00, 17 августа 2021 (UTC).

• No.

And on personal note - you just turned 18 years old. Quit trying to rush it. The internet never forgets. You are only going to end up tarnishing your name and making yourself look like a fool for the rest of your life. Snackmurat (talk) 22:21, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I’m not sure if this has been highlighted before but criterion 1.6 should be expanded to exclude any mainspace pages in n:Category:Developing or n:Category:Review, and subpages of n:Wikinews:Story preparation. Such pages are the equivalent of the Draft namespace in other wikis and have not yet met the criteria for publication. If they do not meet the criteria, they will be deleted. It makes no sense for them to have WD items until they are published. I have raised this because I could not find WD guidelines on these specific pages. [₂₄Cr][talk] 14:12, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I guess this is for Wikidata:Notability/Exclusion criteria. --Matěj Suchánek (talk) 10:03, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

@Matěj Suchánek: How do we add it there? Hold a vote or add it until someone challenges it? [₂₄Cr][talk] 11:32, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Currently inclusion criteria #1 is a listing in almost every part of the Wikimedia platform.

I propose to add Toolforge to inclusion criteria, such that any tool hosted there can have a Wikidata item. Toolforge is a Wikimedia platform tool development space.

I am proposing this in the context of a proposal to delete Toolforge SQL Optimizer (Q107357269), a tool in Toolforge which is may not meet the notability criteria here. Thoughts from others? Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:01, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm fine with items for tools, but my impression often is that the actual reason for their existence is that the developers can have an item as well. There are plenty of Wikimedians who would like to have an item, but can't right now. MusikAnimal (Q108422301) and David Barratt (Q108422349), for instance, which are both linked from Toolforge SQL Optimizer (Q107357269) should not be existing in their current form. This really needs to be avoided. —MisterSynergy (talk) 20:10, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

That’s a real concern, especially since there is already a long-standing double standard, i.e. items about Wikimedians of questionable notability have a lower chance to get deleted than other items. I don’t have a problem with items for tools but on the other hand: What specific purpose do they serve? --Emu (talk) 20:32, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

@MisterSynergy: you can ask me about the reason for their existence. I'm documenting the tools because I think it's important and useful. Adding their creators/programmers is secondary and I couldn't care less if it strokes the ego of the people in question by having their own item. I try to keep notability rules in mind by making sure the items are linked. That said, I don't see what threat these Wikimedians of questionable notability pose to Wikidata. Lists like this collect people who don't have a Wikipedia article, but who probably (without checking them now) all are linked to the conferences they attended, talks they gave, (Wiki)projects they started, books or tools they wrote, etc. and I just don't know what's the problem there. There's obviously a bias here, where it's more likely that a librarian who is also a Wikimedian has an item than someone who's just a librarian. But projects to address the gender bias also don't resort to removing articles about people from over-represented groups, they focus on the under-represented groups.

I'm sure there's a small number of people who are so eager to have their own Wikidata item/Wikipedia article that they resort to bending or breaking one of our rules, such as editing their own items or creating items to justify their own. But those cases should be dealt with individually by admins and I don't think a witch hunt for Wikimedians of "questionable notability" is necessary.

@Emu: the use these items serve is in existing. They can document and collect info about the tools, which is sometimes spread in several places. They can serve to answer queries about the Wikimedia ecosystem. They could serve as the basis for infoboxes. They could serve any number of uses I didn't even think of or list here. And the more complete and rich the dataset is, the more can be done with it. That includes the authors of the tools for me. I don't even know why I'm explaining this here, because the preceding paragraph applies to every single class of data we're collecting here.

I don't know if you remember how it was when you started editing? I've been here for years and I'm still discovering crazily useful tools. Our documentation is great, but it can always be better and meta-documentation is a prime way to support any project or endeavour. That is what I (and I'm sure many others, who will probably chime in; @Jura1?) am doing. I'm also interested in creating tools of my own, so I'm creating the dataset I want to exist. I want to look at a tool and see who made it, look at their github, look at their other tools, see what they do and how they did it.

Besides, this is our history we're documenting here. Do you want a future where we can list all of Magnus Manske's tools, but if you want anyone else, you're out of luck? So I definitely support @Bluerasberry's proposal to add Wikimedia Toolforge tools to the inclusion criteria. I'd argue to widen that to Wikimedia tools in general, because being hosted on Toolforge is pretty arbitrary.

@MisterSynergy: in regards to MusikAnimal (Q108422301) and David Barratt (Q108422349). I wanted to add MusikAnimal (Q108422301) since he's a prolific tool writer and a WMF employee to boot. They obviously don't want to go by their real name, so I added them under their username. Even though we're operating under an open-world assumption, I added David Barratt (Q108422349) to complete the set of authors, but since they probably didn't contribute to many other tools or any other significant projects, that item is more of a stretch. Although, there's no way to check that last statement without a full dataset of all tools and their authors. --Azertus (talk) 01:27, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Adding Wikimedians to Wikidata isn’t something I would compare to projects to address the gender bias. I’m not sure adhering to the rules the community decided on should be called “witch hunt”. Of course, rules can change, but you are basically asking for special treatment for Wikimedians. I don’t think this is a particularly good policy. --Emu (talk) 06:47, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm not asking for special treatment. I'm saying they serve a structural need when I'm adding or linking tool authors.

The comparison was that Wikimedians are probably over-represented and that the solution to that is not deletion. --Azertus (talk) 10:00, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, well. I’m not so convinced about the structural need of most Wikidata tools either, to be honest. If we apply this standard, we might as well create items for everything on CTAN, CPAN, and all the other *ANs – and on Github and so on. And why stop there, why isn’t everybody on Crunchbase or Twitter notable? Seems like a very slippery slope to me … I’m sure it would be neat to have all this information on Wikidata but there is the danger that we risk our reputation if we grant preferential treatment to stuff just because we like to use it. --Emu (talk) 10:32, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Emu, Azertus, MisterSynergy: How would any of you feel about the establishment of a Wikidata:WikiProject Wikimedia Foundation, which made items for people listed at https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/staff-contractors/ and also for developers, many of whom like Musikanimal are not listed there. I know there is a bias in letting in people for one company when this is not a general practice, but we are operating in a Wikimedia environment and it is helpful to be able to interlink people, projects, and tools. I do not think Wikidata has ever tried to model all the people in an organization or an organization's publicly announced projects and tools, but the Wikimedia Foundation might be a special case because it is so central.

Modeling the Wikimedia Foundation would not address the issue of completeness in modeling other contributors to tools, especially people like David Barratt (Q108422349) who may have less online presence. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:45, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

This is a pretty Wikipedia-esk approach to notability that we usually do not practice here. Items about entities (humans, organizations, events, etc; concepts in general) are notable if there is independent/third-party material available about them, and this material appears as references on the item page. So, the poor referencing situation is what concerns me here: I am unable to verify this information against a serious external source. This is something which I need to do relatively often in admin capacity, and those situations create a lot of difficulties here with promotional items. —MisterSynergy (talk) 12:19, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@MisterSynergy: I am glad that you have a similar opinion as I do on this point. Nonetheless, from my point of view, it is not the case that this phenomenon, which you call the “Wikipedia-esk approach to notability”, does not occur here in Wikidata. This phenomenon often occurs in relation to links in the Wi-kimedia namespace. There is no question that such links make data objects relevant. The only question is how these data objects should be structured. Even if this topic is a little off-topic, I would like to give you an example. The data object Wikiexpedition West (Q29999758) has a link to the Wikipedia namespace of the Czech-language Wikipedia, about which the data object is probably relevant. But the data object has no independent sources; nevertheless, this data object makes the participant Adam Hauner (Q10379735), for example, relevant. At least from my point of view, that can't be the case. --Gymnicus (talk) 10:19, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I've looked at that page before and definitely didn't think "I'll import all of them". I prefer going the other way, so no thumbs up or down on this from me. I've been mulling over a "Meta WikiProject", where I'd collect all the ways where we can work on improving meta-documentation of Wikimedia in general. I'd planned on creating that or talking about that during the upcoming Data Quality Days. There's property documentation (already has its own project); grant proposals and grantees; WMF projects; tools, extensions, scripts & bots; etc. If it's about Wikimedia and it helps us in creating better content for Wikimedia, it should fall under the purview of the Meta WikiProject. Re-recreating an org-graph, with WMF as a case study, is interesting, but separate from that. Btw, Musikanimal is present on that list, but under his real name. --Azertus (talk) 14:12, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: I don’t think that’s a good idea:

• “but we are operating in a Wikimedia environment”: But that’s exactly the problem – we aren’t objective about the Wikimedia environment and we never can be. Of course we have to have coverage about Wikimedia and its projects, but we should be extra careful not to even appear to be biased about selection and data.
• “and it is helpful to be able to interlink people, projects, and tools”: Sure it might. But you don’t need Wikidata for that.
• ​“the Wikimedia Foundation might be a special case because it is so central”: But exactly how is it special and central? It’s a moderately sized organization with some 125M revenue per year and some 450 employees. It provides most technical services, helps to organize and provides limited legal services but otherwise it isn’t really involved in creating the dataset. We would never consider modeling the whole operation on Wikidata without discussing for every single item why it should be notable. It’s special to us (or some of us), but it’s not at all special to the dataset Wikidata is providing.

So in the end I feel that this project, as interesting as it might be, would lead to a lot of questions about the impartiality and plausibility of our dataset. I don’t want that. --Emu (talk) 09:59, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Since a slippery slope (Q876455) argument is not only a fallacy but it's also a hypothetical, I'll reply with a hypothetical of my own. A couple of years from now, is anyone going to say "Oh no! Wikdata has mirrored all of CPAN, and since it's semantic and linked data, its search and querying capabilities are a great improvement over the original. And since the data is linked to CRAN & co, we can follow an author across programming languages and we can easily find their other works, books, projects and other creative outputs."? I don't think so.

Funny you should say this, by the way. Since we have 1204 items that are missing an item for their subject (R packages). One of my (possible) future projects here. To be clear, I'm not advocating for a mass C?AN or Github import. But I'm pretty confident there'll come a point in the future (when we're bigger and data quality of current items is up) where it'll feel natural to do so. --Azertus (talk) 14:01, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Interesting discussion. Treating Wikimedia different than other organizations does not sound like a good idea to me. If anyone feels strongly about having items for all tools they can always set up their own Wikibase and have them there along with other stuff describing Wikimedia. Thanks a lot for sharing the query Azertus, I support import of all the mentioned R packages :)--So9q (talk) 18:30, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Emu: It may be a little strange based on our history, but you speak to me from the bottom of my heart. The double standards here are already very high. An example is Mr. Merz, the new product manager at Wikidata. The data object to him had no links to sister programs, no independent and reputable sources and also no structural use. Nevertheless, based on a greeting in Wikidata:Project Chat, ie on a "company page", the decision was made to keep it first. Only after I played the poison dwarf again on the side of the admin, who decided in the case, the data object was then deleted. From my point of view you can clearly see that many administrators are blind to the Wikimedia eye or simply do not have the courage to oppose Wikimedia. You can understand that, who wants to decide against Wikimedia and thereby perhaps obstruct a career in the management team. But then you also have to be aware that other people or companies also try to organize merchandising here if Wikimedia continues its own merchandising undeterred.

That is why the fight against merchandising and self-expression also includes stopping Wikime-slide merchandising or, if I want to be even more dramatic, Wikimedia propaganda. It is very clear to me that I will not meet with approval from this. You can see that in the deletion requests that I made yesterday. There I am referred to as a straw man, for example. I don't know who I'm supposed to be the straw man for, but okay. Or maybe Andy Mabbett knows me personally and knows that I look like a straw man. Back to the topic: In my opinion, Wikimedia merchandising also includes the tools that are or are to be created here. They just serve to distinguish themselves and, as MisterSynergy has already said, of course they also serve to make the authors relevant and that cannot be the case in my opinion. Why should someone who has created an insignificant Wikimedia tool that has no reception should be relevant. Then we can also restore the one game by Roi Ben David right away, so that it has to be retained in any case due to structural benefit.

@Bluerasberry, Azertus: If your goal is really only to make the tools visible, then you can do this in other ways than via data objects. I also have to honestly admit that I don't understand how the data objects are supposed to improve the visibility of the tools. One way you can really improve visibility would be to create a page in the Wikimedia namespace. There is, for example, the page Wikidata: Tools and there you can also create a sub-item “Toolforge Tools” and explain these tools there and you have your visibility without creating unnecessary data objects that are not relevant. I would definitely support the idea of So9q. A data object space for Wikimedia internal matters would certainly have failed, then, similar to the Wikimedia namespaces, somewhat relaxed relevance criteria could apply there, but which then do not collide with the relevance criteria in the area of ​​Wikibase item (Q29934200) But I would put a question mark behind it, whether something like this would go down well with the developers at Wikidata. But you could still put forward this idea, because it is not for nothing else that there are the proverbs “wer nicht wagt, der nicht gewinnt” and “probieren geht über studieren” in German. --Gymnicus (talk) 09:58, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Can we put in a box to make talk archives searchable? That would be very helpful. Thanks. -Animalparty (talk) 19:43, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Done. whym (talk) 13:33, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

• "Category items with a sitelink only to Wikimedia Commons are not permitted". It needs to be rewritten, since multiple people are trying to interpret the wording as to what a "category item" is. It should either say "You cannot create a Wikidata entry for a person "John Doe" that only has a Category at Commons and no other external links." or "You should not create Category:John Doe as a separate Wikidata entry, instead just add the Commons category link to the existing Wikidata entry for that person." See for example Category:Abraham Lincoln (Q8218705) as a Wikidata entry created just for a category at Commons versus Md Joni Hossain (Q112272529) as a Wikidata entry created just for a person with a category at Commons. --RAN (talk) 02:39, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• A "category item" is a Wikidata item representing a category, e.g., Category:London (Q7149656). Ghouston (talk) 08:53, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

See also Wikidata:Requests_for_deletions#Q18351081. I agree that the wording is confusing and should be changed. Accepting Commons categories as being enough for Wikidata notability is de facto the end to Wikidata notability standards. This is especially concerning as it would effectively create a double standard: Wikimedians could create notability out of thin air simply by uploading an image to Commons. The bar for notability would be far higher for other people. CC Mike Peel, Gymnicus Emu (talk) 11:07, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

@Emu: Thanks for the ping and for drawing attention to this discussion. I can only agree with you here. If a data object can really only become relevant through a category on Wikimedia Commons, then you really don't need any more relevance criteria here in Wikidata. --Gymnicus (talk) 11:47, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• My understanding is that the second interpretation is intended. If a category exists for a person or place on Commons, a (non-category) item here on wikidata for that person or place fulfills a structural need, by allowing a multilingual wikidata infobox on Commons, and to let us record for for that infobox and for wikidata the relationships that may exist between that person or place and other people and places and things, that may also have infoboxes on Commons, so that those facts can be displayed; and also as an object for Commons Structured Data statements.

The intention of the clause is to prevent category items being created here, when a regular person or place item will suffice. Jheald (talk) 13:13, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

•  Strong support the rule "You cannot create a Wikidata entry for a person "John Doe" that only has a Category at Commons and no other external links." I am a Commons volunteer and see lots of photos of persons who probably try to 'earn' Google Knowledge Panel. The pictures and categories are then used to justify the existence of said Wikidata items. (Source: User:Trade on c:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Md. Ashraful Alam Shemul (May 28, 2022).jpg.) This is a plague on Commons and I understand on Wikidata as well. Many of these photos can be deleted from Commons very quickly, but it is not possible to delete files that are used elsewhere, like in a Wikidata item. I recently learned that I can ask for a deletion request of a Wikidata item with only photos and no links. But that is not possible for Wikidata items with links to a Commons category and nothing else, while for me these items may be deleted as well. I think the implementation of this rule may solve this problem. --JopkeB (talk) 04:26, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

  We need to coordinate the deletion process better if notability in both projects is interdependent as discussed here. It is indeed kind of a problem that it is currently unclear where to start asking for deletion without being rejected right away. Any ideas how to improve this process? —MisterSynergy (talk) 11:20, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

  I think a starting point would be to implement the rule "You cannot create a Wikidata entry for a person "John Doe" that only has a Category at Commons and no other external links." After that we can make instructions on Commons and Wikidata:

  1. Ask for deletion of the Wikidata item
  2. Ask for deletion on Commons for the files
  3. Ask for deletion of the Commons category
  4. Perhaps warn and/or block (in case of repeated violation) the uploader.

  The second and third step can only be started after the previous step has been completed. Perhaps the process should be monitored so that all steps will be completed in the right order, or the administrator who has deleted an item or the applicant for the request should set in motion the next step.

  I further recommend:

  • Codes or standard reasons/a standard formulation for deletion requests for this kind of actions, in both Wikidata and Commons (in Commons there is for photos: SD - F10 (personal photos by non-contributors)).
  • Strict criteria for situations in which it is OK to perform this procedure.

  JopkeB (talk) 06:46, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

• @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): I completely agree that this needs to be rewritten. The question is *how*. I actually think the entire notability guidelines need to be reworked, as I demo'd at [7], but then I ran out of energy to pursue it further. There's also Wikidata:Requests for comment/Creating new Wikidata items for all Commons categories as another approach when I had a bit of energy to debate this, but I'm not sure where that will end. In general I think we need to bring together the notability requirements for the various projects here - if something is notable on Commons, then it should be notable here given the use of Wikidata on Commons, and notability issues should be devolved to Commons (i.e., nominate things for deletion there if they aren't notable). But on your specific question, I think it's the latter example. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:49, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
• It always seemed pretty clear to me that the meaning of that line is "merely having a commons category is not sufficient to establish notability". "Not permitted" in the current text means "not notable". I agree it could be better worded. What are the notability standards for Commons categories? How much of a can of worms would changing this interpretation be? BrokenSegue (talk) 18:13, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

@BrokenSegue: That would be the meaning if the clause said just "items with a sitelink only to Wikimedia Commons are not permitted". But that is not what it says -- it is specifically narrower than that: "category items ... are not permitted", ie items with instance of (P31) = Wikimedia category (Q4167836). Jheald (talk) 23:38, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

What are the notability standards for Commons categories? There are not so many, only for correct names, parent categories, the purpose should be clear and there may not be one already with a similar name or purpose. You can even make a category for one photo, no matter what the subject is. Only empty categories can be deleted. So that cannot be a guidance for Wikidata. (I am a volunteer at Commons) JopkeB (talk) 05:10, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

• N1 is a mess right now. Could we sum up the intent as "It contains at least one valid sitelink to a page on a client project in a namespace that is subject to effective notability criteria."? Then the rest is simply explaining specific examples of which namespaces qualify on which projects. Bovlb (talk) 17:52, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

  @Bovlb phrase "effective notability criteria" seems suspicious? It is possible we don't change anything with N1, but just N1#4 to be changed
  "Category items with a sitelink only to Wikimedia Commons are not permitted ..." Estopedist1 (talk) 08:35, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

@Estopedist1: Except that modification plainly isn't true. We have lots of items with a sitelink only to Wiki Commons, and they can be very valuable to Commons, in particular for the infoboxes they power, and for the ability to use them as values for depicts (P180) statements and other properties on Commons SDC. Jheald (talk) 09:43, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

@Jheald could you give some examples? I have used notice-template in such cases, see e.g. Commons:Category:Maria Raudsepp or Commons:Category:Luurel Varas Estopedist1 (talk) 09:59, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

I've boldly added this to the policy today, after work at Wikidata:Requests for deletions. Reuse of Wikidata information on other Wikimedia projects is really important, and it's not something that the notability policy has specifically included until now. I'm open to discussion about this though! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:43, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

It's discussed first and only then is anything added, so I undid your edits. --Gymnicus (talk) 18:50, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@Gymnicus: Sigh, bureaucracy. So, you can explain your issue with this? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:54, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

 Support I assume this is partially brought up because this request for deletion on the notability of items created for YouTube videos (see also this RFC). It sucks that we actually can't store data present on Wikipedia projects on Wikidata because of a lack of this policy (however I still find the videos themselves to be notable on their own).

I guess some people were also concerned about making items for Wikimedians. My opinion is that data associated with Wikimedia itself should be stored on a Wikibase instance on a wiki where-possible (for example, structured image data on Commons). Instead of making items on Wikimedians on Wikidata, we could maybe set up a Wikibase instance for Meta and document data about users there.

@Mike Peel I also think this discussion is barely visible. You should probably move this to an RFC and post a notice on Wikidata:Project chat. Lectrician1 (talk) 13:37, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

@Lectrician1: Thanks for the suggestion, mentioned at Wikidata:Project_chat#Expanding_notability_to_include_use_of_Wikidata_items_in_Wikimedia_projects. The RfC process seems to be dead. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:03, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand the change. What information are we talking about? Most information being directly used would already be allowed through the other notability criteria. BrokenSegue (talk) 19:18, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@BrokenSegue: Mostly it's covered by the sitelink requirement, but it's surprising that this isn't included separately from that, since uses don't always go through sitelinks. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:20, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@Mike Peel: Ok but what are the other uses that don't involve site links are you thinking of? I'm not familiar with those uses. Do we even have mechanisms to detect those uses are present and thus not delete them? Like you can use a wikidata item in commons structured metadata but should we allow any item to stand if it's used in any common image? This could be a backdoor to give immunity to any item. BrokenSegue (talk) 19:42, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@BrokenSegue: It's recorded in page properties, e.g., [8]. meta:Wikimedian_in_residence#History_and_case_studies is a good example of this. Why the backdoor accusations without evidence? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:46, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@Mike Peel: I'm not trying to accuse you of anything. I'm saying it could be used by malicious people as a backdoor to bypass the intent of our notability policy. BrokenSegue (talk) 21:49, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

As much as I am aware, this falls under the "structural need" criterion. Problem is that Special:EntityUsage on client wikis is difficult to access (most conveniently via "page information" on item pages), so that many admins do not check for data usage beyond sitelinks. It is also important to note that usage in SDC is currently only exposed via the WCQS beta. —MisterSynergy (talk) 19:49, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Maybe it would be good to make a gadget that lists usage in a more visible place (at least on the deletion page) BrokenSegue (talk) 21:49, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree that this is already covered by structural need. At least in my interpretation the structural need is not limited to structural need on Wikidata itself. I think we have to decide case by case. --Ameisenigel (talk) 08:00, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

@MisterSynergy, Ameisenigel: OK, I'd be happy with that, but I think 'structural need' needs to be clearer then, since I understood it as only covering Wikidata items that were linked to from other Wikidata items. What would you think to changing it to read "It fulfills a structural need, for example: it is needed to make statements made in other items more useful, or it is used in Wikimedia content such as tables, lists, or references."? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 09:25, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

 Oppose Seems to be yet another try in the ongoing quest to make every Wikimedian notable. Wikimedians are not more important than users on other community projects. --Emu (talk) 23:47, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@Emu: You're making bad assumptions there. Not every Wikimedian is notable, but some - like Wikimedians in Residence - are. Also, this isn't just about Wikimedians, e.g., Wikivoyage uses information about places/hotels/etc. without having sitelinks, and citations can be used without sitelinks too (e.g., Cite Q). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 09:25, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, but to put it bluntly: “Wikimedian in Residence” is a made-up and mostly self-styled title of some users of a community project. In most cases, there is zero media (or indeed independent outside) coverage. Yes, their work is oftentimes commendable (and in other cases somewhat nebulous) but notability shouldn’t be about merit, especially not about merit in Wikimedia projects.

As for “places/hotels/etc.” on Wikivoyage: See BrokenSegue’s backdoor argument above. --Emu (talk) 11:09, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Looking at these keeps it sure looks like what @Emu: said. For example items like Yair Talmor (Q68760750), Daniel Tsvi Framowitz (Q68760990), Francis Awinda (Q68761128) & Rexford Nkansah (Q68761367) have been kept with reason data is in use (and no other motivation).

We have a fundamental disagreement on inclusion of things like for example Wikimedian in residence (Q3809586) or some of these people. I don't mind other people having different opinions about it, I do mind people trying to sneak it in through the backdoor. Wikis function by community consensus. Pages like this should reflect the current consensus. If you want to change it, have an open discussion and if the outcome is change it: Change it. In the mean time respect the current consensus. Multichill (talk) 14:34, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

I stand by those keeps. We're shooting ourselves in the foot if we're excluding such content and breaking the use of Wikidata information on other projects. I don't think you have consensus for your point of view (remember the various arguments and reverts of your deletions that have occurred in the past). This here is an open discussion (following BRD). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:38, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

But Mike, “data is in use in a sister project” isn’t a reason for notability. Your keep decisions can very well be described as being out of policy. The “consensus” you feel is mostly based on a series of similar keep decisions of yours not being overruled by other admins. That’s not consensus – especially since you have been repeatedly told by several users (including admins) that they don’t agree. The fact that we try not to engage in a wheel war is hardly indicative of consensus. --Emu (talk) 17:37, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

@Emu: So, what you're saying is that it's perfectly fine for Wikidata information to be suddenly deleted and subsequently breaking uses of that information on other Wikimedia projects? For those of us who work on integration of Wikidata in other Wikimedia projects, this is a fundamental issue. If this can't be a reason for notability then it means we're trying to build things on sand that can easily be swept away. I want to see this improved and made consensus. It's becoming clearer that you don't think my actions or this discussion can lead to that, what would you like to see, would a wider RfC help? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:07, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

I fully support the use of Wikidata in any way other projects see fit. But meta stuff is different. We should treat our own internal mechanics the same way we treat any other project of a similar size. And we would rightfully never allow similar items for holders of internal regalia of those organisations. Also, there’s no real reason why meta:Wikimedian_in_residence#History_and_case_studies has to use Wikidata. And there has never been a promise to allow items about every Wikimedian in Residence in Wikidata.

The RfC process seems to be broken at this time but if you want to use this process, go ahead. --Emu (talk) 21:00, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

A few comments above I have mentioned the structural need. In this case the items are just used on Meta, not on a real content project. I agree with @Emu: that there is no need to use Wikidata for this table. As long as this page uses the items, they should not be deleted, I think. But if someone would use a old fashioned wikitable instead, the table would still be useful and otherwise not notable items could be deleted. Just my thoughts on this. --Ameisenigel (talk) 21:15, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

I find it odd that we'd want to encourage people to use old-fashioned wikitables rather than Wikidata, regardless of the project. Using Wikidata makes it a lot easier to maintain and update such tables, e.g., in this case, when new WiRs happen you just need to record that on Wikidata. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 08:36, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

I think this is not the actual problem. Using Wikidata is not just about convenience—verifiability is important here. We expect independent third-party sources which are often missing for internal entities. In a strict source-based approach, these items would have been deleted long time ago. —MisterSynergy (talk) 11:01, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

@MisterSynergy: TBH I also find this odd. Most Wikidata statements/items are unreferenced, and we mostly seem to be OK with that, although I think it would be better if we had more references. Again with this specific case, though, WiRs tend to have more references available than other wikimedians do, which helps their notability. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:44, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

It’s not most statements, but too many, yeah. But there’s a difference:

1. Some statements are unsourced because nobody bothered to include references. In many cases, the information is readily available when following sitelinks or external identifiers. Again, that’s not good, but this case is different from statements that are and probably continue to be unsourcable because there is not independent information. If there is independent information (such as in here), there’s no problem under the current WD:N regime.
2. We are not talking about references alone but about the notability of items themselves. --Emu (talk) 18:19, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

@Emu: On 1, it's definitely not good for Wikidata's reputation, but that makes sense. Hopefully over time we can have more references here. On 2, I agree, but that's opposite to the point that MS raised. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:42, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

BTW, I just deleted Q59100932 since the info was only used for 3 photos on Commons that didn't need to use the Wikidata item. I'm really not trying to say that every editor should have a Wikidata item. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:53, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

• The problem is that some uses aren't really consistent with Wikidata's model and may end up with generating countless items of questionable usefulness. Imagine someone making an item for every identifier value merely because some Wikipedia template isn't correctly set up. --- Jura 08:12, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

  I view this more as a commitment not to break unexpectedly things on the Wikidata end, but in cases where there are bad uses then getting things cleared up on that wiki and then deleting here would still make sense to me. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 09:49, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

  If items here are created inconsistent with our data model, we don't really want to wait forever to fix them. --- Jura 09:53, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

• As currently phrased, this criterion leads to a circular justification of notability for any item. For example, some public relations company creates an entry on Wikidata and immediately references it from one of the smaller Wikimedia projects. It is notable here and can't be deleted because it is in use. It is retained on the smaller project as it is a valid entry in Wikidata. Some alternative phrasing that closes this loop is needed before I would consider supporting. From Hill To Shore (talk) 09:12, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
  • @From Hill To Shore: I'm not convinced this is actually an issue. I guess you're mostly meaning when an image is uploaded from Commons (and maybe a category created) - in which case the solution is to have both the image and the Wikidata item deleted at the same time. That's because both projects have a 'service' role for other wikis. If the image is otherwise important to keep on Commons, then that should establish notability anyway, but I wouldn't expect that to be the case for most issues you might be talking about. For others, like Wikipedias, I'd expect it to be much more easy to remove the info from there first (since "it's on Wikidata" does not normally meet notability rules), then remove it from here. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 07:26, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

    Maybe you could list a couple of cases you consider this applies to (other than Wikimedians in residence you mentioned before). --- Jura 08:27, 3 March 2022 (UTC), 12:57, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

    @Mike Peel: No, I am not talking from the perspective of Commons images, I am talking from the perspective of loose wording having unintended consequences. The current proposal is that if a Wikidata item is referenced anywhere in Wikimedia then it is notable. That means all of the major projects down to the tiniest language Wikipedia can dictate retention of a Wikidata item with a single link (not a site page as we support now). You suggest deleting on both Wikidata and the other project at the same time but that assumes the action is supported by the community of that other project. It is unwise to assume every Wikimedia community will reach a consensus to enable this idea to work. If the community here thinks a Wikidata item should be deleted, are we really going to edit war with a small Wikimedia project in Africa that uses a regional language the active editors here don't understand? Instead, it is better to tighten the wording of this proposal to prevent the loop from occurring in the first place. From Hill To Shore (talk) 11:51, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

    @From Hill To Shore: Do you have a wording suggestion then? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:06, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

    To solve your usecase: "Wikimedians are (not) notable per se.". --- Jura 18:43, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

    @Jura1: That's really not my use case. Mike Peel (talk) 19:57, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm proposing a lightning talk about this at Wikidata:Events/Data Reuse Days 2022 - see the proposal and the slides (comments/suggestions for changes would really be appreciated - you can comment directly on the slides, or otherwise ping me). It seems to me that this is a quite important issue that goes beyond 'are Wikimedians notable' - if we're encouraging people to use Wikidata information more generally then we should have some sort of guarantee that it will remain available in the long term. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:17, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Strange that you don't provide any usecase beyond Wikimedians here. What's your agenda? --- Jura 20:31, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

@Jura1: Huh? See slide 3, and my comments above - I'm not just focused on Wikimedians here. My agenda is providing free knowledge, what's yours? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:51, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Beyond an abstract usecase, can you provide samples of topics that wouldn't be covered? --- Jura 20:54, 5 March 2022 (UTC)