Commons talk:Structured data/Modeling/Works without Wikidata item

Trying to reach consensus about this data modeling proposal

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T337048

Because of a recent discussion in the SDC Telegram group, I am taking the initiative to try to come to a consensus about this!

It would be absolutely great if we can agree on this, because this specific situation occurs so frequently. It would really help (batch) upload tools and would help many batch uploaders around the world.

Pinging a few people who will have opinions - @Multichill, @Jarekt, @Schlurcher who edited the page, and also @Seav who came up with a proposal in the Telegram group.

I have created a proposal in this file, where there is no Wikidata item yet: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Marlborough-duke-first.jpg&oldid=906350755

@Seav proposed a different approach, see for instance this file, and here's a WCQS query to see all examples of his proposed data modeling.

My own key recommendation would be to do the following: describe the properties of the artwork and the file together in the SDC and distinguish them with an agreed-upon uniform qualifier.

• Qualifier for statements that pertain to the file: applies to part, aspect, or form (P518) Wikimedia Commons file (Q51954352)
• Qualifier for statements that pertain to the work or object: applies to part, aspect, or form (P518) analog work (Q112134971)

My thoughts:

• It would be great if @Jarekt could update the {{Artwork}} template to use SDC to support the data model we eventually agree upon. This template allows the creation of a Wikidata item, which is awesome, and I can imagine it would be great if it can already take some SDC to help create that Wikidata item. This is why I proposed this approach with qualifiers: the file on Commons is described with the same properties as it would have as an artwork on Wikidata, but with one single uniform qualifier to designate that that data belongs to the artwork, not the file. The template could then "grab" these and move these to Wikidata.
  • This means I (sympathetically) disagree with this edit by @Schlurcher. I argue to not use different properties on Wikimedia Commons between the work and the file, but to follow the Wikidata data modeling conventions for artworks. This is to make sure that artwork items on Wikidata created from Wikimedia Commons follow the same data modeling guidelines as on Wikidata, and do not do it differently.
• Which qualifier to use though? I have heard @Multichill say informally that he has doubts about applies to part, aspect, or form (P518) and would prefer something like object of statement has role (P3831) (?). I have no very strong opinion on this, but I have observed that many people find the Subject/Object distinction very abstract and confusing (including myself!).

Thanks all! Spinster (talk) 07:55, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

@Spinster, thanks for starting this topic. My main problem with your proposal of using standard distinguishers to separate statements about the file and about the object/artwork is that this breaks down if there are multiple depicted objects in the file. You no longer have any feasible way to distinguish which statement applies to which analog work (Q112134971). To give a concrete example, see the following file for which I have added a SDC statement for each of the three currently identified objects (a person, a plaque, and a statue) in the photo: File:Jose Rizal statue and historical marker (Campbelltown, NSW).jpg. As you can see I can add qualifiers to each depicts statement to describe each object separately without issue. (For now, ignore the fact that the statue is probably notable enough to have its own Wikidata item. Let's assume that we're talking about the situation where some depicted objects still don't have Wikidata yet but we want to describe them via SDC now.)

Some other photos that I found where others have gone a similar route:

• File:Münster, LVM, Skulptur -Körper und Seele- -- 2016 -- 5817-23.jpg – This photo depicts 2 sculptures and a few buildings. The two sculptures already have Wikidata items so I think the qualifiers are redundant with the properties on the Wikidata item, but if we pretend that the Wikidata items don't exist yet, then we can have this same set up but have sculpture (Q860861) (or a similar class) as the two depicts (P180).
• File:Opus 29 Daedalus of Icarus van Gerhard Lentink (02).jpg – Here we have a standard photo where a piece of art is the main object and which doesn't yet have a Wikidata item (but is very likely notable enough to have one), but we can describe other stuff seen in the photo, like the building. We could argue that the building could be placed as the object for the location (P276) or location of creation (P1071) statement, but what if the photo shows another piece of art?

—seav (talk) 09:41, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

@Spinster: Yes, thank you for trying to nail down some standards. Years ago I created several subpages of Commons:Structured data/Modeling page with some standards I observed and which I was supporting in Module:Information and {{Information}}. Module:Artwork which supports {{Artwork}}, {{Book}} and {{Photograph}} currently relies much less on SDC, mostly due to inconsistent standards and whatever standard we come up with should make sense in context of all those infoboxes. To me the biggest issue with SDC is lack of standard for cases when a file is suppose to pull all the metadata from Wikidata. digital representation of (P6243) when it was proposed was supposed to cover 2D artworks, 3D artwork, movies, music, etc. however when it was approved the scope changed to 2D artwork only. I tried again to have a way to connect 3D artworks, movies, music etc. to Wikidata with d:Wikidata:Property proposal/Infobox based on, but it was rejected. User:Multichill changed Module:Artwork to connect some of non-2D files with wikidata using main subject (P921), and it works fine for most cases but it is a huge source of files connected to incorrect wikidata items as main subject (P921) often is used to indicate main subject of the artwork and not the photo. I like your "applies to part: analog work" to clarify some of this confusion.

However, your question was about cases when there is no matching Wikidata item. In my opinion the best solution for files like File:Marlborough-duke-first.jpg is to create one and upload metadata there. I do not see a point placing metadata in SDC in case someone create Wikidata item so it can be moved to the right place. However, if for some reason it is easier to put it in SDC than I think "applies to part analog work" seems like a great approach to distinguish, for example inception (P571) date of the photo from the inception (P571) date of analog work (Q112134971). That seems quite good approach for photographs which are clearly associated with a single artwork. User:Seav's examples are all concentrating on SDC properties for images depicting multiple artworks and objects. Such images are often not well served by {{Artwork}} and should probably be better off using {{Information}}. The SDC metadata for those files seem perfectly reasonable.

I am ok with modifying Module:Artwork to support the data model we agree on, but SDC's data model for artworks, books, etc. should be the same as Wikidata's as long as we specify that given property "applies to analog part". I am a little weary of complicating the code which is already at ~3000 lines of lua and divided among multiple modules. An easier solution could be to just write a bot to move some of those properties from SDC to Wikidata, although I still think that putting them on Wikidata in a first place is a better solution. SDC is lacking many tools I use a lot when editing: Duplicate Item tool (Q108311191), Duplicate References (Q97500668), moveClaim (Q110793966) and many others. Without those tools I find SDC very cumbersome to work with. --Jarekt (talk) 03:29, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Sitting att a pretty big round table at Wikimania discussing this now. This suggestions are:

• Statements applying to the Artwork (which does not yet have a Wikidata item) should be qualified applies to part, aspect, or form (P518): analog work (Q112134971)
• For statements which apply to the digital file you can qualify them with applies to part, aspect, or form (P518): Wikimedia Commons file (Q51954352) but the default assumption for any unqualified statements is that they apply to the Commons file.
• When statements get migrated to a Wikidata item, all the statements with the applies to part, aspect, or form (P518): analog work (Q112134971) qualifier get removed from SDC.
• Left with all the statements with the qualifier applies to part, aspect, or form (P518): Wikimedia Commons file (Q51954352), we could remove the qualifier but we aren’t sure about it yet.
• For copyright statements the PD-Art statement should be marked as preferred.
• applies to part, aspect, or form (P518): analog work (Q112134971) can be used even in the edge case where that artwork may be digital born.
• Crops, collages etc. are out of scope for these discussions.

/ André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 09:43, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Use case(s) for not creating a Wikidata item (yet)

@Lokal Profil mentioned in his talk page that it would be good to explain the use case where/why one would upload files of artworks without a Wikidata item. I approach it very pragmatically: for many uploaders, creating Wikidata items is an extra complexity that may pose a too high barrier. Wikidata items can also be created afterwards. Spinster (talk) 09:05, 10 August 2024 (UTC)