On Wednesday 27 September 2017, Frederik Ramm wrote: > > In theory, almost everything we map could be expressed by a Wikidata > ID. If welcoming a Wikidata link on a city place node means that by > extension I also have to welcome "amenity:wikidata=Q123456" on > something that is, say, an ice cream parlour because Q123456 is the > generic Wikidata category for ice cream parlours, then I think I'd > rather not have any Wikidata links in OSM at all.
I am inclined to concur. The basis of accepting wikidata IDs in OSM originally was that it is difficult to reference a specific feature from our database from the outside and that wikidata provides stable IDs for real world objects and that it can be of significant use for OSM data users to be able to directly reference features in the OSM database describing the same real world objects through this ID. There are a number of prerequisites for this however all of which have been put into question in recent discussion: * There would need to be a 1:1 relationship between OSM features and the tagged wikidata ID (which apparently is often not the case for example for populated places, island countries etc.). * The wikidata ID would need to be stable (recent statements that the wikidata IDs in the OSM database require constant maintenance to not become stale indicate otherwise). * The wikidata ID would need to be verifiable - a local mapper with knowledge of the real world object represented by a certain OSM feature would need to be able to falsify the wikidata ID based on information readily available from wikidata (which does not always seem to be the case either). * The wikidata IDs are at least for the most part manually added and verified by mappers with lokal knowledge - just like any other data in OSM (which clearly does not seem to be the case any more - i have no solid numbers here but certainly the majority of wikidata tags have been added without individual verification by mappers with local knowledge). Everyone remember there is a big cultural difference between OSM and wikipedia (and i assume wikidata can be included there). OSM is founded on local knowledge and original research while wikipedia rejects original research and values secondary sources of information. This fundamental difference also translates into differences in data models and different approaches to solving problems. It is a good idea not to try pretending these differences do not exist and that you can intermix the two worlds without problems. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
