Yes I have noticed this need for use notes, but it is specific to properties, isn't it? I see it in things such as choosing what to put in the "genre" property of an artwork. It would be nice to have some sort of pop-up that you can fill with more than what you put in. For example I get easily confused when I address the relative (as in kinship) properties; "father of the subject" is clear, but what about cousin/nephew etc.? You need more explanation room than can be stuffed in the label field to fit in the drop down. I have thought about this, but don't see any easy solution besides what you have done.
On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 10:51 AM, James Heald <j.he...@ucl.ac.uk> wrote: > I have been wondering about the practice of putting use-notes in item > descriptions. > > For example, on Q6581097 (male) > https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6581097 > the (English) description reads: > "human who is male (use with Property:P21 sex or gender). For groups > of males use with subclass of (P279)." > > I have added some myself recently, working on items in the administrative > structure of the UK -- for example on Q23112 (Cambridgeshire) > https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q23112 > I have changed the description to now read > "ceremonial county of England (use Q21272276 for administrative > non-metropolitan county)" > > These "use-notes" are similar to the disambiguating hat-notes often found > at the top of articles on en-wiki and others; and just as those hat-notes > can be useful on wikis, so such use-notes can be very useful on Wikidata, > for example in the context of a search, or a drop-down menu. > > But... > > Given that the label field is also there to be presentable to end-users in > contexts outside Wikidata, (eg to augment searches on main wikis, or to > feed into the semantic web, to end up being used in who-knows-what > different ways), yet away from Wikidata a string like "Q21272276" will > typically have no meaning. Indeed there may not even be any distinct thing > corresponding to it. (Q21272276 has no separate en-wiki article, for > example). > > So I'm wondering whether these rather Wikidata-specific use notes do > really belong in the general description field ? > > Is there a case for moving them to a new separate use-note field created > for them? > > The software could be adjusted to include such a field in search results > and drop-downs and the item summary, but they would be a separate > data-entry field on the item page, and a separate triple for the SPARQL > service, leaving the description field clean of Wikidata-specific meaning, > better for third-party and downstream applications. > > Am I right to feel that the present situation of just chucking everything > into the description field doesn't seem quite right, and we ought to take a > step forward from it? > > -- James. > > _______________________________________________ > Wikidata mailing list > Wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata >
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