This is one reason I create the pahbricator request for Commons to have its own Site box rather than fall under "Other wiki's". That would allow us to link an item to its corresponding Gallery, Category, Creator or whatever. Right now we can only like to Commons category via the Other Wiki's and although we can link Galleries, Creator and the like as data items, they are not "linked" as site links.
 
Reguyla

On Fri, Aug 28, 2015 at 11:28 AM, Romaine Wiki <romaine.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
I think this subject should also be discussed on the Commons mailing list, as this plan is to demolish the navigational structure of Commons.

2015-08-27 15:03 GMT+02:00 Romaine Wiki <romaine.wiki@gmail.com>:
No we have not a clear policy on only linking sitelinks to categories if the item itself is about a category. So not let's not break that.

You suggest to break down almost the complete navigational structure Commons has in relationship with Wikipedia, and makes it possible to find articles that are about the same subject as the category. Without it becomes almost impossible to identify a category on Commons to be related to an article in Wikipedia.
Sorry, but your proposal is insane and making the navigational situation a thousand times worse. And does it make anything better? No, totally not. Only the opposite: worse.

Wikidata is currently heavily used to connect categories on Commons to articles on Wikipedia. This so that interwikilinks are shown on the category on Commons to the related Wikipedia article. This for navigational purposes but also to uniquely identify categories on Commons to articles on Wikipedia and items on Wikidata.

How nice Commons galleries are giving an overview, they are crap in speaking of navigational purposes. For every subject a category on Commons is created and used and the Commons categories form the backbone to media categories.

It has been pointed out for a long time that the linking situation on Commons is problematic and this is a software issue, not a user side issue. This consists out of:
* There can only be added one sitelink to an item.
* If no sitelink added (but only added as property), a Commons category can't show the interwikilinks.
* If a category and an article on Wikipedia/etc exist for a subject, only one of them can be shown on the Commons category.

The annoying part is that some large wikis, especially the English Wikipedia, creates too many categories that are not created on other Wikipedias. This causes that categories on Commons are only linked to a category on Wikipedia, which is useless for most other wikis and on Commons we miss an interwikilink to the related article.

A gallery on Commons is a great way as alternative to show images, but is not suitable for navigational purposes, as that requires a much higher coverage and being a backbone everything relies on. On Commons only categories have that function. A counter proposal makes more sense: no Commons galleries as sitelinks any more and having Commons galleries only as property added.

But this only solves a part of the problem: on Commons I would like to see somehow that both the related category as the related article are shown. Example: on the Commons category for a specific country both the country category on Wikipedia is linked as the article on Wikipedia is linked.

Something I have been wondering about for a long time is why there are 2 places on an item where a Commonscat is added. I understand the development and technical behind it, but this should not be needed.

So the developers of Wikidata should try to find a way to show both groups of interwikilinks on categories on Commons.

As long as this is not resolved in software, this problem of 2 items both strongly related to a Commons category keeps an issue.

Romaine





2015-08-27 11:29 GMT+02:00 James Heald <j.heald@ucl.ac.uk>:
A few days ago I made the following post to Project Chat, looking at how people are linking from Wikidata items to Commons categories and galleries compared to a year ago, that some people on the list may have seen, which has now been archived:

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Project_chat/Archive/2015/08#Trends_in_links_from_items_to_Commons


A couple of headlines:

* Category <-> commonscat identifications :

** There was a net increase of 61,784 Commons categories that can now be identified with category-like items, to 323,825 Commons categories in all

**  96.4% of category <-> commonscat identifications (312,266 items) now have sitelinks.  This represents a rise in sitelinks (60,463 items) amounting to 97.8% of the increase in identifications

**  80.0% of category <-> commonscat identifications (259,164 items) now have P373 statements.  This represents a rise in P373 statements (8,774 items) amounting to 14.2% of the increase in identifications


*  Article <-> commonscat identifications :

** There was a net increase of 176,382 Commons categories that can now be identified with article-like items, to 884,439 Commons categories in all

** 23.4% of article <-> commonscat identifications (207,494 items) now have (deprecated) sitelinks. This represents a rise in sitelinks (112,595 items) amounting to 63.8% of the increase in identifications.

** 91.3% of article <-> commonscat identifications (807,776 items) now have P373 statements. This represents a rise in P373 statements (110,727 items) amounting to 62.8% of the increase in identifications


*  In addition, a recent RfC showed considerable confusion as to what actually was the current operational Wikidata policy on sitelinks to Commons:

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Requests_for_comment/Category_commons_P373_and_%22Other_sites%22


In view of the trends above; and the need for predictability and consistency for queries and templates and scripts to depend on; and particularly in view of the apparent confusion as to what the operational policy currently actually is, can I suggest that the time has come for a bot to monitor all new sitelinks to Commons categories,
*  adding a corresponding P373 statement if there is not one already, and
*  removing the sitelink if it is from an article-like item to a commonscat.


I believe we have clear policy on only sitelinking commons categories to category-like items, and commons galleries to article-like items; but there is currently confusion and unpredictability being caused because these relationships are not being enforced -- breaking scripts and queries.

It's time to fix this.


All best,

  James.


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