Yes, this is what I am driving at. I think there should be some greater clarity around
what “depicted” means and I think it relates to “things”. This is why artwork is somewhat
problematic as it is a meta-thing, a photo of a sculpture of an elephant is not a photo of
an elephant, but rather we have a photo depicting a sculpture, which in turn depicts an
elephant. But even “things” are somewhat in the eye of the beholder. The person who takes
a photo probably knows what they intended to capture in it, say the grave of Jupiter
Mossman, but someone else looking at the same photo might say “wow, a photo of the
now-extinct Walla Walla tree” which happens to growing there.
As you suggest time and space are probably not “depictions” and we already have dates and
location fields for images in any case, so that information is already captured.
Intangible concepts are another issue altogether.
Kerry
From: Estermann Beat [mailto:beat.estermann@bfh.ch]
Sent: Wednesday, 17 April 2019 4:02 PM
To: Wikimedia & GLAM collaboration [Public] <glam(a)lists.wikimedia.org>rg>; Kerry
Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com>
Cc: Wikimedia & Libraries <libraries(a)lists.wikimedia.org>rg>; North American
Cultural Partnerships <glam-us(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: RE: [GLAM] [libraries] Fwd: [Commons-l] Depicts statements coming to Commons this
week (15 April)
Hi,
One could argue though that it would make sense to use different properties (to be
implemented on Wikimedia Commons) to express temporal or spatial coverage of the image.
The <depicted> property could be reserved to concrete Physical Objects,
Events/Activities, Places, or Concepts (= subclasses of frbr:Subject).
Cheers,
Beat
From: GLAM <glam-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:glam-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org> > On Behalf Of Gnangarra
Sent: Mittwoch, 17. April 2019 07:53
To: Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com <mailto:kerry.raymond@gmail.com> >;
Wikimedia & GLAM collaboration [Public] <glam(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:glam@lists.wikimedia.org> >
Cc: Wikimedia & Libraries <libraries(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:libraries@lists.wikimedia.org> >; North American Cultural Partnerships
<glam-us(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:glam-us@lists.wikimedia.org> >
Subject: Re: [GLAM] [libraries] Fwd: [Commons-l] Depicts statements coming to Commons this
week (15 April)
One is pretty obviously depicting the man Jupiter Mosman. But isn’t it also depicting an
Aboriginal Australian? Isn’t it also depicting a prospector? Isn’t it depicting 1945? All
of which are Wikidata items. But what about the photo of his grave? What is it depicting
in Wikidata? Jupiter Mosman? A grave? A headstone? A tree? Charters Towers (the place)?
Yes if that is what it depicts then that is what it depicts, the whole of the depicts is
to enable it to be found via wikidata queries... obviously some discretion and commonsense
should be used in which aspects are worthy of being listed so "a tree" would be
pointless
On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 at 08:31, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com
<mailto:kerry.raymond@gmail.com> > wrote:
FWIW, I think there will be much greater take-up if the tool supports people identifying
the depicted thing by referring to a Wikipedia article (and then, under the hood,
connecting this back to the Wikidata item). There are a lot of Wikipedians who are either
not aware of Wikidata, not interested in Wikidata, don’t understand Wikidata, or actively
hostile towards Wikidata. Having a tool on Commons that defaults to their preferred
Wikipedia (obviously with others selectable as desired) and letting them paste in the
article title will engage a lot more people. And similarly, when viewing a File/Category
on Commons, displaying the linked Wikipedia article(s) (rather than just displaying the
Wikidata) will enable people to detect and correct errors more easily. People who
contribute to Wikipedia and Commons usually do so within their areas of interest where
they possess some subject knowledge, which we need if we are to have quality data in
Wikidata.
One of my ongoing concerns about Wikidata is that a lot of modelling, populating and
MixNMatching is done by people who are not “subject matter experts” (or even “subject
matter aware”). This is leading to lots of errors in Wikidata because of that lack of
subject knowledge. Once Commons file/categories get linked to the wrong Wikidata items, it
worries me that most contributors with the subject matter knowledge won’t be able to
detect this, or won’t be able to correct this themselves. (My own experience suggests it’s
pointless to write on a Wikidata talk page as nobody responds, possibly because nobody is
watching?).
Also, there are File descriptions that contain links back to Wikipedia articles, which are
almost always to the depicted thing (if there are several links, it’s usually the first
one). Similarly many categories have links back to Wikipedia articles and generally all
the images in such categories are depicting that concept. I think having tool support to
enable this information to be exploited would be beneficial. A human should be in the loop
to confirm, of course, but at a lot less effort than doing the whole task manually.
Having said that, I am a little uncertain of the range of things that might be depicted.
As Sandra suggests, it’s fairly obvious when dealing with individual people, individual
buildings, although less clear when discussing group photos, streetscapes etc, where we
normally use language like “3rd from the left in the back row”.
But a building exists in a town/suburb/district, so doesn’t the photo also depict the
town/suburb/district as well as the building. Doesn’t it depict the time too?
Just to illustrate my point, here’s a couple of recent uploads I did:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Jupiter_Mosman
One is pretty obviously depicting the man Jupiter Mosman. But isn’t it also depicting an
Aboriginal Australian? Isn’t it also depicting a prospector? Isn’t it depicting 1945? All
of which are Wikidata items. But what about the photo of his grave? What is it depicting
in Wikidata? Jupiter Mosman? A grave? A headstone? A tree? Charters Towers (the place)?
Again, all of these things are in Wikidata. It seems to me that pretty much any category
we have in Commons represents a concept and hence could/should be a Wikidata item. If
that’s true, then we can automate a whole lot of “depicts” pretty easily.
Kerry
From: Libraries [mailto:libraries-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:libraries-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org> ] On Behalf Of Sandra Fauconnier
Sent: Wednesday, 17 April 2019 4:38 AM
To: Wikimedia & GLAM collaboration [Public] <glam(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:glam@lists.wikimedia.org> >; Wikimedia & Libraries
<libraries(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:libraries@lists.wikimedia.org> >; North
American Cultural Partnerships <glam-us(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:glam-us@lists.wikimedia.org> >
Subject: [libraries] Fwd: [Commons-l] Depicts statements coming to Commons this week (15
April)
Hello everyone,
One of the major additions of structured data to Wikimedia Commons is arriving later this
week: Depicts statements! See Keegan's message below for more details and links.
With regards to visual arts, library and archival documents, and specifically faithful
representations of two-dimensional works and documents: I would advise *not* to use the
Depicts statement there, but to wait for other statements to become available on Wikimedia
Commons in several weeks.
A separate property for that purpose has been created on Wikidata some time ago: P6243
(digital representation of)
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P6243 - and it will
only be possible to use that in several weeks.
Depicts is probably appropriate for other cases though: in the case of photographs of
buildings, people, objects...
These are only rough first pointers. Modelling structured data on Commons, and
establishing best practices in that area, is - just like on Wikidata - up to the
community.
Many greetings! Sandra
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Keegan Peterzell via Commons-l <commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org> >
Date: Mon, Apr 15, 2019 at 11:39 PM
Subject: [Commons-l] Depicts statements coming to Commons this week (15 April)
To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org> >, <wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org> >
Greetings,
(This message is also posted at the Commons Village Pump, and the SDC talk page)
The Structured Data on Commons [0] team plans to release support for depicts statements
this week, on Thursday, 18 April. The community's testing over the past several weeks
[1] helped identify and fix issues before launch, and the development team spent time
setting up extensive internal testing to make sure the release goes as well as possible.
This release is very simple, with only the most basic depicts statements available. There
is a significant amount of technological change happening with this project, and this
release contains a lot of background change that the team needs to make sure works fine
live on Commons before adding further support. More parts to depicts statements, and other
statements, will be released within the next few weeks.
A page for depicts has been set up at Commons:Depicts [2] As I can't actually write
instructive Commons policy or guidelines, I encourage those who have tried out simple
depicts tagging add a few lines to the page suggesting proper use of the tool. I also
encourage the use to be conservative at first, as we wait for more advanced features
within the coming month or two as additional statement support goes live.
I'll keep the community updated as the plans progress throughout the week, the team
will know better within the next day or two if things are definitely okay to proceed with
release.
0.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Structured_data
1.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Structured_data/Get_involved/Fee…
2.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Depicts
--
Keegan Peterzell
Community Relations Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation
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Program Officer, GLAM and Structured Data, Wikimedia Foundation
Twitter: @glamwiki
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Order here.