I sort of agree, especially about the issue of lack of documentation. I would also point out that the exact same issues occurred back when Wiki Commons was young. The rules for contributions to that project were not easy and obvious for the early birds. That said, we now have a triumverate for the information you are talking about: WP, COM and D. I guess to set up the files you describe in the way you describe, you will need to get your feet wet in Wikidata in order to get a feel for the properties involved. The functionality is already partially available for the artwork template on Commons. I just uploaded this image and created an item for it, pointing to the person depicted. The fact he is depicted as a youth is hard to capture with the on/off "depicts" property. It would be nice to be able to specify his age somehow. Also, the suit of armour. It's still early days I guess. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Justus_Sustermans_(studio)_-_Portrait_of_young_Ferdinand_II_de%27_Medici_(1610-1670),_Grand_Duke_of_Tuscany,_in_armour.jpg

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 2:31 AM Kerry Raymond <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] On Behalf Of Sandra Fauconnier
Sent: Wednesday, 17 April 2019 4:38 AM
To: Wikimedia & GLAM collaboration [Public] <glam@lists.wikimedia.org>; Wikimedia & Libraries <libraries@lists.wikimedia.org>; North American Cultural Partnerships <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@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@lists.wikimedia.org>, <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.


--

Keegan Peterzell

Community Relations Specialist

Wikimedia Foundation

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--

Sandra Fauconnier (she/her)

Program Officer, GLAM and Structured Data, Wikimedia Foundation

Twitter: @glamwiki

 

How Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums work with Wikimedia communities: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM

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