Well, we do use import for the test wikis when we rebuild the wiki and for sample data.  It involves having all the referenced properties and I think one of the rebuild scripts for the secondary data.

For importing items in the special page, the exports should have the content type.  If the content type is an entity, then Wikibase should disallow the import.  

If it's a wiki that does not have wikibase installed, then it's an "unknown" content type and not sure MediaWiki should be allowing import of unknown content via Special:Import :)

Cheers,
Katie

On Sun, Sep 15, 2013 at 10:46 AM, Lydia Pintscher <lydia.pintscher@wikimedia.de> wrote:

On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 9:54 PM, Daniel Kinzler
<daniel.kinzler@wikimedia.de> wrote:
> Import is an unsolved issue indeed. It works about half-way. I'm afraid it's not
> easy to make it work right, but I think it's worth a look.

Yeah. Thanks Katie for investigating. This is much less of a pressing
issue than I initially thought.

> On big problem are IDs. What to do if the item's ID is taken? Also, all the
> properties used by the item are going to have wrong IDs...

Yes. In the item in question you could also see statements with
completely missing properties but existing values (presumably because
the property didn't exist) and statements where the datatype of
property and value didn't match (presumably those where the property
ID exists but is taken by a completely different property).
This is all very messy and I think we should declare this wontfix
until someone comes up with an actual real-world case where it's
needed.

Cheers
Lydia

--
Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
Community Communications for Technical Projects

Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Obentrautstr. 72
10963 Berlin
www.wikimedia.de

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.

Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.

_______________________________________________
Wikidata-tech mailing list
Wikidata-tech@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-tech

--
Katie Filbert
Wikidata Developer

Wikimedia Germany e.V. | NEW: Obentrautstr. 72 | 10963 Berlin
Phone (030) 219 158 26-0

http://wikimedia.de

Wikimedia Germany - Society for the Promotion of free knowledge eV Entered in the register of Amtsgericht Berlin-Charlottenburg under the number 23 855 as recognized as charitable by the Inland Revenue for corporations I Berlin, tax number 27/681/51985.

_______________________________________________
Wikidata-tech mailing list
Wikidata-tech@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-tech