Am 12.07.2015 um 15:31 schrieb Gerard Meijssen:
> Hoi,
> You do not get it.

Indeed. This is why I am asking questions.

> There are many properties. Consequently the scale of things
> is substantially different.

There are far, far more templates than properties. And we use unique, localized
names for templates. Why not for properties? And if we don't want this for
properties, why do the same arguments not apply for template names?

> It has been demonstrated that languages will have
> homonyms and consequently it is NOT a good idea to use labels or whatever you
> call them for properties. You can use them as long as internally you use the
> P-number.

Internally, we always use the P-number. Unless with "internally" you mean "in
wikitext". This is the point under discussion: whether we want localized names
for use in wikitext.

> You can use a text as long as the combination of label and description
> is unique. This combination may be useful.

This is how we do it for items. This works quite well with a selector widget. It
does not work inside wikitext - there, you either need a unique name, or rely on
the plain ID.

For items, sitelinks act as a per-language unique name. For properties, we
decided to require a unique label, since we can't use sitelinks there, and the
number is low enough (a few thousand, compared to tens of millions of items)
that ambuguities should be rare.

> At the same time be aware that property labels will be wrong and will need to be
> changed at a later date.

This is why we want to make aliases unique. If we have unique aliases, labels
can change without breaking anything.

> When this presents a problem for the comparison with
> external sources, it is tough. It is best to indicate this from the start.

Why would labels or aliases be used for comparison with external sources?
Properties can be linked to external vocabularies via statements, just like we
do it for items. Relying on labels for doing this would be asking for trouble.

> The argument about what happens in MediaWiki is secondary. And sorry that not
> everyone cares or knows about that in your way. The point is very much that at
> the scale of thousands and thousands of properties it does not scale. This point
> has been made plenty of times by now.

Really? How and where? I only hear you asserting it, but I see no evidence. I
see it scaling perfectly well on Wikidata. Property names already *are* unique,
always have been. I know of no major problems with this. There are some issues
with cultural differences and homonyms (e.g. the distinction between sex and
gender, or the double meaning of "editor" in Portuguese), but these are
relatively rare, and no worse than naming dicussions on Wikipedia.

--
Daniel Kinzler
Senior Software Developer

Wikimedia Deutschland
Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.

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