Yes, I think you should add all VIAFs. That is what I have done. I suppose the VIAF people might discover mergeable VIAFs and merge them. On Wikidata the Ivan A. Krestinin's bot at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/User:KrBot seems to operate and clear things up if VIAF merge, see e.g. the edits after the revision in this item: https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q20984804&oldid=473484364#P2… I don't know whether VIAF monitors Wikidata. Finn Årup Nielsen http://people.compute.dtu.dk/faan/ On 12/12/2017 11:53 AM, MagnusSalgo wrote:

It's explained here: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19474404 It means that the "VIAF Identifier" P214 property can only have 1 value. But you can treat this as a warning really because you will be loading multiple VIAF identifiers for the same person...and getting VIAF to merge or cleanup later...which hopefully bots will then pickup and handle the extra identifiers being deleted.. -Thad +ThadGuidry <https://plus.google.com/+ThadGuidry>

VIAF identifies a variety of things, including people, pseudonyms, organizations, places, etc. There is no intentional distinction between those things and their “identity”. Jeff From: Wikidata &lt;wikidata-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; on behalf of &quot;leadsong(a)webname.com&quot; &lt;leadsong(a)webname.com&gt; Reply-To: "Discussion list for the Wikidata project." &lt;wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Date: Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 11:14 AM To: &quot;wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org&quot; &lt;wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Subject: Re: [Wikidata] Identifiers: Multiple VIAF numbers That's because P214 should be a property of an identity, not of a person. We conflate the two concepts at our peril. One person can have multiple identities, aliases, pseudonyms, characters, roles, jobs, etc. Sometimes the same identity is adopted by multiple people, either sequentially or simultaneously: "I am Spartacus!", "John Bull", "G.I. Joe", "POTUS", "The King is dead, long live the King!", "Editor in Chief of the New York Times", ... LeadSongDog Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 8:13 AM From: "Thad Guidry" &lt;thadguidry(a)gmail.com&gt; To: "Discussion list for the Wikidata project." &lt;wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Subject: Re: [Wikidata] Identifiers: Multiple VIAF numbers 2. Single value violations https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Database_reports/Constraint_violatio… I don't understand this at all. Apologies, I feel very dumb but would appreciate maybe a general, non-tech speak explanation if someone might be so kind. It's explained here: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19474404 It means that the "VIAF Identifier" P214 property can only have 1 value. But you can treat this as a warning really because you will be loading multiple VIAF identifiers for the same person...and getting VIAF to merge or cleanup later...which hopefully bots will then pickup and handle the extra identifiers being deleted.. -Thad +ThadGuidry<https://plus.google.com/+ThadGuidry> _______________________________________________ Wikidata mailing list Wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata

I agree that “named entity” makes more sense. I’ll pass that edit suggestion along to the folks who maintain the page. Here is a blog post from 2011 where we talk about remodeling VIAF into a coherent hub-and-spoke model revolving around the entity itself. http://outgoing.typepad.com/outgoing/2011/04/changes-to-viafs-rdf.html Jeff From: Wikidata &lt;wikidata-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; on behalf of &quot;leadsong(a)webname.com&quot; &lt;leadsong(a)webname.com&gt; Reply-To: "Discussion list for the Wikidata project." &lt;wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Date: Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 12:19 PM To: &quot;wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org&quot; &lt;wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Subject: Re: [Wikidata] Identifiers: Multiple VIAF numbers Well, http://www.oclc.org/en/viaf.html says that VIAF * Links national and regional-level authority records, creating a cluster record for each unique name (my bolding). Some clarification is needed, if the "name" is supposed to be "named entity" instead. LeadSongDog Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 11:20 AM From: "Young,Jeff (OR)" &lt;jyoung(a)oclc.org&gt; To: "Discussion list for the Wikidata project." &lt;wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Subject: Re: [Wikidata] Identifiers: Multiple VIAF numbers VIAF identifies a variety of things, including people, pseudonyms, organizations, places, etc. There is no intentional distinction between those things and their “identity”. Jeff From: Wikidata &lt;wikidata-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; on behalf of &quot;leadsong(a)webname.com&quot; &lt;leadsong(a)webname.com&gt; Reply-To: "Discussion list for the Wikidata project." &lt;wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Date: Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 11:14 AM To: &quot;wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org&quot; &lt;wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Subject: Re: [Wikidata] Identifiers: Multiple VIAF numbers That's because P214 should be a property of an identity, not of a person. We conflate the two concepts at our peril. One person can have multiple identities, aliases, pseudonyms, characters, roles, jobs, etc. Sometimes the same identity is adopted by multiple people, either sequentially or simultaneously: "I am Spartacus!", "John Bull", "G.I. Joe", "POTUS", "The King is dead, long live the King!", "Editor in Chief of the New York Times", ... LeadSongDog Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 8:13 AM From: "Thad Guidry" &lt;thadguidry(a)gmail.com&gt; To: "Discussion list for the Wikidata project." &lt;wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Subject: Re: [Wikidata] Identifiers: Multiple VIAF numbers 2. Single value violations https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Database_reports/Constraint_violatio… I don't understand this at all. Apologies, I feel very dumb but would appreciate maybe a general, non-tech speak explanation if someone might be so kind. It's explained here: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19474404 It means that the "VIAF Identifier" P214 property can only have 1 value. But you can treat this as a warning really because you will be loading multiple VIAF identifiers for the same person...and getting VIAF to merge or cleanup later...which hopefully bots will then pickup and handle the extra identifiers being deleted.. -Thad +ThadGuidry<https://plus.google.com/+ThadGuidry> _______________________________________________ Wikidata mailing list Wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata _______________________________________________ Wikidata mailing list Wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata

Hi Erika, The team page needs to be updated, but I'll pass the thread along to them: http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/viaf.html Jeff ________________________________ From: Wikidata &lt;wikidata-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; on behalf of Brill Lyle &lt;wp.brilllyle(a)gmail.com&gt; Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2017 3:56:05 AM To: Discussion list for the Wikidata project. Subject: Re: [Wikidata] Identifiers: Multiple VIAF numbers Thanks Thad. That was very helpful. So Jeff, if you aren't the contact from OCLC who works with VIAF, can you tell us who is, and if they have any plans to address this issue? :-) Best, - Erika Erika Herzog Wikipedia User:BrillLyle<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BrillLyle> On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 12:32 PM, Young,Jeff (OR) <jyoung@oclc.org<mailto:jyoung@oclc.org>> wrote: I agree that “named entity” makes more sense. I’ll pass that edit suggestion along to the folks who maintain the page. Here is a blog post from 2011 where we talk about remodeling VIAF into a coherent hub-and-spoke model revolving around the entity itself. http://outgoing.typepad.com/outgoing/2011/04/changes-to-viafs-rdf.html Jeff

Finn Aarup Nielsen, 12/12/2017 21:29: When I edit an item manually, I usually also mark one of the identifiers as preferred. In Wikimedia Italia events I regularly mention this as one of the benefits of Wikidata: it's the only real "broker" of identifiers, where links and mistakes or duplicates can emerge. Federico