Wikidata:Property proposal/Port Letter

port letter

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Authority control

   Not done

Description	letter(s) used to identify the home port of a boat
Represents	Port letter (Q12311103)
Data type	String
Example 1	Portsmouth (Q72259) → P
Example 2	Padstow (Q943931) → PW
Example 3	Fukushima Prefecture (Q71707) → FS
Example 4	Tangelle Fisheries District, Sri Lanka (no item as yet) → TLE
Source	http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/portletters.html, http://www.wildmuir.co.uk/fish/fishingports.htm, https://www.findafishingboat.com/article/fishing-boat-registration-letters
Number of IDs in source	>500 in Europe alone
Expected completeness	eventually complete (Q21873974)
See also	licence plate code (P395): distinguishing signs or parts of license plate associated with the subject. For countries: international licence plate country code or distinguishing sign of vehicles
Single-value constraint	no
Distinct-values constraint	no
Wikidata project	WikiProject Ships (Q10782171)

Motivation

Boats are allocated a port letter and number (Port letter (Q12311103)); the letter component (which my actually be more than one letter; see examples) identifies the port. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:31, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

•  Question Is external identifier the correct datatype for this property? As the Port Letters are not unique, it will not be possible to unambigiously identify a port using this property and therefore string datatype might be more appropriate. Simon Cobb (User:Sic19 ; talk page) 21:45, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
  • @Sic19: Are they not unique? Do you have an example? If there are duplicates, then it might better to split them into, "European PL", "Japanese PL", or whatever. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:55, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
    • @Pigsonthewing: AB could be either Aberystwyth or Bensersiel, for example. It looks like the combination of letters and country (or probably flag when applied to fishing vessels) might be unique - however, that is based on a quick look rather than proper analysis. Simon Cobb (User:Sic19 ; talk page) 15:10, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
      • In that casei, I think this property should be for "European Port Letter", and we can have others for different regions or schemes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:49, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
        • @Pigsonthewing: Not sure it's necessary to split by region. Based on another Port Registration Letters website, the unique country and letters combination rule seems to apply worldwide. Simon Cobb (User:Sic19 ; talk page) 21:08, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
•  Support as string datatype. Simon Cobb (User:Sic19 ; talk page) 21:45, 29 December 2020 (UTC) Simon Cobb (User:Sic19 ; talk page) 21:08, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• @Sic19, Pigsonthewing: can we have a label and a description? ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 23:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Sorry I missed that; seems Simon has kindly beaten em to it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:55, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
    • Why is this capitalized? Is it really a proper name? ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 15:16, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

No, my mistake, I've changed it to lowercase. Simon Cobb (User:Sic19 ; talk page) 07:21, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

• There seems to be an unresolved problem with the datatype, even when limited to European. For similar, see licence plate code (P395) that uses string datatype. --- Jura 19:30, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
•  Support However @Pigsonthewing:, there's some more complex structure for some ports, eg see below. How can we account for that? --Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 16:26, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

AA – nnn -  ØM     Østre Moland

Please weigh in on Wikidata_talk:WikiProject_Ships#Home/Registry_Port_vs_City/Country

•  Support, an important property for the economy.--Arbnos (talk) 22:15, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• @Pigsonthewing, Sic19, ChristianKl, Jura1, Vladimir Alexiev: @Arbnos: It has been shown that external-id is probably the wrong identifier as Port Letters aren’t unique, not even within Europe. As there is support for the property itself, I would create it with a String datatype. Any objections? --Emu (talk) 19:54, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
  • @Emu: string datatype makes sense to me. Just a small question concerning scope - is the property for European or international ports? The label suggests the former and examples imply the latter. I think it's international but it would be good to clarify and avoid a misunderstanding. All the best, Simon Cobb (User:Sic19 ; talk page) 20:49, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
•  Support Pmt (talk) 01:41, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
• @Pigsonthewing, Sic19, ChristianKl: @Vladimir Alexiev, Jura1, Arbnos, Emu: I have modified the proposed label and datatype based on the above discussion. If there are no objections I believe this is ready to be created. ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:39, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
•  Support,
  Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 11:59, 13 March 2017 (UTC) Jonathan Groß (talk) 17:52, 26 March 2017 (UTC) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits Jneubert (talk) 13:47, 29 April 2017 (UTC) Sic19 (talk) 20:42, 12 July 2017 (UTC) Wikidelo (talk) 21:15, 8 May 2018 (UTC) ArthurPSmith (talk) 19:52, 22 August 2018 (UTC) PKM (talk) 19:40, 23 August 2018 (UTC) Ettorerizza (talk) 06:44, 8 October 2018 (UTC) Fuzheado (talk) 03:47, 19 December 2018 (UTC) Daniel Mietchen (talk) 16:30, 7 April 2019 (UTC) Iwan.Aucamp (talk) 21:48, 3 October 2019 (UTC) Epìdosis (talk) 23:49, 22 November 2019 (UTC) Sotho Tal Ker (talk) 00:52, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Bargioni (talk) 09:48, 02 May 2020 (UTC) Carlobia (talk) 14:34, 11 May 2020 (UTC) Pablo Busatto (talk) 03:22, 23 June 2020 (UTC) Matlin (talk) 10:53, 6 July 2020 (UTC) Msuicat (talk) 21:57, 27 August 2020 (UTC) Uomovariabile (talk) 10:04, 27 October 2020 (UTC) Silva Selva (talk) 17:21, 30 November 2020 (UTC) 1-Byte (talk) 15:52, 14 December 2020 (UTC) Alessandra.Moi (talk) 17:26, 16 February 2021 (UTC) CamelCaseNick (talk) 21:20, 20 February 2021 (UTC) Songceci (talk) 18:45, 24 February 2021 (UTC)]] moz (talk) 10:48, 8 March 2021 (UTC) AhavaCohen (talk) 14:41, 11 March 2021 (UTC) Kolja21 (talk) 17:37, 13 March 2021 (UTC) RShigapov (talk) 14:34, 19 September 2021 (UTC) Jason.nlw (talk) 15:15, 30 September 2021 (UTC) MasterRus21thCentury (talk) 20:22, 18 October 2021 (UTC) Newt713 (talk) 08:42, 13 March 2022 (UTC) Pierre Tribhou (talk) 08:00, 20 March 2022 (UTC) Powerek38 (talk) 17:21, 14 April 2022 (UTC) Ahatd (talk) 08:34, 4 August 2022 (UTC) JordanTimothyJames (talk) 00:54, 31 August 2022 (UTC) --Silviafanti (talk) 17:07, 14 September 2022 (UTC) Back ache (talk) 02:03, 1 November 2022 (UTC) AfricanLibrarian (talk) M.roszkowski (talk) 10:44, 4 January 2023 (UTC) Rhagfyr (talk) 19:36, 9 January 2023 (UTC) — Haseeb (talk) 13:10, 4 August 2023 (UTC) 沈澄心✉ 13:26, 15 November 2023 (UTC) MrBenjo (talk) 15:20, 23 April 2024 (UTC) S.v.Mering (talk)
  Notified participants of WikiProject Authority control — MasterRus21thCentury (talk) 06:39, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Feel free to add yourself to this list. User:Danrok Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) Rama Christian Ferrer Nortix08 Andrawaag Cavernia De728631 Vladimir Alexiev , 7 January 2021 simon.letort ShipIndex vicarage Pmt pfps

Notified participants of WikiProject Ships @Pigsonthewing:

•  Comment IMHO this is not yet ready to create because of several issues. Do we have any Wikiproject Ships expert in the house? Please comment per item below --Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 12:43, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
• As I wrote above, there is extra structure in port letters, see http://www.wildmuir.co.uk/fish/fishingports.htm. If I understand correctly, a bigger port (or port area) (eg AA Aust-Agder, Norway) has not only a prefix, but each port in the area has a suffix (eg ØM Ostre Moland). So how should we represent the port letters for Ostre Moland? Maybe AA$1ØM where $1 shows where the boat's "serial number" is inserted? I personally prefer something more visually appealing for the placeholder, eg underscore: AA_ØM
  • Another example: FIN _ U Uusimaa
• We need to figure out letter case and what punctuation is allowed and set a regex, eg

 St.VC:        St. Valery en Caux: dot and lowercase letter
 AL – 1 – nnn: Tarifa:             dash and digit. But is this written AL-1-nnn or AL1nnn?

• I set "distinct values constraint = no" because the letters are not distinct even within one country, eg

AL: Leer,     Germany
AL: Langeoog, Germany

• I set "single value constraint = no" because of possible variations in script and capitalization. Eg:
  • Byala, Bulgaria: "Port letters on Bulgarian fishing boats are in Cyrillic script and will appear on the boat as Бл or sometimes as БΛ (whereas) BL is the nearest Latin script equivalent"
  • Nakhodka, Russia: ND and "appears on boat as Cyrillic letters НД"
• What should be the domain of this property? See Wikidata_talk:WikiProject_Ships#Home/Registry_Port_vs_City/Country
• (I added "Wikidata project")
• (I added two more sources from the Wikipedia page)

 – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vladimir Alexiev (talk • contribs).

• @Vladimir Alexiev: you might want to draft and new alternative proposal. --- Jura 15:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Not done next time, please formulate a clear proposal addressing problems raised here. --- Jura 09:41, 22 January 2022 (UTC)