Wikidata:Property proposal/self-identified name

‎self-identified name[edit]

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Generic

Done: ‎self-identified name (P12089) (Talk and documentation)

Description	the name by which a group of humans refers to itself
Represents	Africultures (Q3606264)
Data type	Monolingual text
Domain	item, group of humans (Q16334295)
Example 1	San people (Q172365) → (en) "San"
Example 2	Berber (Q45315) → (en) "Amazigh"
Example 3	Sámi peoples (Q48199) → (en) "Sámi"
Planned use	decolonization
Expected completeness	always incomplete (Q21873886)
See also	subproperty of Property:P2561, complementary proposal non-self-identified name
Wikidata project	Project:Make Wikipedia blacker (Q63870968)
Proposed by	Birk Weiberg (talk)

Motivation[edit]

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), article 13 forsees the right of indigenous peoples to "designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons."

Currently, there is no way in Wikidata to distinguish between the historical, often racist, names and the names choosen by the groups themselves. Both names are randomly used as labels or in "also known as". The new property would clarify this. This includes keeping the historically incorrect names as an additional property. Having both names also helps heritage institutions decolonize their databases and makes this process more accessible to indigenous communities.

Discussion[edit]

Support In order to be more ethic in the management of data related to populations, human beings. Galahmm (talk) 10:48, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Needed to follow UN recommendations. I would encourage the name of the property to be closer to the wording contained in UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and perhaps opt for "own name" (article 13 in p.7 of the text) in English, and either "autodénomination" or "propre nom" in French (also article 13 p.7 of the document in French).--Flor WMCH (talk) 10:55, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Wygs (talk) 10:57, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Should the use of the property be restricted to ethnic groups only? Or should we opt for a broader definition that would also allow for its use for individuals, social groups, etc.? --Beat Estermann (talk) 12:17, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as this property is related to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.-- Flor WMCH (talk) 12:22, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How about places? - For places, the term "endonym" (vs. "exonym") may be more appropriate. --Beat Estermann (talk) 12:25, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A property for places would indeed also make sense. But a place cannot identify itself. -- Birk Weiberg (talk) 12:36, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@ Beat Estermann: It's now the self-identified name of a group of humans (Q16334295). -- Birk Weiberg (talk) 06:31, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support --Jahl de Vautban (talk) 12:53, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Weak support for now, good idea but Comment why not use the existing naming properties with a qualifier ? Like (maybe not the best example): QXXXname (P2561)string of the own nameobject has role (P3831)own naming @Birk Weiberg:. Cheers, VIGNERON (talk) 13:24, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I was thinking about that but the two properties I'm proposing are really opposites. They should in no way be mixed up when e.g. writing SPARQL queries without additional qualifiers or reconciling with OpenRefine. The properties are relevant for people from cultural heritage institutions and should be easily accessible to them. And if Property:P742, Property:P1449 and Property:P6427 are regular subproperties of Property:P2561, why these two can't be? Birk Weiberg (talk) 16:48, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
True (personally, I'm in favor of deleting a lot of redundant subproperties but I'm aware it's not really the current direction on Wikidata). Cheers, VIGNERON (talk) 12:28, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of unnecessary properties have been created in Wikidata just because people don't understand or don't want to use qualifiers. /ℇsquilo 10:55, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One reason might be that they are not accessible enough. The Query Helper in the SPARQL endpoint for example doesn't support qualifiers. If there was proper support for qualifiers, it would probably increase acceptance. And then I have no objections against transforming redundant properties into qualifiers. But to fight against additional properties doesn't make qualifiers more popular in my opinion. -- Birk Weiberg (talk) 12:36, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I've changed the domain from ethnic group (Q41710) to group of humans (Q16334295) to include more classes the property would be useful for. Birk Weiberg (talk) 19:06, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How does the proposed property relate to name in native language (P1559)? ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 17:32, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A self-assigned name is not bound to a specific language. It can be translated or transliterated. This is especially relevant for names where the native language doesn't use Latin characters like دروز إسرائيل, the name in native language (P1559) of Druze-Arabs in Israel (Q4115389). The two proposed properties are important for decolonizing the collections of cultural heritage institutions that need names in their languages. So the existing property is about language, the two new ones would be about who gave a name - related but not the same. -- Birk Weiberg (talk) 06:36, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Anasuyas: As a WikidataCon keynote speaker on decolonization, would you support this (and this) property proposal? They came out of a hackathon at an ethnographic museum and would hopefully be helpful for other museums as well. -- Birk Weiberg (talk) 08:06, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support It is important. It might be relevant to mention that on Wikidata there is already a propriety which allows to specify how people want to be referred to (she/he/they); in this case it is the name communities want to be referred to. --iopensa (talk) 16:56, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose "Currently, there is no way in Wikidata to distinguish between the historical, often racist, names and the names choosen by the groups themselves" This is not correct. This is exactly what the qualifiers subject has role (P2868) and object has role (P3831) are for. /ℇsquilo 07:48, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
See the discussion of properties vs. qualifiers above. -- Birk Weiberg (talk) 08:54, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is an important disambiguation, that will hopefully lead to more awareness and linked data. Loleg (talk) 13:42, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]