Wikidata:Requests for comment/How should we develop and deploy documentation for items ?

An editor has requested the community to provide input on "How should we develop and deploy documentation for items ?" via the Requests for comment (RFC) process. This is the discussion page regarding the issue. If you have an opinion regarding this issue, feel free to comment below. Thank you!

THIS RFC IS CLOSED. Please do NOT vote nor add comments.

Documentation is very important for Wikidata.

Properties have a nice documentation template ({{Property documentation}}) which is systematically used on every talk page.

For items, there is a generic documentation template ({{Item documentation}}) and some specific documentation templates such as {{TP given name}}, {{TP family name}}, {{TP administrative area}}, etc. {{Item documentation}} is manually deployed on talk pages and {{TP given name}} is automatically deployed in the header of talk pages using the magic of MediaWiki:Talkpageheader.

Yet, it would be great to choose a deployment strategy, create coordination between different templates and encourage the development of class specific documentation templates for organizations ({{TP organization}}), people, books, movies, etc.

MediaWiki:Talkpageheader has a nice trick to automatically display the good template in function of the value of instance of (P31) using the #Switch operator.

Here is the trick :

{{#switch:{{#invoke:Wikidata|formatStatementsE|item={{PAGENAME}}|property=p31|displayformat=raw|numval=1}}|Q202444|Q12308941|Q11879590|Q3409032={{TP given name}}|Q101352={{TP family name}}|Q5398426={{TP television series}}|}}

I think it's a good trick but it's not a good think to code this in MediaWiki:Talkpageheader since only adminstrators can change the code. In my opinion, it would be great to integrate this code directly in {{Item documentation}}. Thus, {{Item documentation}} could be a meta template which could include some class specific documentation templates for given names, administratives areas, buildings, people, etc.

For the deployment strategy, I don't know if it is better to use the magic of MediaWiki:Talkpageheader or to manually deploy {{Item documentation}} on each talk page.

PAC2 (talk) 17:34, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Based on the example above, this seems awfully close to what the wikis do with infoboxes? I have some gadget or widget or hack installed that automatically displays the beginning of the enwiki article if it exists, and it's slightly annoying (because it's animated and often obstructs the interface) but still useful. There are, of course, many items without articles. In those cases, it might still be possible to fall back on an infobox that fits the item type? There are lots of rather specific projects that have invested time into optimising them for their particular niche.

If there are specific instructions meant to communicate to editors that an item is to be used in a certain way, Wikidata usage instructions (P2559) is the obvious place to store them. I don't remember seeing it used on items. But if that changes then, yes, it would need to be added to whatever is being designed here. --Matthias Winkelmann (talk) 01:58, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

maybe it is good to start with an example Meudon (Q234735). Item documentation essentially provides SPARQL queries related to the item but it can also link to other useful tools such as Miga or Monumental. PAC2 (talk) 05:34, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

• I feel a bit uneasy about calling this item documentation because for items that actually do have documentation this template doesn't show the documentation. That doesn't mean that having a bunch of links to helpful SPARQL queries isn't useful but it's not documentation which might be found in a Wikiproject.

It's unclear to me whether the talk page is the best place for this. It might be that we need a third tab called information (so that we have Item/Discussion/Information). ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 19:08, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@ChristianKl: really like the idea of a third tab called Information or Documentation but I don't know how we could do that. Do you think it's possible to do this ?

I'm not sure to know what you call real documentation for items. Do you have any example? PAC2 (talk) 20:14, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Adding an extra tab would likely need code changes, but I don't know how easy or hard it would be to add.

When it comes to real documentation I would say that https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_International_relations contains real documentation for diplomatic mission (Q213283). ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 01:21, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I think the talk page is the right place. The vast majority of items have either empty or minimal talk pages. However, we should probably settle on a standardized header on the talk page so it can be easily found if there is also a lot of unrelated discussion. But discussion on an item talk page would generally be about an item, so it does seem relevant to keep both documentation and discussion together. ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:01, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I guess it's time to close the discussion. Right now, I think that the best thing to do is to progressively improve {{Item documentation}} by including class specific templates such as {{TP award}}, {{TP organization}}, {{TP administrative area}} and next templates such as {{Item documentation/people}}, {{Item documentation/movie}}, {{Item documentation/occupation}}, etc.

For the deployment strategy, I think that the inclusion in each talk page is the best. Anyone can do it and it's simple. However, when {{Item documentation}} is more developed, we may also consider a new deployment strategy using Mediawiki:Talkpageheader.

Thanks for all your comments. 21:22, 18 February 2021 (UTC)