Wikidata talk:Wikimedia Commons

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Why to discuss from zero again?[edit]

I don't understand why Sannita removed the advanced draft about relation between Wikidata and Commons and replaced it with a new page, which seems be a bit poor and infantile in comparison with the linked previous discussions and proposals. That's true that one function was activated for Commons recently (why not earlier?), but most of the discussed problems and proposals are still relevant.

I welcome to the running discussion the fellow workers who noticed just now that there exists some Commons project and that it should be interconnected with other projects. --ŠJů (talk) 19:12, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Updating Wikidata:Wikimedia Commons[edit]

Hi all,

I'm reaching out because I'm currently cleaning up and updating the Wikidata documentation for sister projects. For an idea of what that means, see Wikidata:Wikisource and Wikidata:Wikinews which I recently updated.

As you'll see, I added some navigation and structure to both. I'd like to introduce these same changes to the page for Wikimedia Commons. I'm also interested in helping and/or supporting efforts to improve Wikidata:Wikimedia Commons. It'd be great to include more content on how Wikdata can support Wikimedia Commons (and vice versa) and why people should care and contribute. Unless anyone objects, in the next couple of days I'll start making some changes and moving content around to sub-pages.

If you have comments or suggestions for content that is missing but should be added, please let me know! Thanks -Thepwnco (talk) 20:54, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Page(s) updated as part of documentation overhaul[edit]

Hi all,

as discussed above, I've gone ahead and updated the Wikidata:Wikimedia Commons page. I realize these are substantial changes—but I did try and keep the original proposal/discussion largely unchanged (as you will see, it is now a subpage at Wikidata:Wikimedia Commons/Development). I also added in redirects for all talk pages to point to just one main talk page (this one), and moved "See also" links to the Resources page. If you have suggestions or concerns please leave them here—you can, of course, edit/revert my changes but I hope this documentation will prove useful for the Wikimedia Commons community, help sustain contributions to Wikidata, and encourage further collaboration.

Thanks in advance for your feedback. -Thepwnco (talk) 23:57, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is Commons category (P373) still useful ?[edit]

Hi,

The title is a bit rought but it's a genuine question : « is Commons category (P373) still useful ? » If it is, why and how ?

I just add commons:Category:Bruz to Category:Bruz (Q9550308) but the category is already on Bruz (Q216837) with Commons category (P373). Is it the right way ? It seems the more logical way but it doesn't seem very logic… It bothers me a bit to put the same information at two places… I fell like Commons category (P373) is no longer useful, is it ?

Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 13:44, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, because preferred policy is linking WP:category with C:Category and WP:Article with C:Gallery. For other connections and because of many duplicates is P373 useful. JAn Dudík (talk) 21:32, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you JAn Dudík for your answer!
But I'm still a bit puzzled. I'll take an example. Rennes (Q647) is link to Commons:Rennes and Category:Rennes (Q8652887) to Commons:Category:Rennes, that's fine and perfectly logical but it's an exceptionnal case because Rennes is a big city. But what about a small city like Laillé (Q1023498) and Commons:Category:Laillé ? how should I do the link ?
Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 19:20, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Commons:Category:Raphael Lemkin[edit]

Hi all, i wonder why the mentioned category does not show the Wikilinks on the left although the related Wikidata item does contain the category and different Wiki articles? --Aschroet (talk) 20:42, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Aschroet: because it was removed [1] by Cycn. Holger1959 (talk) 23:45, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Holger1959, but why the current version and the one after the assumed removal still shows a statement "Commons category" with the right link? I am confused. --Aschroet (talk) 12:02, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Aschroet, there's is Commons category (P373) = Raphael Lemkin. this statement can be used by Wikipedia templates or so, but is not relevant for interwiki links. The removed link was at the right side under "Other sites". if it would be still there the Wikipedia articles would appear as interwiki links on Commons. But there is a Wikidata "policy" that it is generally not wanted to link Wikipedia articles and Commons categories in one item (some special cases are somehow tolerated, but this one is not special I think), see Wikidata:Wikimedia_Commons/Development#Linking_from_Commons and c:Commons:Wikidata. The usual solution is, to restore "old" interwiki links here.
this answer is probably not satisfying. Maybe it helps to understand the policy, if you have a look eg. at New York City (Q60) (article item) and Category:New York City (Q7038507) (category item) and notice the Commons links at "Other sites" (gallery vs. category). So for many cases (like Raphael Lemkin), Commons is not fully integrated into Wikidata yet. As far as i know technical improvements for this situation are planned, but we still wait for them. What you can do at the moment, is to create a new item for "Category:Raphael Lemkin" (with only one sitelink: Commons) and link it to the article item with category's main topic (P301), and back with topic's main category (P910), but this would also not change the interwiki link situation. Holger1959 (talk) 22:52, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Holger1959, I tried to do this today with the category https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Anzac_Hill. However although I was able to create a Wikidata item for the Category, I was unable to successfully link it so that anything was visible on the Commons category. When I tried using "Add links" in Commons to link it to the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anzac_Hill (since there seems to be no other option), it automatically merged the Wikidata Category item into Anzac Hill (Q19870735). I only tried to do it because Commons categories like https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Australian_and_New_Zealand_Army_Corps do now appear to be usefully linked: they link to a category item in Wikidata yet display Wikipedia article links in the Commons sidebar. I'd appreciate an explanation of how you set this up on a category such as Anzac Hill above. Ghouston (talk) 12:29, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@ Ghouston: please first notice that it was not me that made the rules (i only try to explain). for the usual solution at the moment see my last commont: use old style interwiki links on Commons. this is easy because it is nothing more than [[en:Anzac Hill]] that has to be added to c:Category:Anzac Hill.
your "solution" now has some problems, see [2]. after your merge the item is mixed up, describing it as "hill in Alice Springs", but stating instance of (P31)=Wikimedia category (Q4167836) instead of =hill or =mountain. Additionally it has a self-link now by having category's main topic (P301) = itself, and a link from topic's main category (P910) to the now "empty" redirected category item. Can you try to clean this all up yourself please? learning effect ;) Anyway, even if the current combined article/category item might work for you (or from your perspective), please expect other users removing the Commons category link without warning. Then it will be lost again. Also, it might be better to post your general questions in regard to Commons links at the Project chat, this discussion page here seems not very active. Holger1959 (talk) 16:44, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I understand that the merged version is incorrect, according to the Wikidata rules. However the merge wasn't my idea, but happened automatically when I clicked the button in Commons. I understand the solution of adding [[en:Anzac Hill]] in Commons, but this is inferior since if somebody adds another version in a different Wikipedia then it won't be automatically linked. As for cleaning it up, I've put it back how it was after the merge, which although it seems to be correct according to Wikidata structure, and seems to have a Commons sitelink (I'm not actually sure how I got that in there), there is still no interwiki link in Commons. Alright, I see now that the page that I thought was a working example, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Australian_and_New_Zealand_Army_Corps, actually has embedded links in Commons. Perhaps site links via Wikidata are simply broken in Commons at present. Ghouston (talk) 22:39, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Ghouston: yes, as written above: Commons is not fully integrated into Wikidata yet. (same is true for some other projects, it's "work in progress") Holger1959 (talk) 23:11, 17 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think I originally misunderstood what you wrote. Ghouston (talk) 03:48, 18 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Are we there yet? guidance on linking[edit]

Has there been a decision about how to link Commons data at Wikidata? If there is then it hasn't reached the guidance material in a clear manner for users. If it hasn't, what is the hold up?  — billinghurst sDrewth 13:00, 5 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sort of. From a Wikidata item you can link a corresponding Commons category with Commons category (P373) and a Commons gallery with Commons gallery (P935). You can also add a site link to a Commons category or gallery. Originally there was a dispute about whether "main" Wikidata items can have sitelinks to Commons categories (as mentioned above), but it now seems to be accepted or at least tolerated. Ghouston (talk) 23:43, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In the commons gallery c:Equestrian sports there are no interwiki links although I added Commons gallery (P935) = "Equestrian sports" to equestrian sport (Q902378) (yesterday), but commons seems not to have noticed that. Page c:Help:Creating multilingual tags with interwiki links says: it is no longer needed to insert interwiki links on Commons. Instead feed them in Wikidata ..., and in other galleries with working interwiki links I couldn't see anything different. What is the reason for this problem with this gallery? What can I do about it? --Hufkratzer (talk) 14:13, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Hufkratzer: Interwiki links imported from the corresponding Wikidata item will only appear on Commons if the corresponding gallery/category was added in the Wikidata item under section "Other links", at the very bottom, like this providing links in commons:Equestrian sports. -- LaddΩ chat ;) 01:12, 8 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. --Hufkratzer (talk) 15:01, 8 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Commons categories should link to wikipedia articles, not categories[edit]

Hello. Wikidata seems to have assumed that Commons categories should link to Wikipedia categories by default. Not only that is not generally the case, but it is never, or almost never the case. Indeed, I can't recall of a single instance where that can be useful, at all.

Practical examples: The category for Angélica, a Brazilian municipality: c:Category:Angélica (Mato Grosso do Sul), which is our basis for the corresponding "en:Angélica, Mato Grosso do Sul" articles on wikipedias, are not linked to them in wikidata, but to a completely useless and disconnected category in Portuguese: pt:Category:Angélica (Mato Grosso do Sul). What is actually using the useful wikidata connections is this completely useless, outdated and unmaintained gallery: c:Angélica (Brazil)

So, in order to correct that, and make the Commons category link with the article, as it should have been from the start, I have to remove the Commons connections from the category wikidata item, remove the useless category from the Article wikidata item, and then make the proper connection.

Example to show how Commons categories are completely disconnected from Wikipedia categories, and any correspondence between the two is useless and unwanted, and should never, ever link to them by default:

In a nutshell, by connecting Wikipedia categories to Commons categories, what you achieve is:

  • Sending people to a useless place:I'm a very experient user in both Commons and pt.wiiki, with almost 200.000 editions in the first, and way over 100.000 in the second, and in my whole existence here since 2009 I never, ever felt the necessity to pass from commons categories to wikipedia categories;
  • Showing people useless information: How does it help any international user using the image data bank on Commons, that the connection to Angélica is 1) a category 2) in Portuguese -> pt:Category:Angélica (Mato Grosso do Sul);
  • Not showing what actually is needed in Commons categories (1) - In Commons, while organizing categories, we constantly feel the necessity to check the corresponding wikipedia articles. That's why on old times many categories had a direct link to the article at the top, so that we could travel back and forth easily. Some were using interwikis to achieve that as well;
  • Not showing what actually is needed in Commons categories (2) - It hinders anyone's efforts wanting to place the Commons category images in the corresponding Wikipedia articles, as what is connected there are not the articles, but a useless wikipedia category in an exotic language: pt:Category:Angélica (Mato Grosso do Sul);
  • Does not help at all in the connection between Commons and the Wikipedias, in general.

This problem extends to hundreds of thousands of articles. Please look into this, and consider using a bot to remove all the generally useless connections "wikipedia category-Commons category". Even a bot removing the useless and erroneous connections between Commons galleries and wikipedia articles would be quite useful, one step less in the manual corrections.

Thank you,

--DarwIn (talk) 12:07, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that Commons has, to use one of your examples, both c:Category:Eiffel Tower and c:Tour Eiffel. My solution would be to merge all pages like the latter into the former, but I don't expect that that would find consensus on Commons. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:14, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Pigsonthewing: Wikidata can safely ignore Commons galleries like c:Tour Eiffel. Very few of them receive any maintenance at all. That one, for instance, hardly received any edits for years, and I don't know if anyone actually uses it. It has no bearable comparison with c:Category:Eiffel Tower, which is constantly being improved, refined, and receives new images all the time. All in Commons goes through categories, they are to Commons what the articles are to Wikipedia, that's our working space. Wikipedia categories - something quite secondary to the Wikipedia, by the way - should link between themselves, but never with Commons categories, which are a completely different animal, even if they use the same domain. Likewise, Commons galleries have no relation with the Wikipedia article model. They are not articles, they are galleries, like exhibitions in a museum.--DarwIn (talk) 21:07, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not convinced that it is safe to do so, nor that that would meet the needs of our colleagues on Commons or various Wikipedias; nor am I convened that their is consensus on Commons that "categories... are to Commons what the articles are to Wikipedia". Do you have evidence to support that the latter is considered so? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:53, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Pigsonthewing: What I have to present on support of that is almost 9 years and 200.000 edits of extensive experience on Commons. In all that time I: 1)never, ever used galleries 2)never, ever needed to go from a commons category into a wikipedia category 3) always need to go from Commons categories to articles, all the time, back and forth. Wikidata linking Commons categories to Wikipedia categories is pointless and useless, and makes life more difficult for us, as with Wikidata the old interwikis which linked to articles are gone. Not only me, many people in Commons are either changing manually those wrong connections on Wikidata, or just doing things the old way, with a direct link to the article pasted on top of the category (basically ignoring the wrong Wikidata connections). It would really help a lot if someone could at least run a bot to remove the connection between galleries and articles, which is plainly wrong. That would reduce at least one step on the manual corrections.--DarwIn (talk) 23:24, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, TL;DR: I agree with Darwin. Regards, Yann (talk) 18:10, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
+1, I also agree with Darwin. --Zaccarias (talk) 20:11, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
+1, even though I've built some of the few useful gallery pages on Commons and would love to see more of these. - Jmabel (talk) 22:38, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment That is a simplistic approach that is never going to work s a single solution, it is not so black and white.

  • Categories can be linked to subject articles THOUGH within a hierarchical process.
  • If there is a gallery, then that takes precedence ... gallery -> article.
  • If there is a corresponding category on other wikis, then ... category -> category (and usually there is a gallery anyway).
  • otherwise category -> article as interwiki

however there are still exceptions, certain categories need to map to a Wikisource edition, so should not map at the article level. Part of the solution for Commons it to get rid of unnecessary galleries, when they don't exist then they won't take precedence.  — billinghurst sDrewth 02:27, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@billinghurst: Why would a gallery take precedence over a category, ever? They were never designed to match with articles, but rather to serve as exhibitions, as Jmabel demonstrated quite well with the wonderful and useful galleries he created for Romanian Orthodox churches in Bucharest and Seattle and the Orient. But even Freeport, New_York was never inteended to be the main source of images for the article, but rather to serve as a permanent exhibition of selected images about that theme. It just doesn't work that way. Galleries in general receive very occasional updates and new incorporations, if at all, and they were not designed to be different than that. When it's plainly consensual and assumed by everyone that articles link to Commons categories, why is it so difficult to understand that Commons categories link back to articles, and not to something else?--DarwIn (talk) 03:38, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@DarwIn: The conversation about the existence/dominance/prevalence of galleries belongs at Commons, not at Wikidata. Wikidata exists to manage what Commons produces, not direct.  — billinghurst sDrewth 06:46, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The active participants in Commons have consensus close to unanimity that categories are the main unit on Commons and that, for the most part, they correspond to Wikipedia articles, and that galleries are quite secondary. This has been discussed more than once there, with almost no dissension. We routinely try, when applicable, to align category names with English-language Wikipedia article names; we do not attempt to align them with category names. Some of the more "meta" categories (e.g. commons:Category:Buildings by type or commons:Category:States of the United States) do, indeed correspond more to Wikipedia categories, but as far as I can think these are never ones that would have normal text Wikipedia articles (although they may have "List of" articles in Wikipedia).
As for galleries in Commons, there is barely consensus to have them at all. Few are well-maintained. Most are the proverbial waste of bits. While I linked three examples of good ones above, I honestly doubt that there are 1000 of that caliber in the entirety of Commons. - Jmabel (talk) 08:47, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If 100s/1000s/10000s of Commons galleries are useless start a process of having them removed, don't expect Wikidata to have to resolve those issues/conflicts.

Dealing with Commons categories in isolation is problematic, especially in solely looking at them from the perspective of a Wikipedia. What happens where a category exists in Commons, Wikipedias, Wikiquotes, Wikisources, ... are you linking the category to the article or to the other categories? It simply isn't a 1 for 1 that a Commons category aligns to a Wikipedia article, there are variations, which is why we have the current guidance as Jarekt pointed to above.  — billinghurst sDrewth 14:25, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@billinghurst: Why do you say there are variations? Do you have any example of that? I've never seen a single exception of the rule "Commons category -> Wikipedia article". When it is possible to link with anything at all, it's always with Wikipedia articles. Maybe some meta ("by") categories could be linked to Wikipedia categories, but that would be the exception, and not the rule, and it's usefulness is much more limited.--DarwIn (talk) 15:28, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@DarwIn: Easy example are Categories at Commons that are used for illustrated editions of a work, as these align with the Wikisource edition, not with a Wikipedia article (unless that article is about that specific edition). Similarly, categories like "Writers from France" do not easily align with an article, but they do easily align across sisters as categories at those. It can be quite frustrating thinking is caught in a duality of Wikipedias and Wikidata, or a triangle of Wikidata/Commons/WPs, it is much bigger, it is not so pure.  — billinghurst sDrewth 06:16, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@billinghurst: I believe we can draw a simple rule that never fails: If there's a corresponding Wikipedia article, Commons category align with that article. If there's no article but corresponding W. category, C. category aligns with W. Category. Commons galleries never, ever should align with Wikipedia articles, as they were never designed to be 1-on-1, and even when there's a Wikipedia article about the same subject, the corresponding Commons category always takes precedence over the gallery. At least at first sight, this rule never fails.--DarwIn (talk) 00:10, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop your focus on WP articles it is limiting your vision on Wikidata, Commons, and all sister wikis, and focus on the item. Plus commons cats can link to items where no WP article exists, in fact where no sister links exist. The hierarchy that works is
  1. Commons gallery -> item. [Problem is the proliferation of valueless galleries, get rid of that crud galleries, and this goes away for 99.9% of cases]
  2. Commons category -> category item (category items are limited to where commons and other wikis have the same category, readily linkable to parent item)
  3. Commons category -> item (where #1 and #2 do not exist, adding commonscat to body anyway)
The setup for commons categories at WD has to be independent of WPs, though the WPs need to be able to harness the data. Commons cats need to work for all the sister wikis.  — billinghurst sDrewth 02:33, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Your linking favours Wikipedia articles over all the sisters, and your designed links can be achieved by alternative means
  • This works well enough on a lot of categories, but consider c:Category:Coprinus comatus: there's no site link to Wikidata, and no trivial way to add one (you could create a category item in Wikidata, or unlink the gallery from Wikidata.) Since the category isn't linked to Wikidata, there's no link to Wikidata in the sidebar, and a template has added a category "Biology pages without wikidata link". Ghouston (talk) 09:40, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@billinghurst: "Commons gallery -> item. " -> Why do you insist on this? Where have you got the idea that Commons galleries correspond to Wikipedia articles? Can you please explain that, so that we can move forward with the rest?--DarwIn (talk) 21:29, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You are not listening. Your fixation is that an item = wikipedia, it is not the case, please see Help:Items. Items need to cover all aspects of the sum of knowledge.  — billinghurst sDrewth 02:20, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@billinghurst: You are not listening. I'm talking about Commons, and you come with Wikipedia. I don't care about Wikipedias, as they are already linked in the correct way (article -> Commons Category) I care about Commons, where Wikidata insists in linking wrong items such as galleries to articles, and keep linking Commons categories to the useless wikipedia categories.--DarwIn (talk) 21:35, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Modeling copyrights[edit]

Please see Help:Copyrights for page on Modeling copyright statements on Wikidata and Commons. Also visit Wikidata:Property proposal/OTRS ticket number 2 and other Commons related proposed properties on Wikidata:Property proposal/Sister projects. --Jarekt (talk) 13:34, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Commons-links as statement or interwiki?[edit]

I have tried to find some information on how to connect Commons and Wikidata, but haven't found what I'm looking for. I have read the discussion above about whether to link to commons-categories or commons-galleries, but I wonder whether I should use the statement (the so called Commons category, P373) or the interwiki-function at the bottom of the item-page (below Other sites, where it is possible to add a commons-connection)?

When starting to use the PLtools: Harvest Templates-tool, I noticed that if I add commons categories to items who already have a commons-interwiki-link (in most cases the same link), a conflict arises. However, the conflict is not observed by the Harvest Templates-tool.

Also, is there a tool to add properties (i.e. commons categories :)) to wikidata items directly from a wikipedia page? //Moralist (talk) 13:25, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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