Wikidata:Property proposal/describes

describes[edit]

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Generic

Not done

Description	Data objects that are described by this entity (e.g. an encyclopedia or topic-related book; intended for input of several data objects.)
Data type	Item
Example 1	The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia (Q14915024) describes The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Q861205), The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Q735613), Hylian (Q12176345), ...
Example 2	Dictionary of computer terms (Q124099519) describes Fortran (Q83303), COBOL (Q131140), MS-DOS (Q47604), ...
Example 3	Brockhaus Enzyklopädie (Q237227) describes Germany (Q183), house cat (Q146), Bavaria (Q980), ...

Motivation[edit]

I want to list some or more topics that are described by an entity, so it gives an overview what an entity is about in detail. --PantheraLeo1359531 (talk) 15:19, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

Oppose @PantheraLeo1359531: Use main subject (P921), this is exactly what it is intended for. ArthurPSmith (talk) 20:21, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose same reason as Arthur. See also this discussion on the Wikidata Telegram group where we talked about renaming main subject (P921) to "describes". Lectrician1 (talk) 23:48, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral Weak oppose I had argued with this decision. Overall, I can say main subject (P921) is intended to be better. However, the examples had been useful, describing some details of those statements. However, this property hasn't been extremely, solely, or especially necessary, though not a very strong opinion on opposing. If you disagree, don't outright hesitate to reply to me immediately. Solaris5296 (talk) 20:21, 15 January 2024 (UTC) [reply]
Oppose. Instead, use main subject (P921) on the reference work, as stated above, and described by source (P1343) on the topics to link them back to your encyclopedia or other reference. The numbers of topics are potentially huge. For example, Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (Q602358) is used with "described by source" on ~64K Wikidata items, Polish Biographical Dictionary (Q1485141) is used on ~20K items, A Naval Biographical Dictionary (Q16055052) is used on ~5K items. Adding described by source (P1343) to the topics has the added advantage of helping editors find references for individual statements on items. - PKM (talk) 21:41, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For reference, here's the query https://w.wiki/8rEF for the top 1000 items used in "described by source" statements. - PKM (talk) 21:45, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Brockhaus Enzyklopädie (Q237227) likely has thousands of entries and we don't want properties with thousands of entries on Wikidata as they don't fit well.ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 13:21, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose Same as the other users' oppose reasons. Now I will have to strongly object to this decision and I will have to take it less flexible and less lenient. I will have to take this more strictly now. Examples were fine, but the user experiences are absolutely not. This will significantly count as an oppose. I am not taking any more major changes in my opinion. Solaris5296 (talk) 14:56, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]