Wikidata:Requests for comment/Wikidata as fans resources

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

It seems nobody wants to move on. Midleading (talk) 03:01, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

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An editor has requested the community to provide input on "Wikidata as fans resources" 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.

It is unclear whether can Wikidata serves as a fans resources. For example, all songs by a singer with Wikidata item are "clearly identifiable conceptual or material entity", and the complete list of songs can be easily found on multiple websites and physical album covers. But the problem is it is undefined whether these sources are serious enough for Wikidata.

It leads to confusions and potential inconsistency on whether Wikidata covers a specific fans topic. Lots of items have been created with from narrative universe (P1080), sometimes without references or with Wikidata property for an identifier that does not imply notability (Q62589320) only. Of course this is not to say you can't find references to these entities, often there are countless webpages about them. But it is strange that why a podcast episode is notable, but a song by a singer is not? The coverage for fans topics also seems to be country-specific, because Wikidata is more popular in western countries.

There are many types of things of interest to fans, like:

• All songs by a singer;
• All works by a writer;
• All playable characters in a video game;
• All episodes of a TV show or podcast;
• All characters in a movie, TV series, novel and others;
• Anything else fans interested in the specific work/artist are crazy about;
• And the properties for these entities, like Pokémon index (P1685), and links to other websites about the entity.

Since there is good coverage on these topics on external fans websites, I propose that we consider these topics notable for Wikidata, provided that it is created by a notable artist or described in a notable work with a Wikidata item. The link to the notable creator or work should be specified in the item about the fans topic using appropriate properties.

Disclaimer: I'm not going to create fans items myself now. I just want to be sure I can create them if I want to. Midleading (talk) 16:14, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

• Largely most of those things are already notable by our existing standards. The caveat being that only characters from works that are notable for other reasons qualify. "Anything else fans interested in the specific work/artist are crazy about" seem far too vague to be a standard for notability. BrokenSegue (talk) 04:29, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
• I may be just a simple, humble country editor, but my understanding of Wikimedia projects is that we take a more educational, encyclopedic angle. "Fans' resources" might be more appropriate for Fandom type wikis, which are expressly oriented to fandom and fan resources. Wikidata items should serve the WMF projects' purposes, as things that are educational, concrete, and factually-based. I must disclaim that I know more about enwiki than any other project, and not all WMF projects are encyclopedias! But, in encyclopedic projects, editors are generally discouraged from overloading the material with in-universe type material and POVs. With the example of bands and discographies, especially songs and singles, yes it is difficult to discern reliability for online discographies, but I think many projects have this licked, and I think we should look to their guidelines for how to handle such questions. I would resist most efforts to turn Wikidata into Memory Alpha or Wookieepedia, which are great resources, but their goals are not aligned with WMF projects. Elizium23 (talk) 04:37, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
  • By the way, I'm not quite clear on the goal of this RFC. It seems like a general statement and call for discussion, rather than a concrete proposal with options and a plan. Can you please tell us what specific questions you have, and how we should answer them? Thanks. Elizium23 (talk) 04:38, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
    • Thanks for your participation. There are many types of fans topics not listed above. An example in Wikidata is Thunderbolt (Q26156769): Pokémon move. Creative works are meant to be creative, so it's always possible something entirely new is worth mentioning.
    • We won't be talking about this in Wikipedia certainly. Wikipedia is not a database and certainly doesn't have more place for Thunderbolt (Q26156769) beyond a table or list entry. But here in Wikidata, it may be notable enough to have an item.
    • As I stated in the disclaimer, I don't have any plans to import fans items. I'm just calling for discussions on what fans resources are wanted on Wikidata, and what to do if, say, an anonymous editor creates items for each of Harry Potter's spells? Midleading (talk) 06:13, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

      Wikidata has a notability policy, so if an editor (anonymous or not) creates items for fictional items such as HP spells, then we'll know precisely how to handle them, just like any other borderline-notable item. Elizium23 (talk) 06:40, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

      But there are still questions. If the item is without references, but you can confirm it is indeed mentioned in a notable work by web search, is it automatically notable, or some people can still argue that these fans-compiled sources are not serious enough? Midleading (talk) 06:50, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

      I don't understand why it seems so ambiguous to you. Notability and reliable sources are two of the most robust and well-known policies across WMF projects. If fansites are not reliable, then they're not reliable.

      Here's my question: why this RFC on "Fans Resources" and fan-related material in general? What sets apart this topic area from other topics where we also follow policies on Notability and Reliable Sources? Data is data on Wikidata, so I'm not sure why we need to explore fuzzy edges of these policies among fandom, much less in advance!

      This furthers my concern with this RFC, is that we have no concrete or real case to point to or examine, but you've raised this as future hypotheticals. This is quite out of order for RFCs. There can be no discussion about hypotheticals where you don't even link to an example! Give me a break! Elizium23 (talk) 07:25, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

      I didn't provide an example, but it is so easy to find an example. Items like Chen Mo (Q115468698) are being created on Wikidata. Fans have already used Wikidata to compile a database of fictional universes. The purpose of this RFC is just to make it clear that Wikidata is home to fans resources, that is, anything related to a notable artist or work is welcome here if the topic is well covered on fansites. This is radicially different from Wikipedia, why should we keep being silent about it? Midleading (talk) 08:26, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

• If you would take all works by a writer to include all their twitter posts and all twitter uses to be writters, you would get billions of items for all those twitter posts. Given how Wikidata works, that would bring Wikidata to it's knees.

At the same time we likely want all songs of artists that are notable enough to have Wikipedia pages in Wikidata. We have a status quo that sort of works but that's very intransparent from the outside. If you have an idea of how to word a more specific policy, it would make sense to propose one. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 16:11, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, I propose everything published by notable artists or mentioned in notable works is also notable. I mean works formally published, not just a Twitter update. But the status quo looks messy, so let's look at different topics on Wikidata before arriving at a specific policy.
• Creative work

  All creative work created by a notable artist or organization that is published or intends to be published formally should also be notable. References to these entities can be found on external websites, though some or all of them may be Wikidata property for an identifier that does not imply notability (Q62589320): a Wikidata property where a legitimate value does not itself indicate that the subject is notable, in this case we should find a serious source like its ISBN if there is doubt on the existence of the entity.

  • Part of creative work

    Many items have been created for individual chapters of a novel and episodes of a TV series. So it's generally accepted that part of a notable creative work is also notable.

• Entities mentioned in notable creative work

  Characters in a fictional universe should be notable.

  What about other types of entities? We have created items as abstract as class of Pokémon species (Q115980997): no description for fictional universe. A Wikidata user has created items for everything mentioned in Four Great Classical Novels (Q753883): novels regarded as the greatest and most influential pre-modern Chinese fiction without references to external websites. So I tend to suggest everything mentioned in notable creative work is also notable.

  The coverage on this topic is inconsistent on Wikidata. We have items for each character in League of Legends (Q223341): 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game, but there is no collection of cards in Hearthstone (Q8262784): digital collectible card game by Blizzard Entertainment. Wikidata users should be able to import these if they are interested in the topic.

• Event
  • sports competition (Q13406554): event, during which one or more sporting events are held

    Instances of sports competition (Q13406554) should be notable if participants or recurring sporting event (Q18608583): sports festival event scheduled to recur within a decided interval themselves are notable. These entities usually have Wikidata property for an identifier that suggests notability (Q62589316): Wikidata property where a legitimate value indicates that the subject is probably notable so there is no doubt. If not, some properties should be converted to be instances of Wikidata property for an identifier that suggests notability (Q62589316).

  • concert (Q182832): live performance of music

    concert (Q182832) to musicians are the same as sports competition (Q13406554) to athletes, why are instances of concert (Q182832) not notable? Should we convert some properties for concert (Q182832) to Wikidata property for an identifier that suggests notability (Q62589316), or we define a policy on this topic?

• Midleading (talk) 04:16, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.