Wikidata talk:Glossary

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SNAK

What does snak literally mean? If it is any slang word, please avoid such words in order that you don't complicate translations unnecessarily. Please use clear words. --Michawiki (talk) 23:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I join the question. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 07:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Not slang, but a "joke". The idea is to go from bit to byte (bite) to snak (snack). I think it is rather difficult to remember: it is not a string (the next step after byte), nor a statement, nor strictly an assertion (although very often one). I believe it would have been better to use a theoretically founded model for wikidata, avoiding the need to invent ad-hoc terms. But then it is more important to achieve something tangible and useful than to dream of a theoretically best solution; I highly respect the creators of wikidata. Markus said that mainly developers will have to deal with it [1]. Should all data importer have to deal with it, I suggest to seek an improved term that fits the data importers perspective. Suggestions? --G.Hagedorn (talk) 09:24, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

It will be visible at least in the API, so it will be visible while importing data. It is a connector or adaptor for data values of different types, and as such is known as a pattern in programming. In this case it uses inheritance to give the different types a common interface to other classes. Jeblad (talk) 17:31, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't understand the joke. :/ If you refer to a Knuth-ian terminology, you can use bit, nybble, byte, wyde, tetra(byte), octa(byte). But even there it's probably rather based on an idiomatic pun than on a consistent rule based lexicon. As for the snak term, wouldn't be one of affirmation, attestation, allegation, contention, proposition, thesis, or vindication make a good match for this concept (at least as proposed alias)? G.Hagedorn, Jeblad, Amire80, any opinion? --Psychoslave (talk) 13:39, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

No, don't think so. Jeblad (talk) 09:44, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

This seems related to a discussion I started on RDF terminology. Not everybody agrees with me, but to me Wikidata properties might be better described as relations, and snaks might be better described as properties (which are then relation-value pairs). This would then also mean that snak types (PropertyValueSnak | PropertySomeValueSnak | PropertyNoValueSnak) would become property types (RelationValueProperty | RelationSomeValueProperty | RelationNoValueProperty). Any thoughts? --Anthony Moretti (talk) 18:27, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Translate Tags

The glossary is subject to changes. So if it is necessary to introduce additional sections into this text PLEASE NEVER EVER CHANGE THE NUMBERS OF THE SECTIONS e.g. (<translate><!--T:4--> into (<translate><!--T:5-->). Just give a new section a new number which has not been used before, no matter if the section is on top or at the bottom or in the middle. Every time a section is renumbered, there will be lots of addtitional work necessary for all the translators in every language. It does not matter, if there is a section moved somewhere else in the document, as long as it still has the same number, the translation also moves the section to the new position. This happened twice so far, so this is enough now. There is just no need to renumber the sections. Thanks.--Giftzwerg 88 (talk) 23:15, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Template

Since this glossary seems very useful for introducing new users to aspects of the project, I've created {{Glossary}}, for easy linking to entries. Improvements are of course welcome. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 01:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Wiktionary

Think would be interesting link to a definition in Wiktionary, instead link to all the entry (page) in Wiktionary, from a Wikidata item / Wikipedia page.--Lagoset (talk) 07:54, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Language attributes

This probably needs to be re-written or named differently. I was going to re-write it with something I added as "language code", but it seems it has a different purpose. --- Jura 12:08, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

New entries and format

Please see Wikidata:Project_chat#Glossary_additions. --- Jura 21:11, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Change image

I think the image should be changed to this one, which includes the concepts of "claim" and "statement", which are currently missing from the image as it is:

Current	Proposed
File:Datamodel in Wikidata.svg	File:Datamodel in Wikidata with claim.svg

Inductiveload (talk) 11:20, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

That looks fine to me. ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:09, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

•  Support —Eihel (talk) 07:48, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Oppose The object and the property are also part of a statement / a claim ... so the proposed boxes are misleading. --Push-f (talk) 02:56, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Things represented by items may also be fictional

Wikidata:Glossary#Item currently says:

Item refers to a real-world object, concept, or event that is given an identifier

I think the "real-world" in there is highly misleading, e.g. R2-D2 (Q51788) or Homer Simpson (Q7810) aren't real-world entities.

--Push-f (talk) 05:50, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

The Entity definition is highly misleading

Wikidata:Glossary#Entity currently says:

Entity is the content of a Wikidata page, such as an item (in the main namespace), property (in the Property namespace) or lexeme (in Lexeme namespace).

Firstly there are many Wikidata pages that don't represent entities case in point this very page. Secondly entities don't always correspond to pages because there are also subentities, e.g. Forms and Senses are also entities but they are not represented by dedicated pages but instead are displayed as part of Lexeme pages.

--Push-f (talk) 05:57, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

See also Wikidata:Lexicographical data/Glossary. GZWDer (talk) 06:01, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

*highly* misleading? Anyway, I added the restriction to data namespaces for Entity, the definition looks correct to me now. Subentities are mentioned in the current definition already. ArthurPSmith (talk) 16:28, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Entity is the content of a Wikidata page in one of the data namespaces

That still does not account for subentities ... because subentities are entities.

Thanks for adding "subentities". I think that mention should be linked to a definition of what a subentity is. Wikidata:Lexicographical data/Glossary currently contains such a definition, should it be moved into this glossary?

--Push-f (talk) 16:43, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

title - page - item - entity - label - id

I am struggling to remember the definitions and usage of these terms on wikidata.

It would be fantastic if someone could write up a short outline about the relation and differences between these basic concepts (on one of the help pages?) and link there from the respective entries in the glossary?

In particular the glossary entry on "item" could be refined a little.

The current entry reads:

Item refers to a real-world object, concept, or event that is given an identifier (an equivalent of a name) in Wikidata together with information about it. Each item has a corresponding wiki page in the Wikidata main namespace. Items are identified by a prefixed id (like Q5), or by a sitelink to an external page, or by a unique combination of multilingual label and description. Items may also have aliases to ease lookup. The main data part of an item is the list of statements about the item. An item can be viewed as the subject-part of a triple in linked data.

I would suggest to at least link the terms "mainspace" and "entity-ID" and maybe add a reference to "title". Possibly like this?:

Item refers to a real-world object, concept, or event that is given an identifier (an equivalent of a name) in Wikidata together with information about it. Each item has a corresponding wiki page in the Wikidata main namespace. Items are identified by a prefixed id (like Q42) as its title, or by a sitelink to an external page (interwiki link), or by a unique combination of multilingual label and description. Items may also have aliases to ease lookup. The main data part of an item is the list of statements about the item. An item can be viewed as the subject-part of a triple in linked data.

KaiKemmann (talk) 14:11, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and done this now. Still I would be grateful if someone could write up (or point to) a synoptic view on the basic terms and concepts and link there from the glossary. best, KaiKemmann (talk) 09:44, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I made some corrections there.

The term "interwiki link" is not quite the same as sitelink. Sitelink are more related to interlanguage link; sitelinks are stored in Wikidata, and they are displayed in Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, etc. as interlanguage links. Interwiki links are links with predefined prefixes; in pre-Wikidata days they looked kind of similar to interlanguage links, so many people called both of them "interwiki", but those days are long gone, and it's better not to confuse them. In addition, sitelinks are not really used to identify items.

Wikidata namespace titles and QIDs are more or less the same thing under different names, so I tried to rewrite the text to reflect it.

Labels and descriptions are, as they are called, labels and descriptions. They are important for human-readable text, but they are not identifiers. Amir E. Aharoni {{🌎🌍🌏}} talk 15:11, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Do not use Template:Further

Template:Further is a template that is not multilingualized and cannot be translated; it does not include a link to Special:MyLanguage, so it is completely English-only. Afaz (talk) 03:30, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Prefix

In this edit, @Pigsonthewing added a definition of "Prefix".

In this edit, @Nikki removed a list of prefixes that appeared there.

These are, more or less, all the edits to this term that I can find.

The "definition" is extremely short: "Used in the query service". So it's not really a definition. It also has a couple of links to pages that have lists of prefixes, but not a real definition.

This entry is probably useful, but it really needs more information: A real definition of what those prefixes are, brief information about how they are used, and perhaps disambiguation from other instance of "prefix" in the glossary.

I don't think that I should do it myself, because it probably requires much deeper knowledge of SPARQL (and RDF?) than I have. Can anyone please do it?

Thanks! Amir E. Aharoni {{🌎🌍🌏}} talk 19:37, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, and is prefix really a Wikidata term? I’d say it’s specifically a SPARQL (and RDF/Turtle/…) term, but if you open that can of worms, you’ll have much more to add to the glossary! Do really people talking about/on Wikidata talk about prefixes in some nontrivial measure? Given that WQS even tries to hide the prefixes from the user, I’d expect not at all. I’d say leaving it for the SPARQL/WQS help pages (together will those other concepts like “IRI”, “blank node”, etc.) would be enough. (I understood this page to be primarily newcomer-focused, explaining some common/basic terminology; but maybe that’s wrong and we do want this to be a huge page with “all” terms people might find somewhere around?) --Mormegil (talk) 07:34, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

It's not specific only to Wikidata, but it's definitely a thing that that is used when querying Wikidata. Also, at the moment, I have only basic, far from perfect understanding of those prefixes, and I do want to learn more about them. To me, the Glossary can be a good starting point for that, and I think that it can be a good starting point for other learners, too. I don't expect the Glossary to cover all obscure SPARQL details, but this particular thing seems basic and important enough.

It's true that they are not mentioned, neither in discussion nor in other documentation pages. However, of all the things in SPARQL, this is probably the one that puzzles me the most.

So I think that it's justified to include it here. But the definition should be improved. Amir E. Aharoni {{🌎🌍🌏}} talk 14:59, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

... Also, perhaps the term itself should be changed, maybe to... "SPARQL prefixes" or "RDF prefixes", or something else entirely. I'm not sure. Again, someone who understands the topic better should do it. (I'm learning it, and maybe some day I'll understand it so well that I'll be able to do it myself, but I'm slow and busy with lots of other stuff, so whoever has the relevant knowledge already shouldn't wait for me.) Amir E. Aharoni {{🌎🌍🌏}} talk 15:01, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

In general it's a form of namespace (Q873636), but prefixes are specific to SPARQL and the Turtle RDF format. Clearly they are useful, but I agree that a detailed discussion doesn't seem necessary or appropriate in the Wikidata glossary; perhaps Wikidata:SPARQL query service would be a good place, it doesn't seem to mention the prefixes there at all. ArthurPSmith (talk) 16:00, 10 February 2025 (UTC)