Talk:Q44127
Autodescription — server (Q44127)
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Subclass[edit]
"Server" is mostly an abstract concept, most of the instances per wikidata-taxonomy are not devices:
│ ├──server (Q44127) •80 ×7 │ │ ├──name server (Q41494) •19 ×2 │ │ │ └──root name server (Q32867) •17 │ │ ├──Apple Network Server (Q119827) •3 │ │ ├──bulletin board system (Q210499) •37 ×19 ↑ │ │ ├──Key server (Q727376) •9 │ │ ├──network-attached storage (Q744980) •32 ×1 ↑ │ │ │ └──Buffalo network-attached storage series (Q185745) •3 │ │ ├──IBM System p (Q1928207) •7 │ │ ├──Wiki hosting service (Q2166013) •12 ×2 │ │ ├──Certificate server (Q5065113) •1 │ │ ├──Communications server (Q5154229) •1 ×1 ↑ │ │ ├──HP Superdome (Q5635738) •4 │ │ ├──GRANPOWER (Q11201796) •1 │ │ ├──ProLiant MicroServer (Q11233170) •1 │ │ ├──Tor hidden service (Q19778981) •1 ×10 │ │ └──bare-metal server (Q25325362) •2
--Nemo 08:28, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Concern about the meaning of this item[edit]
At the moment, we describe a server (Q44127) as a "computer program or device that provides access to a central resource or other functionality for clients". While English uses the same word to discuss the physical device and the software it runs, I believe that representing these two concepts with a single item is harmful and unsemantic.
We already have an item that represents the computer program that provides a service: server software (Q1371279). Therefore, I'd like to narrow the scope of this item to only represent a physical server, and use server software (Q1371279) to model types of server software.
For example, nginx (Q306144) is an instance of (P31)web server software, and "web server software" would be a subclass of (P279)server software (Q1371279). Then, if I install and run nginx (Q306144) on a computer, I have created an instance of (P31)web server (Q11288), which is a subclass of (P279)server (Q44127).
Some natural-language examples of the difference between the two concepts:
- "To start your own website, you need to download and install a web server" - This refers to web server software, i.e. web server (Q11288)
- "When you view a web page, it is requested from a web server" - This refers to the physical web server, which we don't have an item for yet
Any thoughts? BEANS X2 (talk) 08:21, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
- I just wanted to note that there's a fatal flaw with my proposal in the comment above: this item is linked to the Wikipedia page for "server", which covers both hardware and software, so narrowing the definition of this item will take it out of sync with the corresponding encyclopedia page's topic. Silly me!
The good news is that there's a separate item for describing a specific server: server instance (Q115217689), which should cover the need for semantic data, along with server software (Q1371279). With that said, it seems like the way forward is to use one of those two properties in our structured data (usually as a value for instance of (P31)/subclass of (P279)) to avoid ambiguity.
A "project" that still needs completing is ensuring that subclasses of "server" only represent either a piece of server software or a specific physical server. This will likely require creating more items, e.g. "web server software" and "web server instance". BEANS X2 (talk) 18:59, 20 May 2023 (UTC)