Wikidata:Property proposal/field of this item

From Wikidata
Jump to navigation Jump to search

field of this item[edit]

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Generic

   Not done
Descriptionfield, domain or activity associated with this item
Data typeItem
Example 1Pomme d'Or (Q3395959) → tourism (Q49389)
Example 2Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Q277536) → costume design (Q16331597)
Example 3Nova Scotia Community Cares Award (Q111598665) → volunteering (Q188844)
Example 4National Dance Awards (Q6972096) → dance (Q11639)
See alsofield of work (P101), field of this occupation (P425), main subject (P921), has use (P366), facet of (P1269)

Motivation[edit]

This property is proposed as an alternative to the proposed field of this award property. A generic property is needed to describe the relationship between an item and the field, domain or activity that is associated with it, even in the absence of a granular class item that might otherwise provide this association. This field property would make it possible to describe instances of a class or class items with high precision without having to create highly elaborate class hierarchies mimicking existing field, discipline or activity typologies. For example, at present, there is no class item describing the concept of "dance award". With the proposed property, such a class item would not be needed. Instances of awards in the field of dance could simply be instantiated as instance of (P31)award (Q618779) and then further described with the proposed "field of this item" property. The examples above are all related to awards (because that's the information gap that I'm currently trying to fill), but the property may also prove useful to describe other things. Please don't hesitate to provide additional examples.

This generic "field" property could be a superclass of field of work (P101) and field of this occupation (P425). A constraint would be needed to prevent its use on instances of creative work (Q17537576), where main subject (P921) should be used instead.

@ChristianKl, :@Vladimir Alexiev, :@Peuc - Please help flesh out this proposal and comment it. Fjjulien (talk) 02:53, 27 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

WikiProject Ontology has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead. WikiProject Properties has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead.

  •  Support This is a good alternative to address the original concern outlined by @fjjulien. We are still able to indicate a relatonship between an award and the field it is connected to but the language is not super specific. I also echo the objections @fjjulien raised with respect to merging P101 and P435. Bridgetannmac (talk) 15:16, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Fjjulien: raised a couple of objections to merging (everyone, please raise more!)

  • I've had this discussion with a few wikimedians and I generally found opposition, hence this proposal. See this discussion thread.
    • You don't provide a very specific link... Notify the participants in that discussion and let these people raise their own objections
  • When properties are too generic, we run the risks of inconsistent use and loss of conceptual clarity
    • I don't think "Field of work" = "Field of occupation" is generic. It means "a domain of human endeavour" and is quite specific. Nor do I think that applying it to multiple kinds of entities makes it generic. --Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 13:35, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Vladimir Alexiev
  • Regarding previous discussions: I provided a more specific link (sorry for forgetting to include the anchor). Participants in this thread were notified a week ago, along with fellow participants in the WikiProject Performing arts. I was unable to retrieve meeting minutes where this topic was discussed.
  • Regarding properties that are too generic: If the accepted values are "a domain of human endeavour", then this provides a certain degree of specificity. However, value-type constraints are often gradually expanded until the property loses its specificity. Fjjulien (talk) 16:24, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Vladimir Alexiev Would you also recommend that we merge industry (P452) with "field of work" and "field of this occupation"? Fjjulien (talk) 16:25, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No because:
  • "industry" and "economic sector" are bigger divisions of human endeavour. Eg you'd say "IBM works in industry Software" but you'd say for a person that he's a software engineer, java developer, business analysti, DB admin etc etc
  • some occupations (eg "mathematician") don't have corresponding industries. This profession can fall into sector "research" or "R&D", but 1. That's more general, 2. Mathematicians can work in quite specific industries, eg cryptography, blockchain, etc. Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 11:59, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose This proposed property, as it is currently name will be a constant source of confusion. We could, I suppose, call it "domain" (which might be confused with definition domain (P1568), but I think that is not a serious concern). I think though, that simply having the following two distinct properties woudld create the clearest, most maintainable organization of data:

— The Erinaceous One 🦔

 Support I agree that this is a good solution for the concerns raised by @ChristianKl:. Adding this property while keeping field of work (P101) for people and organisations without merging it with other properties also makes querying the data more straightforward and transparent in my opinion. Beireke1 (talk) 11:57, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment You write that it should not be used on instances of creative work (Q17537576) but I think this could be useful to indicate the academic discipline for academic papers (or monographies). The discipline in which a paper was written is usually not the central topic - e.g. a paper written in the field of musicology (Q164204) is usually not about musicology (Q164204). On the other hand, there may exist papers about musicology (Q164204) in the field of social science (Q34749) (e.g. about practices, values, communication strategies, hierarchies, etc.). If you have both musicology (Q164204) and social science (Q34749) as a central topic you don't capture this (does it mean that it is about both, musicology (Q164204) and social science (Q34749)? About one of them written in the field of the other? Or about none of them, a cross-disciplinary study of a third domain, e.g. folk music in the Carpathians?).- Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 09:48, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Valentina.Anitnelav Thank you. You are right : the field of a publication is not the same thing as its subject headings. I'm curious to know how librarians handle these two distinct matters. Smallison: any thoughts? Fjjulien (talk) 12:53, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Wikidata:Property_proposal/field_of_this_item&oldid=2061569429"