Help:Label/general principles

This is a language independent general principle of Wikidata labels.

Labels can be ambiguous

There can be multiple items with the same label in Wikidata

As stated above, a label does not have to be unique. Descriptions add to items being distinguishable.

Examples:

• Cambridge is the label of a city in England (Cambridge (Q350)) as well as of a city in Massachusetts, USA (Cambridge (Q49111)).
• Michael Jackson is the label of a recording artist (Michael Jackson (Q2831)) as well as of a British computer scientist (Michael Jackson (Q92948)).

Reflect common usage

Because the aim is to use the name that an item would be known by to the most readers, labels should reflect common usage. When it comes to scientific names, for example, of a species, labels should use a species' common name, however items must always also have the scientific name listed as Alias. If a species has several common names, a reasonable effort should be made to determine which of them is the most commonly used, e.g. by consulting references. The other names should be placed in the alias field along with the scientific name. If a species does not have a common name, the scientific name can be used as the label. Note that individual breeds do not have scientific names. Every breed of dog, from the Siberian Husky to the Chihuahua, is part of the species Canis lupus familiaris.

Examples:

• The label of common sunflower (Q171497) is the common name, while the scientific name (Helianthus annuus) is featured as an alias.
• Multiple common names exist for association football (Q2736). The most common name is picked for the label while the other ones are listed as aliases.

Use gender neutral labels

If the label is different in the male form and in the female form, it is recommended to use a gender neutral form if it exists in common usage (i.e. use a form that applies to males and females). Avoid using the male form as a generic form when possible.

Examples :

• firefighter (Q107711) : firefighter is gender neutral and fireman is a male form. It is better to use firefighter.

Wikimedia page title may give orientation

To figure out the most common name, it is good practice to consult the corresponding Wikimedia project page (for example, the title of a Wikipedia article). In many cases, the best label for an item will either be the title of the corresponding page on a Wikimedia project or a variation of that title. There are a few pitfalls to be aware of.

Disambiguation information belongs in the description

When a page title includes disambiguation, either through commas or parentheses, the disambiguation should not be included in the Wikidata label. Disambiguation information should instead be part of the description. For example, the Wikipedia article for London, Ontario has the label London (Q92561) and the description "city in Ontario, Canada" on Wikidata. The Wikipedia article Michael Jackson (writer) corresponds to Michael Jackson (Q167877) with the description "English writer and journalist". Nor should this rule be observed with too much zeal. New York is probably the best label for a state on the American east coast, even if "New" originally was a kind of disambiguation. "(6415) 1993 VR3" is the official designation of an asteroid. The parentheses is here not a disambiguation. The parenthesis of "Hemsjö (norra delen)" is a part of the designation Statistics Sweden has assigned this entity. Neither should the commas in "Edshult, Hulskog, Lida och Bäck", a group of villages in Sweden, be regarded as a disambiguation.

But note that for other client wiki namespaces like "Category" and "Template" the labels should be identical to sitelinks (the disambiguation parts shouldn't be removed), as these types of pages usually have only one common type of descriptions and there may occur API errors of non-unique pair consisting of label + description when trying to set descriptions to other items.

Drop dates unless significantly important

Depending on the specific case, dates either should or should not be left in the label. For cases where the date is of significant importance, including regularly scheduled sporting events (2006 NBA Finals (Q170590), Switzerland at the 2008 Summer Olympics (Q128127)), annual seasons or time periods (1992 Atlantic hurricane season (Q170613), 2008–09 FC Barcelona season (Q170605)), or events where the date is part of the common name (Great Blizzard of 1888 (Q170652)), the date should be included in the label. If the date is incidental, it should not be included.

Follow Wikimedia namespace conventions

Wikimedia sites can contain several types of pages that are found outside of the main namespace (for example, non-article pages in Wikipedia). These include templates, category pages, help pages, and Special pages. If a page normally displays on a Wikimedia site with a namespace in front of it, you should keep that namespace in the label. If the label begins with "Wikipedia:", "Category:", "Template:", or "MediaWiki:" you should also include the page title without "Wikipedia:", "Category:", "Template:", or "MediaWiki:" as an alias if the namespace exists in Wikidata. This is important because Wikidata includes some of the same namespaces as other Wikimedia sites and consequently the Wikidata search will not function properly when trying to search for an item with a label that begins with an existing namespace on Wikidata. For a list of namespaces in Wikidata, see here.

Examples:

• Wikipedia page: Wikipedia:Blocking policy

Wikidata label: Wikipedia:Blocking policy

Alias(es): Blocking policy

• Wikipedia page: Portal:History

Wikidata label: Portal:History

Alias(es):

Wikidata does not have a "Portal" namespace. Consequently, adding "History" as an alias is not needed.