Disputatio Formulae:Capsa civitatis Vicidatorum

Work in progress

Adding links shows up one of the imperfections of these infoboxes in their current incarnation. The bluelinks are great: the redlinks aren't, because they suggest creating a page "Q..." which we don't really want. Still, in cases where nearly all the relevant targets exist on Vicipaedia, the links are undoubtedly very handy. This problem could in any case probably be eliminated when we are able to use Luo. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:02, 19 Iulii 2015 (UTC)

The thing to do meanwhile would be to add a Latin term, at Wikidata, to any Wikidata page for which a Q... number appears in one of these infoboxes. This can indeed be done, whether or not we yet have a Vicipaedia page to link to it, and whether or not the Q... appears as a redlink ... but it takes time! In each case, once that is done, the Q... number in the infobox will immediately be replaced by the Latin term. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 08:40, 20 Iulii 2015 (UTC)

The other imperfection (nothing to do with the links, but it needs thinking about) is that people will go on adding less-relevant and merely historical stuff to Wikidata, to an extent I didn't foresee. For example, masses of outdated population statistics have been added for many countries. Could Luo select the latest in each case? Perhaps. Another example is that the lists of "neighbouring countries" are sometimes filled out with neighbouring minor subdivisions and neighbouring formerly-existing countries. I don't see any automated way to solve that one, unfortunately: it is evidence that Wikidata was designed for a simpler world than ours. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:02, 19 Iulii 2015 (UTC)

This is unfortunately above my technical level, but I agree with what you say, and if it would be better at this time to take out some of the links, please do! One additional problem is when the field includes a list, such as in Brasilia, where the infobox would combine Argentina, Bolivia, Guiana Francica... into one giant link. If you know a way to separate those at the commas somehow, that'd be great! Lesgles (disputatio) 18:48, 20 Iulii 2015 (UTC)

Above mine too ...

There is a kind of solution in all cases in which we think there is only one correct answer. We edit the Wikidata page so that the one correct answer is given "preferred" status. I have done this many times. But it is only a kind of solution. It works now because currently very few others are using Wikidata in quite this way, but it takes time, and the time might be wasted because others, too, can have preferences, and the result could just be no end of edit wars on Wikidata.

I suspect there is no way, without Luo, to build in multiple links for multiple correct answers. Where multiple answers are likely, OK, we probably have to remove links for the present. My feeling is that important stuff should always be said in the text anyway, and can be linked there.

These Wikidata boxes are far from perfect, but they are better than the alternatives ... local and copied infobox templates, never fully finished, in dubious Latin and with creeping obsolescence; or one-off infoboxes with terrible design; or data dumped on the page for some future editor to turn into an infobox. In all those cases the data was unverified and soon obsolete. But, NB, there are areas where active editors maintain their infoboxes, and that's really good :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:12, 21 Iulii 2015 (UTC)

I meant "Lua". Luo is an east African language: currently we don't need to use that :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 21:34, 11 Novembris 2015 (UTC)

Use of the "preferred" status shouldn't be a problem for cases like population. (I don't know whether old data get marked as "normal" or "deprecated".) Not even considering possible edit wars, there are plenty of situations where more than one valid value exists (such as for the children of Petrus Trudeau: all three are/were his children). StevenJ81 (disputatio) 21:06, 11 Novembris 2015 (UTC)