Proposal:Remove link to Wikidata from infoboxes

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remove alphanumeric code visible in infoboxes at OSM Wiki linking to Wikidata
Proposal status: Approved (active)
Proposed by: Mateusz Konieczny
Draft started: 2020-12-06
RFC start: 2021-01-19 and 2022-04-01
Vote start: 2022-04-17
Vote end: 2022-05-01

I propose to stop displaying alphanumeric code currently visible in infoboxes which is used to link Wikidata.

Preemptive explanation

This proposal is about removal of specific part of infobox on OSM Wiki pages - which either links Wikidata item or requests editors to add it. Data itself will not be lost.

  • It has no impact on anything mapped
  • It has no impact on wikidata=*, species:wikidata=*, brand:wikidata=* or any other tag in the OpenStreetMap database.
  • It has no impact on data items, including P12 property.
    • It will be still possible to add and use Wikidata links stored in data items - even if it will be no longer possible on OSM Wiki
  • It has no impact on linking relevant Wikipedia articles in "External links" sections - this is often very useful
  • It will not lead to any data loss, but will make Wikidata link far less prominent
  • Wikidata is different site than sites such as OSM Wiki, taginfo, OSM Data items or Wikipedia.
  • This proposal is written by person who wants this part of interface gone. Please, look at talk page. Especially initial section reserved for arguments against removal, look also at arguments of the other side. Talk page and discussion on mailing lists and votes may also have good arguments from other people.
  • I tried to remove this without full scale proposal (display of this link was introduced without any discussion), but it failed due to opposition of person who added it

Proposal

Infobox with external link to Wikidata marked (at the bottom), picture from Tag:tourism=hotel

Infobox is a box on the side of the tag page on OSM Wiki, listing the summary of the most important info. See for example Tag:tourism=hotel.

Currently it contains at the bottom link to external site Wikidata or request to add such link.

See image to the right with screenshot of the infobox, with Wikidata link marked in red (it is at bottom of infobox).

I propose to remove this link from displayed infoboxes as as confusing, unnecessary and not worth using infobox space.

There is also risk[1] that people would treat description (and translations) of matched Wikidata item as describing given tag, what would often result in problems and various types of mismatches.

Rationale

Infobox is only for the most important information.

Link to sort-of-related Wikidata page is not an important information and therefore should be removed.

It is highly confusing and unclear, and OpenStreetMap in general and OSM Wiki specifically already suffers from overwhelming complexity. We do not need unnecessary and not needed complexity.

More info

There are some potential uses for linking between Wikidata items and OSM tags, but displaying them in infoboxes does not appear to be an useful one.

This alphanumeric code in confusing, never or almost never useful.

In addition maintaining, verifying and correcting this entries is time consuming. You cannot even look at it and judge is it correct, you need to visit an external site.

Information in this link providing no serious value for someone using OSM Wiki to learn about OSM or to understand meaning of tags. See for example https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16970 linked from Tag:building=church.

In addition note that Q16970 representing "church building" at Wikidata is distinct from Q16970 data item representing crop=market_gardening - as mentioned it is all needlessly confusing.

Match quality

Many supposed wikidata matches are misleading. Treating them as explaining meaning of tag would often mislead or confuse.

This is not a fundamental issue as possible to fix, though note that interest in fixing this problems is minimal.

  • See /misleading matches - if anyone is interesting in improving Wikidata and matching of OSM tags and Wikidata objects: I would gladly provide more examples of mismatches for fixing, though this ones listed since January 2021 should be enough for now

If all mismatches are fixed I would remove this this section as this argument would not be applicable anymore.

See https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2021-January/058735.html and https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2021-January/058733.html for examples

In addition there are over 4500 pages where we can see only "Search Wikidata". And clicking this link often won't find anything or will find misleading matches.

History

People wanted to remove it from beginning.

In 2020 there was attempt to remove it which ended reverted.

As result this proposal was started, as author of this proposals considers it as a clearly good idea to remove this prominent linking to Wikidata and considers likely that such consensus can be clearly established.

Alternatives

In case of this proposal passing, exactly this data will remain preserved in data items (such as say Q6034, linked using "Data item" link on the sidebar of Tag:building=church) so anyone who wants to use this for some purpose can simply use data items.

Wikipedia pages (if useful) can be linked directly in "External links" section, what is strictly superior to weird Wikidata interface anyway (yes, I get irony of complaining about weird interfaces, but see for example https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q144 linked from dog=*).

No information loss

Nothing will be lost, if any of this external links are valid and not present on data items then this info will be copied there from OSM Wiki by author of this proposal.

Rationale against removal

  • Users may follow this code, arrive at linked Wikidata item and use description presented there and links to other web pages (Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, etc.).
  • Mistakes in linking to Wikidata items will be less prominent
    • This information has very limited usefulness and does not deserve very prominent linking just to increase chance that it will be fixed. Also, there is little interest in fixing known bad matches anyway - this example issues were listed since 2021 and remain unfixed (feel free to fix them, I can provide many more).
  • Mistakes in Wikidata-OSM tags can be fixed
    • Mismatches are only one of problems: even after fixing all of them, linking Wikidata items will remain not useful and important to justify prominently showing them in infoboxes

Everyone is also welcomed to add counterguments to Talk:Proposed features/remove link to Wikidata from infoboxes - as author of this proposal I am clearly against this link, so my summary will be biased despite attempt to avoid it... In particular list above may be incomplete or missing critical arguments against it.

Please, visit that page before voting to review what other think about usability of this linking.

Feel free to add your info there (if someone would write rebuttal to claims of this proposal on OSM Diary/own blog/etc - let me know and I will link it).

Tagging

This proposal is about displaying summary of tag information at Wiki (box on the right side called infobox).

Tagging of any objects in OSM database is not affected at all.

Rendering

This proposal is about displaying summary of tag information at Wiki (box on the right side called infobox).

Rendering of Wiki pages would be affected.

Features/Pages affected

Wiki pages displaying tagging info would change.

It would affect display of all Wiki pages with infoboxes.


wikidata parameter in infoboxes on wiki pages would become inactive. Automatic edit removing them should obtain a separate bot approval (it is not granted by this proposal).

Preparations

  • (Done, will repeated before vote and again in a case of a successful vote) Empty Category:Mismatched wikidata and Category:Not copied wikidata (except user pages, sandboxes and similar that should not be there in the first place)
  • (Done) write script checking it for *all* pages, as this categories sometimes are not working - with an unknown delay (script is written but checks only part of the wiki)
    • This will ensure that this proposal will not result in a data loss, as everything in OSM Wiki was synchronized to data items

External discussions

Comments

Please comment on the discussion page.

See also

If you are here and are interested in Wikidata, your help is welcomed at following places:

Voting

Voting closed

Voting on this proposal has been closed.

It was approved with 27 votes for, 0 votes against and 0 abstentions.

What is supported among people who expressed their opinion here is clear.

  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. I consider unnecessary to have such highly prominent link. Having an "external links" section with link to, for example, relevant Wikipedia page is preferable. --Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 06:07, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Datendelphin (talk) 06:34, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Starsep (talk) 08:41, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. Too prominent for a link that likely confuses most mappers. --JeroenHoek (talk) 09:22, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal.—Dieterdreist (talk) 10:18, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. Hardly ever relevant for tags --Alfons234 (talk) 11:47, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. - Same reasoning as Mateusz.--Kjon (talk) 11:54, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. Undue prominence and potentially misleading --Motogs (talk) 12:02, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --maro21 14:54, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Kaartjesman (talk) 17:48, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Riiga (talk) 18:06, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Duja (talk) 19:18, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. Thank you for doing the work of putting this proposal together and the many hours of discussion involved. It is unfortunately that so much time is being required to revert a change which was originally made without consensus. --Jeisenbe (talk) 19:57, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Segubi (talk) 21:25, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. OSM's tagging is loose enough that any attempt to map it to Wikidata's strict ontology is likely to mislead. -- Kevin Kenny ke9tv (talk) 22:13, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Fizzie41 (talk) 22:40, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. Good proposal. If someone wants to map OSM onto Wikidata let them do that, but don't hijack our wiki and our volunteer time for it. --Woodpeck (talk) 23:06, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. I agree with the very narrow scope of this proposal on the grounds that the infobox link is presented out of context. The link was an interesting early experiment, but these days Wikidata concept (P12) allows behind the scenes usage of these QIDs that would be less prone to misunderstandings. (In my opinion, any other changes related to Wikidata/Wikibase should be considered on their own merits without regard for this eminently reasonable change.) – Minh Nguyễn 💬 23:49, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
    I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank Mateusz Konieczny for patiently helping to clean up individual mismatches over the past year, even though he's no fan of QIDs. – Minh Nguyễn 💬 00:01, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Famlam (talk) 11:22, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Lonvia (talk) 12:32, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Eginhard (talk) 13:01, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. While I see the fundamental value of data links, I don't currently know any benefit or use case from an OSM perspective that would justify displaying this link. Thanks to Mateusz for the perseverance in this matter! --Chris2map (talk) 16:35, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --mnalis (talk) 17:29, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Dafadllyn (talk) 19:58, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. Wikidata has useful info, but it's not important enough for OSM to show it in these templates. --501ghost (talk) 09:33, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. It is confusing and has never been useful to me. If you want to support your documentation with an external link, use a human-readable external link to a human-readable web page. --JeroenvanderGun (talk) 21:25, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ↑ "the wikidata link gives access to translations of the term in different languages as well as wikipedia pages that allow you to read up on a subject when you are unfamiliar with it." [1] is an example of what people may do without being aware that Wikidata items and OSM tags very rarely match exactly
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