Wikidata:Project chat - Wikidata

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Because I am not trying to give any credence to maintaining a split of lexemes based on some notion of standardized varieties, I will only indirectly refer to those varieties in terms of where they are used or who uses them.
There are currently a significant number of lexemes whose stated language is a separate standardized variety of a particular South Slavic dialect, either that used in Zagreb or that used in Belgrade and Banja Luka. (There aren't as many lexemes marked with the varieties used in West Sarajevo or in Podgorica, but those are also of concern here.) These are causing unnecessary, almost verbatim duplication of much semantic and morphological information, which will only increase as more lexemes so explicitly tied to those varieties are added.
I believe that three decades on from the brutal, senseless conflicts that have engulfed speakers of these standardized varieties, and nearly a decade on from the Declaration on the Common Language (Q29018604), there should be work at least in Wikidata lexemes to use the same lexical items for documenting terms used in these standardized varieties, with any actual distinctions in use or form based on ethnoreligious group or locale indicated just in those places where they are absolutely necessary. Once a merger is allowed to begin, I would be willing to make the initial necessary lexeme adjustments, for which an external property I proposed could assist in providing sourcing.
As prior art for such a merger, I note the following about other (Indo-European, admittedly) languages with a substantial portion of lexemes already:
(@Aca, Denny, Dungodung, Ivi104, Janjko, Vipz: as individuals whose (counter)arguments might be interesting to read.) Mahir256 (talk) 20:49, 4 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Strong oppose, because we are not discussing about local versions of language, but languages that each have their own institutions, classifications, and dictionaries. As user:Ivi104 already mentioned, these languages have distinct histories, traditions, and standardization processes, and they function as separate languages rather than just variants. For example, does "Shtokavian" even have an ISO code? Renaming "Serbo-Croatian" to the name of a dialect (= Shtokavian, and even comparing it to German, English etc.) seems to be an attempt to make the term sound more politically correct, while in practice, literally nobody refers to their own spoken language as "Shtokavian", and this should not be based on personal opinions. Is there even a "Shtokavian dictionary"? There isn't! Croatian and Serbian also have thousands of words that are not mutually understood, especially by younger speakers, along with differences in phonology and morphology. Croatian tends toward Slavic purism, while Serbian and Bosnian more frequently adopt Latin-based internationalisms. --Koreanovsky (talk) 19:19, 6 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
I have а reason to express a concern that some editors might have been canvassed to this discussion. – Aca (talk) 20:24, 6 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
I and User:Mikirito 07 have a disagreement surrounding when to use image (P18) versus image of cosplay (P13632). I have been (manually) moving many claims from P18 to P13632 whenever the photo clearly depicts a cosplay (example), and Mikirito 07 have been reverting many of this. I ask for help to resolve this dispute and find a consensus-supported solution.
My side of the story: I believe it is obvious that cosplay photos belong under P13632 since that is the whole point of the property. Its property proposal seem to show consensus in favor of using P13632 in place of P18 when that is what the media depicts, including how sisterprojects should handle it. Any sisterproject that checks for images on P18 are more than free to also check on P13632. Rose Abrams (talk) 18:58, 18 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Dutch Wikibooks, yesterday: 4 islands (Malta, Cyprus, Sark and Alderney) suddenly didn't have a timezone anymore. So I edited Wikidata (P421) and all seemed to be okay again, just like it had been for 10 months. But today 8 other islands showed the same error: Brecqhou, Herm, Jan Mayen, Jethou, Kreta, Madeira, Spitsbergen and Texel!! Why is this happening ? - Erik Baas (talk) 23:13, 29 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hello, a week ago I posted a proposal for some changes to the Wikidata mainpage on its talk page. So far there hasn’t been any response, so I thought I’d share a link here to get wider feedback. Looking forward to hearing what the community thinks. Thank you! — Elisha Cohen (WMDE) (talk) 10:39, 2 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
These values of ISO 3166-2 code (P300) break its format constraint; I can't tell where the information belongs, so I haven't touched them:
Should they move to another property, or simply go? Trummler12 (talk) 14:36, 2 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
Why are Vicugna pacos (Q81564) and alpaca (Q122181742) different pages? It looks as if w:alpaca only has four interlanguage links. ~2026-58412-24 (talk) 04:18, 3 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
Taiwan (Q865) has two values for area (P2046): 36,193 km² with a reference, and 11,418,174 km² without a reference or qualifiers. The second looks like the territory historically claimed by the Republic of China, not the area it administers, though I have no source for that; Without a qualifier, anything reading the largest value takes it as the country's size.
Should this value get a qualifier saying what it covers, a lower rank, a source, or a move to another item? I'd rather ask than edit, given how sensitive this item is. Trummler12 (talk) 08:55, 3 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
(posting here for widest visibility, will inform relevant projects)
For a work written in Czech with no English translation, what should we put in the English label, bearing in mind the WD principle that labels are for people, properties are for machines.
My preferences in order are 4,2,