Hi!
Apparently the Wikidata hierarchies were simply too
complicated, too
unpredictable, and too arbitrary and inconsistent in their design across
different subject areas to be readily assimilated (before one even
starts on the density of bugs and glitches that then undermine them).
The main problem is that there is no standard way (or even defined small
number of ways) to get the hierarchy that is relevant for "depicts" from
current Wikidata data. It may even be that for a specific type or class
the hierarchy is well defined, but the sheer number of different ways it
is done in different areas is overwhelming and ill-suited for automatic
processing. Of course things like "is "cat" a common name of an animal
or a taxon and which one of these will be used in depicts" adds
complexity too.
One way of solving it is to create a special hierarchy for "depicts"
purposes that would serve this particular use case. Another way is to
amend existing hierarchies and meta-hierarchies so that there would be
an algorithmic way of navigating them in a common case. This is
something that would be nice to hear about from people that are
experienced in ontology creation and maintenance.
to be chosen that then need to be applied
consistently? Is this
something the community can do, or is some more active direction going
to need to be applied?
I think this is very much something that the community can do.
--
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev(a)wikimedia.org