Hello,

As many of you may already know, we have been working on introducing a new Wikidata data type that will make it easier to find EntitySchemas and use them to connect to other Wikibase Entities. This will allow editors to refer to existing EntitySchemas in statements to indicate what class of Items, Lexemes etc. are governed by an EntitySchema. This new EntitySchema datatype is now live on Test Wikidata for testing and your feedback.

Background

EntitySchemas were first introduced in 2019 as a way to model the structure of Wikidata Items and validate data against those specifications. There are a number of shortcomings with EntitySchemas still, which means they are not as useful and used as much as they should be. We are now addressing a number of those issues, starting with this new data type.

In 2019, we built the first version of the EntitySchema datatype, but it was eventually rolled back based on your feedback. We have made a lot of progress since then and take your feedback into account when developing this new iteration.

The main goal of this development is to help editors model data more consistently by making EntitySchemas more visible and integrated into day-to-day editing work. The new EntitySchema data type offers the following features:

• A new data type that allows making statements that take an EntitySchema ID as a value

• A canonical URI scheme for EntitySchemas has been developed that matches prefixes of other Semantic Entities (Items, Lexemes, and Properties) to identify them as concepts and access them when they are referred to in statements in various formats such as RDF

• "What Links Here" now enables you to see what Items, Lexemes, and Properties link to an EntitySchema in a statement

• A “Concept URI” link has also been added to the EntitySchema’s sidebar, mirroring the same format as Items 

What will come next for EntitySchemas:

• Displaying EntitySchemas linked in statements by their labels instead of their IDs, making them more readable and easier to understand.

• Support for language fallback to make EntitySchemas legible across languages.

• An updated termbox (the table with labels, descriptions and aliases) to provide a more consistent experience between Items, Properties and EntitySchemas in the future.

Testing and Feedback

Today, we’d love for you to explore EntitySchemas on Test Wikidata and provide feedback.

We hope that the new EntitySchema data type will increase centralized discussions around the modelling of specific classes in Wikidata. This new visibility will allow for more integration of EntitySchemas into the ecosystem, leading to improved data quality through more consistent modelling. Ultimately making the reuse of our data easier, especially for small to medium-sized reusers.

Here is an example we prepared earlier Q497.

If you encounter any issues, have questions or concerns, or want to provide feedback, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us on Wikidata talk:Schemas or leave a comment on this ticket phab:T332724.

Thanks so much,

Arian

Arian Bozorg (he/him)
Junior Product Manager Wikidata

Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0)30-577 11 62-230
https://wikimedia.de

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