[OSM-talk] Can wikidata links help fight name inflation?

[Andy Mabbett]

On 28 May 2015 at 09:50, Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdreist at gmail.com> wrote:

> e.g. the "en:Spanish Steps" / "de:Spanische Treppe" are
> called "Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti" in the local language (it is located
> at "piazza di Spagna", that's where the foreign name comes from, while in
> Italian it is called after to church it leads to). Naturally, OSM has the
> original name of this world famous monument, but Wikidata hasn't.

It does now.

> Wait, it
> hasn't the original name of this "three-star-tourist-attraction", how's
> that? Have a look here: http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q848072 the reason is
> that the Italian wikipedia hasn't got an article about the steps

No, that so not the reason, The reason was simply that no one had got
around to adding it. Rather like OSM not being complete, yet.

> If we were to massively use wikidata _instead of duplicating some details
> from there also in our db_ we would have to improve wikidata as well,

You'd be welcome to do so.  Just as Wikipedia editors who want better
maps for Wikipedia will improve OSM.

> and impose our entity structure on them,

Really? Good luck with that.

But why do you think you would need to?

> or it won't work in some cases (and if it doesn't work in some case, it doesn't work at all).

That is, of course, nonsense.

> Another issue I see with wikidata is that it contains information and
> details about spatial objects, but it doesn't contain the geometry it refers
> to.

The geometry is in OSM, is it not? Why would Wikidata want to replicate that?

> Have a look at the Berlin object: http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q64
> This covers both, an administrative entity and a geographic place in one
> object (no problem here, but can be a problem elsewhere).

Eventually, these will be split.

> This object has a property "instance of metropolis"
> http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q200250
>
> I don't want to discuss whether Berlin is a metropolis or not, what I want
> to point out is that there seem to be different criteria defined for
> different languages:

These descriptions aid users; they are not proscriptive. There are
also local and cultural variations. Just like "city" in OSM.

-- 
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk