[OSM-talk] Adding wikidata tags to the remaining objects with only wikipedia tag

[Christoph Hormann]

On Wednesday 20 September 2017, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>
> If the Wikidata ID can be fetched automatically based on the
> Wikipedia tag, can we delete the Wikipedia tags from everything that
> has Wikidata afterwards because it is redundant?

This idea stems from the widespread view that a wikipedia article, a 
wikidata item and an OSM feature refer to the same real world entity 
just because they reference each other.

This is not generally the case - and it can't be since what makes 
something a certain feature with certain tags in OSM differs 
fundamentally from what constitutes a certain class of objects in 
wikidata or what a certain wikipedia article describes.

Simple example:  The Faroe Islands are both a country:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/52939

and an archipelago:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3067431

in OSM which are represented as separate features obviously.  Both 
reference the same wikidata item and all the blind automated name 
adding activities based on wikidata will not differentiate between 
names that apply to the archipelago and names of the country (which are 
not necessarily always the same in all languages).

It is best to regard the wikidata and wikipedia tags in OSM as 'related 
features' rather than identical objects.  These provide useful sources 
to research additional information (in particular wikipedia articles 
often link to additional sources) but you should never try to fix or 
add something in OSM - be that a name tag or coordinates - based purely 
on the assumption that the wikidata object referenced via tag is the 
same as the OSM feature.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/