Property talk:P1441

Documentation

present in work
this (fictional or fictionalized) entity, place, or person appears in that work as part of the narration (use P2860 for works citing other works, P361/P1433 for works being part of other works, P1343 for entities described in non-fictional accounts)

Description

creative work in which this fictional entity is present

Represents

work (Q386724)

Data type

Item

Domain

According to this template: any type of fictional entity (Q14897293) : fictional character (Q95074), fictional location (Q3895768), fictional object (Q15706911)…

According to statements in the property:
fictional entity (Q14897293), mythical entity (Q24334685), character that may or may not be fictional (Q21070598), imaginary character (Q115537581), narrative location (Q105115142), fictional character (Q95074), group of humans (Q16334295), role (Q1707847), animal (Q729), title of Mary (Q1509831), occurrence (Q1190554), superhuman quality (Q29604895), game mechanic (Q1751513), artificial object (Q16686448), class of fictional entities (Q15831596) or item quality (Q121709783)

When possible, data should only be stored as statements

Allowed values

work (Q386724) (note: this should be moved to the property statements)

Example

Irina Nikolayevna Arkadina (Q15910989) → The Seagull (Q650063)
Frodo Baggins (Q177329) → The Lord of the Rings (Q15228)
Peter Griffin (Q28465) → Family Guy (Q5930)

Source

infoboxes (note: this information should be moved to a property statement; use property source website for the property (P1896))

Tracking: usage

Category:Pages using Wikidata property P1441 (Q20990036)

Why the restriction to fictional entities?

Is it really intended to be restricted to fictional entities only? What about biblical characters (e.g. Solomon (Q37085)), historical (or even living) people being characters of a work of fiction? What about characters where it's not clear, if they really exist(ed) or the author fabricated them?--Shlomo (talk) 07:46, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We could include them all. --- Jura 05:19, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I already used P1441 for biblical character, so I agree with this. But I don't know how we can include that in constraints (the property concerns not only characters but also fictional locations, objects, etc.) I don't see a single item which covers that all. I don't know how to integrate that in a constraint but if you do, I wholeheartedly approve.

I don't like that real persons/locations/objects would use this property. I think if Victor Hugo is used as a character in a fictional work, we should create a new item with based on (P144) Victor Hugo and instance of (P31) fictional character (Q95074); but for biblical, mythological, legendary entities, I think P1441 is perfect. --Harmonia Amanda (talk) 14:13, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And if there are many works (not necessarily fiction - what about documents, biographies...) where Victor Hugo (or Julius Ceasar, Adolf Hitler, whoever...) is used as a character, should we create an item for every one of them? Surely Julius Ceasar in Shakespeare's plays is a different characters than Julius Ceasar in Asterix & Obelix (and both of them quite different from the historical Ceasar...). On the other hand, Hitler in Stauffenberg (Q462031) is not so different from Hitler in Mein Führer – Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler (Q93539). And to create fictive Hitler character item(s) for documentary films about the real Hitler sounds a bit crazy to me...--Shlomo (talk) 15:29, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this property was conceived for fictional works, so I didn't think about documentaries and other non-fiction works. Actually I don't think we should use P1441 in Hitler's item for documentaries: there would be too many values, that would be difficultly readable… We should use on the item of the documentary : main subject (P921) Hitler. Yes, I would create an item for Julius Caesar in Shakespeare play's and another for Asterix. I can understand the use of this property for item known mostly through a work (biblical character, etc.) but I think using it with real entities (Hitler, Julius Caesar, or even London or Paris!) would create more problems. If they are used in a work of fiction, we should create another item with based on (P144) which would use P1441; if they are used in a non-fiction work the we should use main subject (P921) on the non-fiction work item. I would kept P1441 for fictional entities and widen to biblical, mythological, legendary items (but not "real" ones). --Harmonia Amanda (talk) 22:00, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Other than the number of occurrences for some of the human items (which can be the same or higher for biblical or purely fictional ones), is there another argument? --- Jura 06:35, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can understand Harmonia's Amanda's concern about the number of statements. Every historical document deals with hundreds or thousands of entities (esp. if "event" includes places, organizations, events...), most of which have already an item on Wikidata. Though, if the property is intended to be for "works of fiction" only, it should be mentioned somewhere in the description (and constraints, if possible...). The question about the extent of "fictionality" (...is Stauffenberg (Q462031) a fiction, or a document?) will remain to solve, but at least we'd have some idea to start with.--Shlomo (talk) 09:58, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that the Julius Cesar character from Asterix series would meet notability criteria of Wikidata - and I'm afraid of the same problem with most of the artistic renditions of historical/existing entities or other in works of fiction. If we insist to preserve the property this way, we would probably have to manage without them for the most cases. There would be also problem with connecting items like this to other projects (esp. WPs) I suppose, the most fictional renditions of historical persons will be dealt in the WP article about the historical person him/herself. I can imagine an article like "Julius Ceasar in fiction" (cf. cultural depictions of Julius Caesar (Q3769592)), but not for every single book/movie/a.s.o.--Shlomo (talk) 09:58, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If we remove the fictional entity-limit here, this property could also be used to say that a song is being used in a television series/episode, game or a movie. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 20:49, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. If not, a new property for that usecase would be very useful to link items in a meaningful way. Ainali (talk) 21:37, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Another use case for this property without the restriction to fictional characters: noting appearances of real people in radio and television documentaries. We can say that a real person is a cast member in a television programme, or we can say that they are the presenter of said programme, but not that they appeared in it as an interviewee, as far as I can tell. —Tom Morris (talk) 10:47, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The fictional entity constraint currently has 707 violations, mostly human (Q5), Wikimedia list article (Q13406463) and legendary figure (Q15966903), but there are around two dozen others suggesting that many people are using this for non-fictional entities already. Thryduulf (talk) 11:13, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So, can we remove the constraint since it isn't adhered to in reality and there's some compelling and documented use cases for it above? Can any user do this or do we need someone suitably blessed (admin etc.) to do it? —Tom Morris (talk) 10:20, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All that is needed is consensus, which is looking likely. @Ainali, Shlomo, Jura1, Harmonia Amanda: do you have any additional comments? If not, I think this constraint can be removed in a couple of days. Thryduulf (talk) 13:48, 8 August 2016 (UTC) @Sjoerd de Bruin: Thryduulf (talk) 13:48, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Thryduulf: No, no additional comments from me, removal of this constraint would be appreciated. Ainali (talk) 11:21, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Can we restrict the work to being fictional? Others have pointed out that pages like Adolph Hitler would be overwhelmed if they included every documentary, history book, and academic article about the person. --Arctic.gnome (talk) 15:45, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Arctic.gnome: that would for many usecases, but not for works where it is not clear whether they are fictional or not (religious works, myths, legends, Plato's writings about Socrates, etc, etc) as Shlomo pointed out years ago. I understand the issue with overloading entries for popular biography subjects but I'm not convinced that it should that a property being used too much on a few entries should be a reason to stop it being used at all on hundreds of others. Maybe the answer is to have a separate entry for listing works for those few people whose main item would be overwhelmed, linked to the main entry with a single meta-property? Thryduulf (talk) 10:59, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Work as subject

Maybe I was misled by the English name and the Italian description, but is there any reason not to generalise this property to state in what works, collections etc. a work is? I see the restrictions above claim the subject should be an imaginary person... See [1]. Federico Leva (BEIC) (talk) 15:02, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The question is a bit older, but to clarify: (Now) there exist a lot of other properties to express relationships between works and works they are contained or mentioned in:

This property was intended to indicate elements present in the story of a work (fictional characters and entities) to be able to generate a list of story elements. If this property is applied for all kinds of relationships an object or person can have to a work (being cited by this work, appearing on screen as an actor) it will be impossible to meet the original goal, especially as we now allow the direct use of items for real persons/real objects to state that they appear in a work as a character. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:45, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Related discussion regarding this property and non-fictional entities

At Wikidata:Project chat#Panama papers it has been suggested that this property could be used to identify non-fictional entities mentioned in the Panama Papers release. People with views on this property may wish to contribute to that discussion (comments here may or may not be seen). Thryduulf (talk: local | en.wp | en.wikt) 00:20, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I approve this. --Ogoorcs (talk) 23:11, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Religious texts

I see that the Bible is already mentioned above. Seeing that religious texts such as the Bible cannot be neutrally assessed for their fictionality or not, should this template be used for those? It seems to be the present convention at any rate. But if so, do we need to clarify "fictional" to "fictional or religious"? Any thoughts? -- HarJIT (talk) 14:36, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Inverse of P674?

The property characters (P674) is currently set as the inverse of present in work (P1441), but P1441 is not set as the inverse of P674. As a result, every P674 statement must have a corresponding P1441 statement, but not vice versa. Should the inverse constraint go both ways, with the properties having the same rules? There's a lot of discussion on the talk pages of both properties about similar issues, such as whether nonfictional characters should be included, what kind of criteria should be used, and if one of these properties is specifically going to be used differently, we should establish that clearly. Otherwise, the discussions and constraints should probably be unified. Also, we might want to just get rid of one of the two properties. Thoughts? --Yair rand (talk) 06:36, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this property can be the inverse of characters (P674) because of how it is formulated; in general I think it would be way more useful to remove restraints on this property. --Ogoorcs (talk) 23:12, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Use as qualifier?

Can we allow this property to also be used as a qualifier? Example: Gawain (Q831685) <child> Wigalois (Q43376180) <present in work> Wigalois (Q2569730)? - PKM (talk) 20:25, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In order to say that something is a fact within the storyworld of a work I think it's okay. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:16, 22 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For the uses as a qualifier we have a new property, now: applies to work (P10663) - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 11:43, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

More discussion about opening up subject constraint

It looks like there was consensus as far back as 2014 to loosen the subject constraint for this property. There is more discussion on that topic for "human" and "fictionalized human" at Wikidata:Project_chat#Historical_humans_who_also_appear_in_fiction. - PKM (talk) 20:30, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

link to archived discussion: Wikidata:Project_chat/Archive/2017/11#Historical_humans_who_also_appear_in_fiction. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:29, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Changed subject constraint

Based on consensus back to 2014, and parallel with characters (P674), I have added human (Q5) as a subject type for this property. - PKM (talk) 20:37, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are 263 cases where human (Q5) is used as the subject of this property.

I have added "or historical person" to the EN description. Please help make this change in more languages. - PKM (talk) 20:52, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Value type: not fictional universe

As there is another property for fictional universes, I added a few autofixes above to move these from this property there.
--- Jura 16:16, 5 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Value type: not fictional character

Going through an import from an frwiki infobox, I noticed some additions are items about fictional characters [2]. There might be cases where this fits, but in general, I don't think it would. None of the current constraints stop this though. Anyways, I will cleanup the additions. It would be good if we could add a constraint that avoids/detects these.
--- Jura 16:16, 5 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

inanimate subjects

Speaking of relaxing the constraint, are there any opinions about this property's use on Titanic (Q25173)? Ghouston (talk) 09:28, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's okay --Ogoorcs (talk) 23:12, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It appears as part of the story of these works, so it is ok. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:49, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Features/Featured In

Hi everyone - I'm interested in describing relationship where one creative work features another. I was think of mostly real-world examples as exemplified here.

Would you suggest using this property? Do you know of one that's a better fit or would this be better captured by a new one? Thanks! Wskent (talk) 16:14, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I’d prefer a separate property, but I wouldn’t object to broadening this one if that’s the consensus. - PKM (talk) 00:38, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Wskent, I oppose the use of this property in these cases: This property is used to indicate entities appearing in the story line of a fictional work. If broadening this property to cover all cases where an entity is somehow "present" in a work (as part of the cast, soundtrack, film set, etc.) it will be difficult to distinguish between persons present in a work as a character or as part of the cast (to have one example of problems that may occur).

As for the examples: I think My Heart Will Go On (Q155577) → Titanic (Q44578) can be expressed using theme music (P942): Titanic (Q44578)theme music (P942)My Heart Will Go On (Q155577), Twist and Shout (Q60527247) → Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Q498906) probably best via soundtrack release (P406) (one would need to create an own item for the Soundtrack-album): Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Q498906)soundtrack release (P406)Ferris Bueller's Day Off (new item for the soundtrack album), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (soundtrack album)tracklist (P658)Twist and Shout (Q60527247). Maybe one could use has melody (P1625)/samples from work (P5707) but this would be a non-standard use - I'm not completely sure if everybody would approve. As to Mona Lisa (Q1164190) → Mona Lisa (Q12418) I think narrative motif (P6962) would be appropriate: Mona Lisa (Q1164190)narrative motif (P6962)Mona Lisa (Q12418). Regards, -Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 09:23, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Does drinking cans count as 'creative works'

beverage can (Q101002748) are giving me some constraint trouble. What do you think, @Valentina.Anitnelav:?--Trade (talk) 10:57, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Trade: It is certainly not a narrative/fictional work, so present in work (P1441) does not seem appropriate to me in this case. advertises (P6291) (or maybe also depicted by (P1299)/depicts (P180)) would be better properties in my opinion. present in work (P1441) could be used for commercials in which the character appears. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 13:27, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Constrain "First Appearance"

I find the required constraint first appearance (P4584) as recently added (@Trade:) slightly annoying. It seems to make sense for serial works only, which are a rather small fraction of the universe of creative expression. And even there, it is limited to cases where some subject enters the chronology and becomes a regular part. Thus, it creates constraint violations for a large majority of uses of this property that cannot be fulfilled.

I understand this is a workaround to have the qualifier suggested? Even then, I question the usefulness for this case. --Karl Oblique (talk) 14:37, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Usage for non-fictional people (again)

With the release of the latest "XYZ papers" the idea of how to link people embroiled in such scandals has come up. Now the property used is "participant of" and this could have this property as a qualifier for specifying the leak publication that directly mentions the person. Since the last discussion dates back to 2016 and we have come a long way since then, I think some modelling suggestions can resolve the objections to widening the usage of this property and removing the "fictional" constraint. Curious to hear other opinions. Jane023 (talk) 11:35, 6 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I still think we should remove the restriction. My main argument against it is that we should have one property for all "present in work", regardless of the ones being mentioned or the works mentioning being fictional. Otherwise, we might end up with four properties to cover all combinations (non-fictional entity present in non-fictional work, non-fictional entity present in work of fiction, fictional entity present in non-fictional work and fictional entity present in work of fiction) when either of them being fictional or not is already documented on the items of the works and mentioned entities themselves and can easily be inferred and queried for. Ainali (talk) 11:51, 6 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose I strongly oppose this kind of broadening. This property is not for simply mentioning things in fictional works, but for fictional/fictionalized entities appearing in the work as a character or as a setting or some important object (like Holy Grail (Q162808). As it is it is a quite well-defined property that should not be used to bypass issues raised at property proposals like Wikidata:Property_proposal/mentions_named_entity. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 12:08, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I would like it to still only be for important entities, I only want to remove the requirement of fictionality. And there is no argument addressing that in the linked discussion. Ainali (talk) 16:30, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ainali: You can use it on non-fictional entities if they appear in the story of a fictional work, e.g. as a character (there might be a novel about Marie Antoinette, for example). The core point of this property is that it links items to the narration a work presents. An entity can be present in multiple ways in a work; a person can be present in a film because she is an actress or an object because it is part of the props etc. But this is not what this property is about; it is only about being present in the narration of a work. So if there is a biopic about, say Audrey Hepburn (Q42786) and she is a character in the story of the film it is okay to use present in work (P1441)}, but it is not okay to use it if she is present in the work as an actress. Otherwise we can't make the distinction when a person is present in a film because she is an actress on screen or because she is a character in the narration. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 18:42, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Valentina.Anitnelav I agree with you, and that is how I would like to use the property (the Audrey Hepburn biopic use case), but that is not allowed today according to the property because she is not a fictional figure. I want to widen the scope just exactly so much as you described that it should be possible to do, not any wider. Ainali (talk) 19:38, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ainali: This is the "fictionalized entity" clause :). Audrey Hepburn is real, but she will be fictionalized for dramatization purposes (a biopic is not a documentary). I found the discussion where we decided that real persons in fictional/fictionalized narrations may be okay: Wikidata:Project_chat/Archive/2017/11#Historical_humans_who_also_appear_in_fiction. They are also already allowed by the constraints (Property:P1441#P2302). I just strongly oppose using this for appearances in non-fictional works (e.g. documentaries, databases, etc.). We should keep fictionalizing events in stories apart from documenting events in databases or other publications. The property for the latter is described by source (P1343). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk)

Oh I'm sorry then I was mistaken by my poor English skills. If not is usable for documentaries, then it is still too narrow. Come to think of it, this property surely must be wider than only the narration. If not then this property offer nothing else than a duplication of main subject (P921). By logic, we must either widen the scope or we could just delete this property and transfer all statements to that. Ainali (talk) 17:16, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Frodo Baggins (Q177329) is an important character in The Lord of the Rings (Q15228). But it is not a central topic. So main subject (P921) would be wrong, here. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 21:09, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As to the leaks: Would it not be better to model it inversively, e.g. to use significant person (P3342) at the leak object with some kind of qualifier? - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 12:13, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What you suggest is creating a list, but that is not the way to generate lists on Wikidata. Lists are created through queries. Major players can appear in a document related to a leak, but inverse to that, the person in question can have a statement about their participation. Currently this is modelled with "participant of" and this property would be able to name the specific document naming the person. I don't understand your strong objection. Jane023 (talk) 16:39, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Jane023: No, I certainly don't suggest to create a list and I know that one may create lists on Wikidata via queries. I just misread your suggestion to use it as a qualifier and thought you are still in search for a full property; significant person (P3342) came to my mind. As I understand it, now, you are looking for a way to indicate the paper that relates the person to the scandal; but isn't it enough to just use stated in (P248) (with the leak paper as a reference) in this case? - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 18:53, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am still waiting for your explanation about how broadening this property to include non-fictional people will break your personal workflow. So far I have heard your opinion on leaks, but that is not relevant to the issue I am discussing at all. Sorry for the confusion. Jane023 (talk) 07:13, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Jane023: you can use this for non-fictional (=fictionalized) people if they appear in the narration of a fictional work - since 2017 (Property_talk:P1441#Changed_subject_constraint). My opposion is to using it for non-fictional works. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:26, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here is also the link to the relevant discussion: Wikidata:Project_chat/Archive/2017/11#Historical_humans_who_also_appear_in_fiction. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:28, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thankd for that link, it helps. Where exactly does it say that this property will be broken if it includes non-fictional humans? Apparently it also includes fictional objects and I would also want it to include non-fictional objects (well known crown jewels, etc). Jane023 (talk) 12:28, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Jane023: I'm really starting to get confused what this discussion is about. Where did I write that it will be broken if it includes non-fictional humans? Did you actually read what I wrote? Just in order to repeat my reply to you today, 08:25, verbatim: "you can use this for non-fictional (=fictionalized) people if they appear in the narration of a fictional work - since 2017 (Property_talk:P1441#Changed_subject_constraint). My opposion is to using it for non-fictional works." This point is settled since 2017, it is reflected in the property description and in the constraints. What you proposed was using it for mentions in leak papers. And this I do strongly oppose. If the crown jewels are important in some novel - yes, you can use this property, too. But don't use it to indicate that they are mentioned in a letter or shown in a documentary. My reply to Ainali might be of interest to you, too, as it is about the very same point. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 15:39, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ok we are getting a bit further! I am very relieved to know there is no restriction for things, whether fictional or not. The next step is for humans, fictional or not. I still do not understand your opposition. Let's not talk about the leaks, since you oppose that so strongly. Let's look at other situations involving humans. I would like to be able to say that an artist is present in a work about artists, even if the artist is not the main subject of that work. It could be a textbook about art from some country, or maybe an overview of some art genre, or maybe a specific review of some large art exhibition. What about this case? Jane023 (talk) 17:27, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Jane023: Actually, I'm still not sure if things are any clearer: This property is for fiction and for fictional works. Not for textbooks, not for overviews about some topics, not for databases or something like this, no matter if the subject item is a fictional person or a non-fictional object. Here some table for illustration purposes:

Subject \ Value	fictional work (e.g. novels, film dramas, operas)	non-fictional work (e.g. reference works, textbooks)
fictional object	Yes	No
fictional person	Yes	No
real object	Yes	No
real person	Yes	No

For textbooks, databases, etc. use described by source (P1343). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 19:04, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is a big difference between being described by a source and just being present in a work. Let's say a documentary about an artist. Then the documentary could be said to describe that artist. But if, in the same documentary, a meeting between the artist and a politician is taking place which is really important for the artist, but the politician is not described in any detail at all, since it assumed that this is common knowledge (possibly a famous president or something). Then it would be useful to say that the politician is present in that work, even though they are not described by anything more than the name. This kind of data could add a lot of value to many items by capturing relationships we have no other way of doing today. But we could, if we just changed the scope slightly here. Ainali (talk) 20:46, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I feel strongly about separating fact (facual accounts) from fiction (fictional or fictionalized accounts) on all possible levels in Wikidata. Apart from this your example is one of the cases that could blow up items about people (just think about mentioning every documentary in which Winston Churchill (Q8016) appears in some archive material on his item). For documentaries I think an own WikiProject is missing to sort out all possible cases. Appearances should be probably indicated on the film itself - currently cast member (P161) is used for that (probably inspired by IMDB) but this may be a bit odd, too. There is also another property that could be exploited for that purpose: depicted by (P1299). But I guess that people maintaining this property would feel as strongly to not use it for these cases as I feel strongly about reserving this property to fictional accounts. (By the way: if there is some textbook about cartoon characters with a section about Mickey Mouse, described by source (P1343) should be used, of course, not present in work (P1441)). - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 21:06, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To add to the confusion: There might be even cases where present in work (P1441) might be used for (mostly) non-fictional works: One can think of a documentary targeted to children (e.g. about the animals of the forest) with a frame story in which Mickey Mouse is used to introduce the animals to children. In this case we have fictional elements in a documentary and one could say Mickey Mouse (Q11934) present in work (P1441) <wildlife documentary featuring Mickey Mouse as a narrator>. The same could be the case with fictionalized real persons: e.g. a cartoon version of Audrey Hepburn used to relate 50's/60's Hollywood to children. So to expand the table:

Is present in work (P1441) applicable?
Subject \ Value	fictional work/legends/myths (e.g. as character novels, film dramas, operas)	fictional/fictionalized representation in non-fictional work (e.g. as a character in documentaries targeted to children)	(descriptive presentation in) non-fictional work (e.g. reference works, textbooks)	present as an actor / onscreen participant / speaker / voice actor / depicted object/person in any audiovisual work or audio recording
fictional/legendary object	Yes	Yes if applicable(?)	No use described by source (P1343)	No depicts (P180) would be the closest property to express that
fictional/legendary person	Yes	Yes	No use described by source (P1343)	No depicts (P180) would be the closest property to express that
real object	Yes	Yes if applicable(?)	No use described by source (P1343)	No depicts (P180) would be the closest property to express that
real person	Yes	Yes even though I would prefer to only use characters (P674) on the documentary item in this case in order not to blow up items about real persons	No use described by source (P1343)	No use cast member (P161), voice actor (P725), talk show guest (P5030), presenter (P371) and similar properties

Just to be complete in capturing possible misuses: As to material sampled in other films/media: present in work (P1441) should not be used if Mickey Mouse only appears in a film shown in another film (e.g. if a film features a scene where children sit around the TV watching a Mickey Mouse cartoon). This is also the case if a documentary about Mickey Mouse uses film material to illustrate the development of the character. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 09:07, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the table, but for public figures it is quite common for them to appear in both fictional and non-fictional works, so I don't see the problem listing them together under the same property. For a figure with fewer statements than more popular ones, see here. As to your concern for overuse, this is up to the Wikidatan and I would imagine overuse is not relevant in most cases. For people wishing to track usage of this property over time, I don't see a problem with quantity of use per item. That is certainly not a reason for a constraint. Just using your example of Mickey Mouse I don't see a difference with Churchill (also suggested above). As has already been established in several statements above, "described by source" is by definition a property that indicates that an item is described in the source, whereas "present in work" may only be a mention. The reason for blocking use of real humans for non-fictional works is still unclear to me and seems completely random. Jane023 (talk) 13:36, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"As has already been established in several statements above, "described by source" is by definition a property that indicates that an item is described in the source, whereas "present in work" may only be a mention." This is wrong. A property for mentions has been declined, multiple times. The last time at Wikidata:Property_proposal/mentions_named_entity. This is for entities appearing in the plot of a work. It does only capture Alexander the Great's appearance as a character, not simple mentions of Alexander the Great. As already said: don't use it to bypass concerns expressed at Wikidata:Property_proposal/mentions_named_entity.

The reason for not using this for non-fiction is to be able to make a difference between fictional and non-fictional accounts. I can't see how anybody would want to lump fictional and non-fictional accounts together.

You can try and use depicted by (P1299) for adding mentions of Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom (Q918264) if you think "described by source" does not fit. The description in the property proposal allows that. present in work (P1441) is for elements relevant to the plot of a fictional work. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 15:28, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As to Matti Wuori (Q3504680): the usage of present in work (P1441) with The Man Without a Past (Q944984) is fine. To indicate that he was a guest in Yhdenillan pysäkki (Q28721369) I created an item for the episode and related it to his item via talk show guest (P5030): Yhdenillan pysäkki: Matti Wuori (Q108894643) - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 17:08, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I used this example is because there are multiple examples where you don't have an item like the one you just created. And this statement is just an opinion and still does not explain your reasoning: "The reason for not using this for non-fiction is to be able to make a difference between fictional and non-fictional accounts. I can't see how anybody would want to lump fictional and non-fictional accounts together." I have tried to be clear in my reasoning for using this property for non-fictional as well as fictional works. Note I do not "lump the accounts together" but have included them on separate statements. Jane023 (talk) 06:54, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I see why you need a property for simple mentions. I supported the property proposal Wikidata:Property_proposal/mentions_named_entity because I see that there are useful applications to it. But this is not the property to use for it and it would make it unusuable for its original use case - to indicate in which work a character appeared.

To give examples why it would not be usable for its own usecase: If you use this for simple mentions you can't make a difference between films where Mickey Mouse appears as a character and films in which it is mentioned, documentaries in which the mouse (Q105834612) appears as a character and documentaries having the mouse (Q105834612) as a topic. You can't make a difference between films where Audrey Hepburn appears as a character, films where Hepburn is mentioned and films where Hepburn appears as an actress. This property is only for the first kind of appearance - as a character.

Originally this property was only intended for fictional entities (characters, objects, places). For a fictional entity the work it appears in is a crucial statement, not just something that is interesting additional information. If a real person would appear in a fictional work as a character you would have needed to create an own item for the fictionalized version of it. The broadening of its scope in 2017 (allowing real persons as type) was conducted to support people who felt that creating an own item for the fictionalized form of a person was too much work. This broadening is not too problematic as it is implied by the property that it is a fictionalized appearance. With your proposed broadening to not only use it for fictionalized appearances but for any possible kind of being present - being mentioned, being present on screen, etc, this would not be the case anymore.

"The reason I used this example is because there are multiple examples where you don't have an item like the one you just created." I'm sorry, but I don't think that this is a good reason. You could just create one. One could also think about allowing talk show guest (P5030) directly on the television show item, so that you don't need to create an item for the episode.

You could just make a proposal for a mentions property for the fourth time. I would still support it, but I'm also a bit pessimistic if this proposal would fare better than the ones before.

I am serious if I say "You could also use depicted by (P1299)". According to the description in the property proposal Wikidata:Property_proposal/Archive/22#P1299 it is intended for religious, historical events, landscapes, (fictional) persons depicted in a book, film, TV show, myth or any artwork etc. You did not adress why you, instead, want to broaden this property depriving it completely of its original meaning. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 10:24, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pokemon autofixes

@OmegaFallon: I’m not too convinced by the autofixes added in Special:Diff/1830987801. This leads to media franchise (P8345) being added to items such as Z-Move (Q26206570). I’m not convinced at all that media franchise (P8345) belong on fictional concepts or on gameplay concepts. Jean-Fred (talk) 08:12, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's a bit late to object to media franchise (P8345) being used on fictional concepts. Trade (talk) 03:44, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Property talk:P1441

Contents

Documentation

Why the restriction to fictional entities?

Work as subject

Related discussion regarding this property and non-fictional entities

Religious texts

Inverse of P674?

Use as qualifier?

More discussion about opening up subject constraint

Changed subject constraint

Value type: not fictional universe

Value type: not fictional character

inanimate subjects

Features/Featured In

Does drinking cans count as 'creative works'

Constrain "First Appearance"

Usage for non-fictional people (again)

Pokemon autofixes

Navigation menu

Property talk:P1441

Documentation

Why the restriction to fictional entities?

Work as subject

Related discussion regarding this property and non-fictional entities

Religious texts

Inverse of P674?

Use as qualifier?

More discussion about opening up subject constraint

Changed subject constraint

Value type: not fictional universe

Value type: not fictional character

inanimate subjects

Features/Featured In

Does drinking cans count as 'creative works'

Constrain "First Appearance"

Usage for non-fictional people (again)

Pokemon autofixes

Navigation menu

Search