Wikidata:Property proposal/mentions named entity

mentions named entity

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Creative work

   Not done

Description	named entity mentioned only by name in a work (use P1441 for entities present in the events of a work; use P840 for locations that are part of the setting of a work)
Represents	name-dropping (Q1424112)
Data type	Item
Domain	creative work (Q17537576)
Allowed values	Any entity with a property that's instance of (P31) → Wikidata property to indicate a name (Q19643892)
Example 1	Nobody Speak (Q26885626) → Donald Trump (Q22686) (subject named as (P1810) → "Trump")
Example 2	That's Not Me (Q18164235) → Gucci (Q178516)
Example 3	We Didn't Start the Fire (Q1448949) → Budapest (Q1781)
Example 4	Paper Towns (Q1138063) → The Mountain Goats (Q145515) ("Ben and Radar showed up at eight on the dot. I got in the backseat. They were shouting along to a song by the Mountain Goats.")
See also	present in work (P1441): 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) narrative location (P840): the narrative of the work is set in this location main subject (P921): primary topic of a work (see also P180: depicts) depicts (P180): entity visually depicted in an image, literarily described in a work, or otherwise incorporated into an audiovisual or other medium; see also P921, 'main subject' narrative motif (P6962): thematic unit in a narrative or literary work used to develop a theme, mood or plot named after (P138): entity or event that inspired the subject's name, or namesake (in at least one language). Qualifier "applies to name" (P5168) can be used to indicate which one characters (P674): characters which appear in this item (like plays, operas, operettas, books, comics, films, TV series, video games) set in period (P2408): historical, contemporary, or future period, year, century or day the work or genre is set in or event featured in the story of the work Wikidata:Property_proposal/references Wikidata:Property_proposal/plot_features_event

Motivation

I think this is interesting cultural data to capture, for instance, it provides data on things like which fashion brand is name-dropped the most in rap. However, there is also application to literary works - with the distinction from present in work (P1441) being that these entities are not actually present in the events of a work, only mentioned by name. See discussion at project chat here: Wikidata:Project_chat/Archive/2019/11#How_can_we_state_that_a_person/entity_was_named_in_a_creative_work

The difference from other proposals such as Wikidata:Property_proposal/mentioned_in_work and Wikidata:Property_proposal/Mentioned_at is the better defined scope/application of this property not currently covered by existing related properties (and also this property is a statement on the work item, since an entity could be mentioned in thousands of works - leading to excessive statements on the entity item). --SilentSpike (talk) 16:44, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

•  Support Seems useful. A lot of editors have been using a lot of different properties to model this relationship, this makes it a lot clearer. If this goes through, I propose a "mini task force" to identify and migrate previous edits using "main subject", "present in work", etc. to map mentions. Moebeus (talk) 17:00, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
• I would like to see this property be able to be extended (with a qualifier) to cover allusions as well as specific mentions. E.g. Everything Zen (Q5418126) referencing Life on Mars? (Q2077201) ("Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow") or "Yes, I's Finished/Abie Baby" from Hair (Q1165499) paraphrasing Gettysburg Address (Q214524). (Alternatively, rather than a qualifier there could be two separate properties.) - Jmabel (talk) 18:06, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I think the proposal Wikidata:Property_proposal/references satisfies what you're looking for, which should probably be a different property since the values are not entities but works and ideas. --SilentSpike (talk) 18:11, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
•  Support I like SilentSpike's example of name-dropping in rap and I think that Moebeus (above and in the discussion at Project chat) and Jura (in the discussion at project chat) have a good point: There are already attempts to model this kind of relationship (with reasonable motivations), just that other properties are exploited for that. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 11:13, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
•  Comment Responding to some of Jura's questions (from project chat) here for archival purposes:

What type of work would this apply to? How many such statements should we have? Most works have a person or place index should these all be included?

—Jura

1. I think this can apply to any sort of work that has written or spoken content. My main motivation is the application to lyrical works as that's where I see the most value in how this represents cultural influence and reach (i.e. if many songs name the same entity, then it is shown to be culturally significant). However, the same line of thinking can be extended to written works (see example 4 of the proposal) where the existing property for something's presence in the work doesn't quite cover the case of an entity only mentioned by name.
2. As many as are valid statements? I don't see an abundance of statements existing for most works since the use case and allowed values of this property limit what it applies to (i.e. persons/locations actually present in the work are already captured via other properties and this is also only applicable entities with names - aka "grass" does not mean there should be a statement for grass (Q643352)). As for works that are very referential, that seems to me like a valid use case where there may exist many values and the use of this property helps to establish that the work is heavily referential in a machine readable way.
3. Good question, I'm not sure to be honest. My gut reaction is no since those seem like metadata about the work rather than actually being part of the work. However, perhaps they should with a qualifier to indicate that they're part of the index (also keep in mind, persons/places that are present in the work are already captured by other properties and don't belong in this property about entities only named).

--SilentSpike (talk) 11:40, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

•  Comment Is this proposal equivalent to Wikidata:Property proposal/references ? Presumably one wouldn't need both? Should the proposals be merged? Jheald (talk) 17:46, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I don't believe so since there's a distinctly different set of allowed values. That property would cover works paying tribute to other works by borrowing ideas, concepts or events specific to them (which cannot really apply to any given entity). Whereas this property can apply to any given entity explicitly named (only) in a work. I feel like that's not the best explination possible, perhaps Valentina.Anitnelav can shed some light on the difference more succinctly. --SilentSpike (talk) 19:55, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Currently they are not exactly equivalent (as explained by SilentSpike) and I admit that I'm also a bit partial to having a distinct property for references between works. On the other hand it might be actually possible to subsume this ("mentions") proposal under Wikidata:Property proposal/references by broadening the latter's scope to include all kinds of entities. If such a property should be accepted (in spite of concerns that it might be too broad) one should probably follow Jmabels proposal to indicate the kind of reference via a qualifier, maybe a new one along the lines of <kind of reference> that may take values like "mention", "allusion", "parody", "copy of style", etc. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 20:08, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
•  Neutral Generally too many in long books; don't you think so? Nomen ad hoc (talk) 20:15, 12 November 2019 (UTC).
  • Do you have an example? I can't really respond since I can't think of any books that include many mentions of entities which aren't characters or locations in the setting. --SilentSpike (talk) 20:34, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
    • But what about essays? Nomen ad hoc (talk) 20:47, 12 November 2019 (UTC).
      • Good question, I suppose it's worth considering how (or if) this should apply to non-fiction works which may mention many entities due to their nature (e.g. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (Q1210336)). I almost feel like it shouldn't since in those cases the entities are part of the subject of the work and not merely mentioned by name. --SilentSpike (talk) 21:39, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
        • For non-fiction books that aren't dictionaries nor encyclopedias, perhaps could we consider that the property should be used chapter by chapter (each one having an item)? Nomen ad hoc (talk) 21:53, 12 November 2019 (UTC).
•  Oppose For now, If papers with 2,000 authors are causing problems, then how are we going to deal with works that mention 2,000 - or 20,000 - people or things? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:04, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
  • This seems like a vote to  Wait. Presumably until there is a solution/rule/agreement in place to handle items which could have many statements? I'm still personally sceptical of the existence of works with so many name-dropped entities (outside of non-fiction works which this could be refined to exclude), but admit that it's a possibility that one could exist. --SilentSpike (talk) 00:24, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
•  Support i need a property like this.--Shisma (talk) 17:09, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
•  Oppose per Pigsonthewing. There's no standard here for the significance of a "mention", so this will lead to an explosion of trivial statements. Swpb (talk) 16:53, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
•  Oppose. We can't list every mention of anything anywhere, and this is insufficiently precise to exclude anything. --Yair rand (talk) 17:36, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
  • @Yair rand, Swpb: Do you have any suggestions on how this could be restricted further to make it a viable property then? Perhaps only allowing values that are persons/brands/organisations? --SilentSpike (talk) 11:54, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
    • No, I don't think that restriction would appreciably curtail trivial use. Frankly, I don't think there is any such tweak that could make this an appropriate property. A property like "includes a meaningful discussion of named entity" would theoretically be limited to non-trivial uses, but it would still need a clear, objective rule for what counts and what doesn't – and it would (rightly) exclude all of your examples. Swpb (talk) 15:04, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
      • What if we instead limited to domain to musical works only? The most problematic use case for this seems to be when applied to literary works due to their potential volume of applicable statements (which is not an invalid use, but undesirable). --SilentSpike (talk) 15:55, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
        • For me, still no. No matter the domain, you need a simple, workable standard for distinguishing meaningful from trivial mentions, and I don't think one exists. And again, if one did, all your example statements would fall on the wrong side. Swpb (talk) 20:08, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
•  Oppose like Yair rand. Looks like the "trivia" that infest Wikipedia are trying to expand here --Bultro (talk) 10:41, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• @Swpb, SilentSpike, Shisma, Yair rand, Nomen ad hoc, Jura1:@Bultro:  Not done, stale and more oppose then support votes. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 00:46, 10 December 2020 (UTC)