Commons talk:Depicts

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Yet again

DoesFile:Seattle Daily Times news editor quarters - 1900.jpg really 'depict The Seattle Times (Q221718)? And I cannot even imagine the sense in which it depicts 1990 (Q2064). Pinging @Khimji- Jmabel ! talk 18:11, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

@Jmabel I would say no, so I am going to go ahead and remove it and see if anyone complains.

I do think on the whole the community needs to try and figure out more clear guidelines around this, and also all tooling that allows interaction with depicts needs to be cleaned up. ·addshore· ^{talk to me!} 07:54, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

On second review, you could argue that there are newspapers in the image, and that they are likely The Seattle Times (Q221718)! ·addshore· ^{talk to me!} 07:54, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Again: what are useful "depicts" values, and do we have any guidelines/casebook?

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:I-90_Columbia_River_Scenic_Overlook_pano_02.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=851472036 seems useless to me, but I still don't see any clear standard against which to judge it. - Jmabel ! talk 00:02, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree. This would be better with genre (P136) landscape photography (Q1353984). Ainali (talk) 07:29, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Will edit accordingly. - Jmabel ! talk 21:37, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

ATTN: User:BobbyWillard. - Jmabel ! talk 21:40, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

And again: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AUniversity_Herald_newspaper_office%2C_1919_%28SEATTLE_1093%29.jpg&diff=538451817&oldid=470411611. Is this actually what is wanted? - Jmabel ! talk 19:51, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

And again: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:1962_Divco_delivery_truck_01.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=901793773. Can we really say that a picture of a truck "depicts" the corporation that manufactured it? I would think not, but this sort of thing keep getting added to my photos. - Jmabel ! talk 21:17, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

And another today: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Seattle_-_view_from_South_River_Street_street_end_03.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=914336937. The specific river is completely identifiable, but this "depicts water"? And according to the edit summary, this was "#suggestededit-add-tag 1.0" which I presume means some bot or such is suggesting these dubious edits to end users. - Jmabel ! talk 00:24, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

I think the main problem is the wording. The original intention of depicts statements was to replace categories but then someone started calling them tags. And tags on platforms like Flickr and YouTube are something totally different to our categories. GPSLeo (talk) 05:45, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Yet again: File:Tatar homestead from Independența, Constanța in Village Museum, Bucharest 01.jpg depicts Tatars (Q35565)? There are no humans in the picture. Yes, the house was once home for a family of Tatars, but that shouldn't mean it depicts Tatars. (ATTN: @VitalShark338.) - Jmabel ! talk 17:33, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry I made a mistake VitalShark338 (talk) 22:27, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Multiple Wikidata items for biological taxa - which to chose?

There are frequently several Wikidata entries (and sometimes also a lot of confusion otherwise) for biological species. E.g., Dipsacus sylvestris Huds. and Dipsacus fullonum L. appear to be the same thing, which currently leads to a Category:Dipsacus sylvestris with subcategories like Category:Dipsacus fullonum (flowers). Similarly, there is Wikidata entry Q160099 for Dipsacus fullonum and Q17465474 for Dipsacus sylvestris. Should both be entered in the "Depicts" statement? In fact, someone recently added the item for Dipsacus fullonum to files already containing the "depicts" statement for Dipsacus sylvsestris. Is this correct or should it be reverted? And how about Globularia bisnagarica (Q21874373) and Globularia punctata (Q1161623)? Or Pulsatilla alpina (Q149625) and Anemone alpina (Q21870220)? Or Anagallis arvensis (Q160573) and Lysimachia arvensis (Q21327968)? This is really confusing. Usually there is a reference to the basionym in some Wikidata records, e.g. for Q21327968 mentioning correctly Q160573 as the basionym, though. --Robert Flogaus-Faust (talk) 10:35, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

So, looking at Dipsacus fullonum (Q160099) and Dipsacus sylvestris (Q17465474) I made this little diagram with a tool. https://wikidata.metaphacts.com/resource/Assets:OntodiaView?diagram=https%3A%2F%2Fwikidata.metaphacts.com%2Fcontainer%2FontodiaDiagramContainer%2Fdipsacus

These have a shared common parent taxon Dipsacus (Q161946). I assume that things can not be both Dipsacus fullonum (Q160099) and Dipsacus sylvestris (Q17465474) at the same time? So I would assume that only a single one of these items should be used?

Pinging @Robert_Flogaus-Faust as this one has been open for 6 months :) Happy to look at some of the other examples too, but figured I'd start with one of them. ·addshore· ^{talk to me!} 10:41, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Anyway, Dipsacus fullonum (Q160099) and Dipsacus sylvestris (Q17465474) are synonyms. In the category system, synonyms are usually redirected. I have no idea whether something like this could be possible for syonym wikidata items which look different but which are for the very same species. --Robert Flogaus-Faust (talk) 21:54, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

I've added said to be the same as (P460) (with citation) to the two Wikidata items. With no real knowledge of the area myself, I hesitate to do more. If someone who knows more than me wants to ask on Wikidata whether it is appropriate to merge the items, that would be best raised at wikidata:Wikidata:Chat. - Jmabel ! talk 04:25, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

Synonyms should not be merged! See d:Wikidata:WikiProject Taxonomy for details. Ainali (talk) 08:13, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

@Ainali Do you have a TLDR on Synonyms? It sounds like they are the same same, but different? ·addshore· ^{talk to me!} 09:18, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

I am not a taxonomy expert, but from what I gather from those that are, is that those items are needed on Wikidata. Ainali (talk) 09:48, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

Alright, thanks to eveybody! I am still not sure how to deal with multiple "depicts" statements for the same biological taxon, but there might be very little that can be done here considering d:Wikidata:WikiProject Taxonomy. While the decision to keep multiple entries for a single taxon is perfectly understandable, this decision must result in a mess that is much worse than what can be found in the category system with its redirects. --Robert Flogaus-Faust (talk) 22:44, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes, generally speaking I am still confused about how these are the same, but also different.

I'm going to continue thinking and looking at this, most of the other ontology issues I have looked at in the years have been mostly located at a middle level, not all the way at the bottom of a tree! ·addshore· ^{talk to me!} 04:17, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Infact... this helped... https://chatgpt.com/share/68981dc2-8f40-8002-84ff-7589647e35f5 ·addshore· ^{talk to me!} 04:20, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Suggestion to change

Items such as woman (Q467), female (Q6581072) or human (Q5) should never be used on on Commons. Instead the item for the depicted person should be used instead

Any case where the editor created the Wikidata item with the purpose of listing them on Commons they are expected to obey by the Wikidata notability policy

This does not apply in cases where the identity of the depicted person (or people) is unknown or anonymous. In those cases the item for the appropriate age range/gender should be used (girl (Q3031), woman (Q467), old man (Q96630806), etc)

In cases where both known and unknown people appear both age/gender items and the item for the known person can be used

In cases where editors repeatedly keeps adding inappropiate items to depicts (P180) after already having been warned they can be reported to the administrators' noticeboard. Trade (talk) 03:37, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Huh, would never have guessed {{Q|}} works on Commons Trade (talk) 03:58, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

For the longest time I thought that if a template was on one WMF project it was deployed to all simultaneously.

depicts (P180) mistakes are quite common. I feel like the priority has been simply getting people to add them. Which is appropriate because I think over 70% of the files have none. I hope warning and reports are limited only to the most unambiguously aggregious offenders. If we push back on users who are experimenting with and learning SDC, they may be alienated from further contributions. Moreover, improper usage of SDC can often be corrected in bulk. Simply do a search on depicts portrait and replace with instance of (P31) → portrait (Q134307). Petscan can the correct statement and remove the incorrect. Jerimee (talk) 21:12, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Agree with the concept, not the wording.

How about "When a file depicts a known notable person, the appropriate 'depicts' value to indicate that is the Wikidata item for that person (if that item exists). If that Wikidata item does not exist, you should at least consider creating it. Any other properties that are inherent to that person (gender, occupation, etc.) belong as properties of the Wikidata item, not as further 'depicts' values for the individual file. E.g. if you have a file that depicts Joni Mitchell (Q205721), do not use further depicts female (Q6581072), songwriter (Q753110), guitarist (Q855091), contralto (Q37137), etc." - Jmabel ! talk 04:06, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

I would probably change the example to "E.g. if you have a file that depicts Lady Gaga (Q19848), do not use further depicts human (Q5), woman (Q467), female (Q6581072), singer (Q177220), bisexuality (Q43200), Italian Americans (Q974693), etc.". Covers some more bases

Any suggestions for ""When a file depicts an unknown or non-notable person"--Trade (talk) 04:15, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

If the statement concerns the physical appearance of an known person properties such as wears (P3828), hair color (P1884), hairstyle / hairlength (P8839) or expression, gesture or body pose (P6022) should instead be used as qualifiers under the relevant depicts (P180) statement --Trade (talk) 04:20, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

I have no problem with either of your suggestions here, though I would leave out bisexuality (Q43200) since it seems unnecessarily loaded. - Jmabel ! talk 16:51, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Items expected to be covered by other statements

Can I rewrite this section? I'll attempt to do it in a single pass so it can easily be reverted if need be. The properties referred to in this section all exist now, so the section should say that and not that they are expected in future. You'll see that I've edited the page (kind of awkwardly) to indicate instance of (P31) for "format." Jerimee (talk) 20:55, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

@Jerimee: Go for it. You could hardly make it worse, even if you threw darts. - Jmabel ! talk 23:34, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

SDC Doc

I'm confused and a bit discouraged to be told that most of the SDC documentation is disputed and we lack reliable documentation for how to implement SDC. I thought I might try to cobble together how the existing doc was authored. One of the things I'm curious about is how we ended up with contradictions within the documentation.

The documentation I'm looking at primarily consists of this page (Commons:Depicts), the various pages of Commons:Structured data, Property_talk:P31, and File:Structured_Data_on_Commons_-_“Depicts”_CC_spec.pdf from 2018.

It looks like much of the doc here was written in 2019 by User:99of9. Jerimee (talk) 00:43, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi Jerimee. I fully support getting agreement on anything undecided. By now most contributors should have enough experience to have an informed opinion. I suggest you extract any contradictions for a head-to-head discussion, then similar for anything disputed. I've been more involved on Wikidata and Wikifunctions recently, so am not best placed to help lead the discussion, but I appreciate that you're looking to clarify the consensus and improve the documentation. I certainly don't claim ownership or infallibility of anything written before the feature was available, so am very happy if you end up overwriting anything I wrote. --99of9 (talk) 07:22, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for this note! Jerimee (talk) 07:27, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Separate tab and more useful links needed

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Zo%C3%AB_Bell_07.jpg&oldid=992447969

i look at this pic, curious about this person's biography. what can i do?

1. either i click Category:Zoë Bell in 2007 and a few more clicks thru a few more pages to finally arrive at her enwp article.
2. or i click the sdc tab, click the depicts value which takes me to wikidata, and scroll thru the user-unfriendly wikidata page to find her enwp article.

instead, i suggest:

1. depicts should appear separately so i dont need a click on sdc tab to see it
2. should included a link that goes to the wikipedia of my preferred language, if not fall back to wikipedia in english, if not fall back to the commons category page.

RoyZuo (talk) 14:42, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

"depicts should appear separately so i don't need a click on sdc tab to see it" +1, I would love this. I believe it was intentionally put on a separate tab during initial deployment due to community concerns.

I believe https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T341781 might be relevant to this part. ·addshore· ^{talk to me!} 10:44, 8 August 2025 (UTC)