Wikidata:Property proposal/sorting weight

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sorting weight

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Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Generic

   Not done
Descriptionwhen listing multiple properties, properties with a higher sorting weight are supposed to be shown before properties with lower sorting weight
Data typeNumber (not available yet)
Example 1instance of (P31) → 100000
Example 2subclass of (P279) → 9999
Example 3occupation (P106) → 1000

Motivation

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We have currently multiple cases where properties have to be sorted. When displaying the normal properties and external-id properties on a page they have to be sorted.

When suggesting properties to the user according to properties for this type (P1963) there's a need for sorting. The proposed property can be used as a qualifer to help sort that list.

For qualifiers we might have in future a solution that uses sources the suggested qualifiers from qualifier for this property (P8379) where the sort order can also be specified with this property.

WikiProject Properties has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead. ChristianKl10:40, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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  • I don't think Wikibase-SortedProperties is a good solution for multiple reasons and that it would be best to deprecate it sooner or later.
Having the data within properties makes it easier to discover how the sorting works for Wikidata users.
We will have federated Wikibase properties in the future. Having a concept of sorting weight allows sorting of properties from different Wikibases in a consistent manner without having to define all the sorting in one Wikibase.
Finally, I want a way that can be set more context dependent on properties for this type (P1963) and qualifier for this property (P8379). ChristianKl18:08, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's an argument to be made for centralised sorting being better - with values on a per-property basis, it's much harder to group similar properties together, ensure they are kept in a consistent order, and so on. It feels to me like it would be more difficult to get a broad overview this way around, though I take your point about federated properties. But to be honest I don't really have a strong opinion, whatever works is fine. :)
I'm still not clear how this property would work, though - is the idea we create the property now and then develop a sorting mechanism which would use it? Andrew Gray (talk) 18:48, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The goal is to have a system where it's easier for users to change the sorting oder. ChristianKl18:09, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The community managed approach does not work particularly well with MediaWiki:Wikibase-SortedProperties, as opposed to the built-in suggestion mechanism. As far as I understand, the software sort of anticipates the best order of suggested properties based on the data present in an item. This seems much more sophisticated than a static list, where users might even try to push their favorite properties to the front. —MisterSynergy (talk) 18:56, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It feels to me like there's some issue with it being intransparent of how the system actually works. Do you know whether it's documented somehow?
I think it would be great if it would both be documented and also possible for humans to decide what the best order happens to be. ChristianKl20:27, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's called property suggester (Q86989962) (related: Extension:PropertySuggester (Q30101250), Extension:WikidataEntitySuggester (Q21679299), Help:Suggesters and selectors#Property suggester, …). You can use these items to search for more documentation on mediawiki.org or phabricator—I am not aware whether there is enough of it, however. —MisterSynergy (talk) 20:41, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the idea would be that it can also be used to sort identifiers. ChristianKl08:55, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The idea is to specify semantics about how sorting priorities can be expressed here. Later, when there are disagreements about how to decide the priority in a certain domain we can create policy to solve that. ChristianKl17:11, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]