Provide overview of uses of a Wikidata item in Structured Data on Commons
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	Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE
	Dec 2 2019, 4:37 PM

Description

As a Wikidata administrator, I want to know if an item is used in Structured Data on Commons before I delete it, in order to avoid unknowingly deleting items that are used/needed.

Problem:
Traditionally, Wikidata administrators have used Special:WhatLinksHere to determine whether a Wikidata item is used in statements on other items or whether it can be deleted. However, with the advent of Structured Data on Commons, it’s possible for an item to have no incoming links on that page and still be used on Commons (because Special:WhatLinksHere is local to one wiki), and such items should usually not be deleted.

One workaround is to search for the item ID on Commons (with no special keywords or anything) – apparently, item IDs (including ones used in qualifiers) are part of the indexed content. (insource:, on the other hand, doesn’t find items.)

T3886 would be a potential solution for this task, but I think it could also be resolved in some other way.

Example:

Screenshots/mockups:

BDD
GIVEN
AND
WHEN
AND
THEN
AND

Acceptance criteria:

Open questions:

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		Status	Subtype	Assigned	Task
		Open	Feature	None	T334352 Usage in SDC should be shown when deleting items on Wikidata
		Duplicate		None	T239628 Provide overview of uses of a Wikidata item in Structured Data on Commons

Event Timeline

Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE created this task.Dec 2 2019, 4:37 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptDec 2 2019, 4:37 PM

Jheald subscribed.Dec 3 2019, 8:51 AM

This task probably needs some rephrasing, because, not being an admin, I was unaware that backlinks are actually warned about on the deletion page itself:

Screenshot_2019-12-03 Delete Q1000736 - Wikidata.png (251×608 px, 21 KB)

So ideally, we would probably warn about uses on Commons directly on this page, instead of admins having to seek out some special page listing the usages.

But then again, the page doesn’t currently warn about client wikis that are subscribed to the item either. So it would probably be better to get some input from real admins here, to find out which steps they usually take to ensure that they don’t delete used items, and at what point we should add information about Commons usage.

Bugreporter mentioned this in T249688: PropertyDataTypeLookupException in Files with a deleted property.Apr 14 2020, 4:15 PM

Bugreporter mentioned this in T250195: linksto should also search interwiki links.Apr 14 2020, 4:18 PM

Nikki subscribed.May 24 2020, 1:24 PM

SJu subscribed.Jan 13 2021, 5:06 AM

Bugreporter added a parent task: T334352: Usage in SDC should be shown when deleting items on Wikidata.Oct 12 2023, 8:28 AM

Lydia_Pintscher closed this task as a duplicate of T334352: Usage in SDC should be shown when deleting items on Wikidata.Feb 24 2024, 12:07 PM