Help:FAQ

 

General

1. Where can I find the FAQ (frequently asked questions) in my language?

   See the "Other languages:" box at the top of this page and select your language. If your language does not appear, it means the page has not yet been translated into that language. To set up a language fallback chain so Wikidata will automatically display content to you in an alternative when it is not available in your primary language, see Help:Navigating Wikidata/User Options.

2. How can I change my language settings? Is it possible to edit data in more than one language?

   There are a few options for setting your language preferences on Wikidata but the Babel extension is the best option for multilingual users who will be contributing to Wikidata. The extension allows users to view and easily add information to item page fields (specifically, labels, descriptions, and aliases) in multiple languages. You can activate the Babel extension by adding the #babel template to your user page—please see Help:Navigating Wikidata/User Options for full details.

Terminology

1. What's the difference between statements, properties, and qualifiers? Where can I find more information on Wikidata terminology?

   The Glossary is a good place to start. The Help pages also provide introductory content on the important concepts of Wikidata.

2. What are data types? Which ones are currently supported in Wikidata?

   Data types refer to the types of data values which can be added to a property in a statement. The data type of a given property therefore restricts what can be added as its value. For example, only text can be added as a value for the property "color", only numbers can be added for the property "population," and only file formats can be added for the property "Commons media." For a list of data types currently supported by Wikidata, see Special:ListDatatypes. Other types are also in development and will be available soon. For more information, see Help:Properties.

3. What is an "interwiki conflict"? What can I do about it?

   An interwiki conflict occurs when two or more items exist for one concept or that correspond to the same page on a Wikimedia site, for example, a Wikipedia article. Please submit a report at Wikidata:Interwiki conflicts. See also Help:Merge.

Contributing

1. I'm new here. What is there for me to do and how can I help?

   Welcome! We're very happy to have you here! There are many opportunities for contributing to Wikidata, from improving and translating documentation to planning and proposing new properties in support of data. If you're looking for ways to get involved, we recommend checking out Wikidata:Contribute for an overview of the different roles and activities available to users (in addition to editing data).

2. What should I edit?

   If you know how to edit and want a small task to get you started, click here to improve a random item (this link is also always available from the left sidebar menu link "Random page"). You could also work on a specific item in order to get it to "showcase item" status. Showcase items are items that fully represent what Wikidata is capable of by displaying in full detail the data that can be stored on Wikidata. A showcase item should have at least 10 statements, as well as other attributes. For more information, see Wikidata:Showcase items.

3. Where can I go for help?

   Your first stop should be the Help portal where you'll find all the documentation related to using and editing Wikidata. If you're still stuck, post a message on Project Chat.

4. What is a WikiProject?

   WikiProjects on Wikidata are groups of users who work together to improve the content and coverage for a specific topic area. This work varies and can include discussion and proposal of new properties to support the topic area, development of guidelines for the appropriate use of properties, outreach to related projects and linked datasets to be included in Wikidata, creation of resources for supporting data editors (e.g. reliable sources of information for the topic), and more. Any user can join a WikiProject or start their own. For a list of current WikiProjects, please see here.

Editing

1. I can't see a main "edit" button for item or property pages. Where is it? Why can't I view the wiki markup source for all pages?

   While Wikidata is built on the MediaWiki wiki package, it also uses the Wikibase software which allows for a special type of editing just for structured data. In Wikidata, the main namespace and property namespace are reserved for editing data. For pages in these namespaces, you can only edit the respective parts of an item or a property through the various edit links. It's also not possible to view the wiki markup for these pages. For more information on editing items and properties, see Help:Items and Help:Properties.

2. How do I create a new page? How about a new item?

   Pages outside the main and property namespaces are created in the same way as they are on other Wikimedia sites. To create a new item, use the Special:NewItem page (you can also access it by clicking "Create a new Item" in the left menu). For more detailed instructions on creating items, see Help:Items. For more information on editing a wiki, see Help:Navigating Wikidata.

   Properties can only be created by property creators and administrators. To propose a new property, see Wikidata:Property proposal.

3. I prefer an edit summary over a talk page for explaining minor changes. Could you please activate edit summaries?

   Sorry, edit summaries are not available for edits on item and property pages by GUI. However, you can enter an edit summary when reverting or undoing an edit (whether it is your own work or someone else's). To undo an edit click on the "View History" tab, select the revision you would like to change, and click undo.

4. I've accidentally created an item, and now I need it deleted. Where can I turn for help?

   Try Wikidata:Requests for deletions. There's also a gadget you can enable in your preferences called "RequestDeletion" that can help with this process. If another item exists for the one you've created and now want to delete, see also Help:Merge.

5. How do I merge two items?

   See Help:Merge for detailed instructions. There's also a gadget you can enable in your preferences called "Merge" that can help with this process.

6. How do I delete wrong sitelinks from an item?

   To delete a sitelink from an item, click the [edit] button, select the trash icon next to the sitelink and save the changes. After this is done, please add the deleted sitelink to the correct item or make a new item for it if one doesn't yet exist. There's also a gadget you can enable in your preferences called "Move" which can help with this process. In cases where your changes are not obvious or straightforward, you can leave a note on the talk pages of the items. For more information, see Help:Merge and Help:Sitelinks.

7. What are sources? How do I use them?

   In Wikidata, references are used to point to specific sources (i.e. sources of information) that back up the data provided in a statement. Examples of sources include books, scientific publications, and newspaper articles. To learn about adding references to statement, see Help:Sources.

8. There is an item that already has a Wikipedia sitelink in language X. I want to add a second sitelink to the item for another Wikipedia article in language X that fits as well but it won't let me. What should I do?

   Wikidata allows only one sitelink per item per language. You will see an error message when attempting to add a new sitelink to a item page if that link has already been added to another item page. For more information, see Help:Sitelinks.

9. I tried to add a sitelink to an item, but when I tried to save it I received an error message. What should I do?

   Wikidata allows one sitelink per item per language. If you receive an error message but believe the item you are editing is the most appropriate one for the sitelink, you may need to merge two items. Please consult Help:Merge or visit Wikidata:Interwiki conflicts to report a conflict.

10. How do I add a sitelink to an item for a section within a larger page, e.g. en:Han Dynasty#Eastern Han on Wikipedia?

    Wikidata sitelinks do not support anchors (links to a specific section of a page). If a redirect exists pointing to the anchor in question you can add the redirect as sitelink (with intentional sitelink to redirect (Q70894304) as badge). If no such redirect exists, you may consider creating one for this purpose.

11. How do I make two pages in language A link to one page in language B, e.g. en:Cirth and en:Tengwar to de:Tengwar und Certar?

    Wikidata can only link on a one-to-one basis so these situations should be handled in the same way as anchor links (see above question). You may however connect redirects to Wikidata items (see Wikidata:Sitelinks to redirects).

12. How do I find properties available to use in Wikidata? How will I know what property to use while editing Wikidata?

    Please check Wikidata:List of properties for a community-maintained list of properties. When searching for properties with the site's main search bar, please prefix your search term(s) with "P:" to ensure you are looking in the property namespace. If you are unsure whether the property you are using is most appropriate for a statement, consult the property's discussion page or ask on Wikidata:Project chat. If you are fairly new to editing data, you might also want to check out some showcase items. Showcase items are items that fully represent what Wikidata is capable of by displaying in full detail the data that can be stored on Wikidata. They can serve as valuable examples of what properties to use on different types of items. Please see Wikidata:Showcase items for more information and examples.

13. According to the history of an item I changed, the number of bytes went up or down significantly, even though I only made a minor change. Why did this happen?

    The history shows the number of bytes changed in the internal data structure for the item in the database. phab:T41189 has been filed for this.

14. I want to add a label/description/alias for a new language but when I click "edit", it doesn't offer the language. How can I add it?

    This is currently not possible by default, see phab:T126510. The set of languages displayed can be customized, see Help:Navigating Wikidata/User Options. Registered users can activate labelLister gadget. Or you can use Special:SetLabelDescriptionAliases.

Navigating the site

1. I don't understand the URL names. Q142? P1082? What do the letters and numbers mean?

   All pages in the main and property namespaces end with a unique identifier in either the format Q### or P###. These identifiers represent Wikidata items and properties, respectively—for example, Q142 is for the item on France and P1082 is for the population property. The numbers in identifiers are assigned in the order the items and properties were created in Wikidata. By using identifier codes, Wikidata is able to support multilingual data entry without favouring any one language.

2. How do searches work?

   The two main search options are Special:Search and Special:ItemByTitle. The first is the widest possible search across languages and namespaces. The second searches the main namespace only for an item in Wikidata in a selected language whose title is exactly equal to value entered. Please try both options to ensure you find an existing item. For more information, see Help:Navigating Wikidata.

3. What is Wikidata's main namespace for?

   The main namespace on Wikidata is reserved for items only. Pages in this namespace are known as item pages and are titled according to their unique identifiers (Q###). For more information on Wikidata namespaces, see Help:Namespaces.

Other Wikimedia sites

1. How can I use data from Wikidata in my Wikimedia project?

   If Wikidata has been integrated with your wiki, you can access its data by using a parser function or a Lua module. Templates can be built to ease the access to data for all contributors. See How to use data on Wikimedia projects.

2. When will Wikidata be integrated with Incubator and Beta Wikiversity?

   This is currently not supported by the Wikibase software. Wikibase has a basic assumption that a given wiki only has one page about a given topic, and changing this may need to refactor some code. See phab:T54971 for more information.

3. Will Wikipedia featured articles, good articles and other quality pages be denoted somehow on Wikidata?

   Several badges are available, see Special:SetSiteLink. If you want to add a new badge not listed there, you can contact the development team.

4. How can I link to Wikidata from Wikipedias or other Wikimedia sites?

   As per Meta-Wiki, add [[d:Q39715]] or [[d:Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/Lighthouse]] to the wikitext of the Wikimedia site page.

5. I have just added a sitelink to an item for a new page on another Wikimedia site. How long will it take to see the sitelinks appear there?

   Usually not more than a few minutes. You can see sitelinks immediately by purging the cache on the corresponding Wikimedia site page (you can do this by adding ?action=purge at the end of its URL). For more information on adding sitelinks, see Help:Sitelinks.

6. Can I edit Wikidata directly on articles on other Wikimedia projects?

   This is currently not possible. But in the future editors on other Wikimedia projects will not necessarily need to go to Wikidata to edit the data they use from Wikidata. This is tracked in phab:T136599. In addition, there are some third-party gadgets for this; WE-Framework is an example.

7. How do I link a Commons category to Wikidata?

   Where possible, a Commons category should be linked to a Wikidata category item, in the "other sites" section, e.g., as on Category:London (Q7149656). A Commons category (P373) statement is also added on the corresponding main item, London (Q84), since some software won't search category items to find the Commons category. If there is no category item the Commons category can be added to the "other sites" section of a main item, e.g., as on Old War Office Building (Q58454576). There's a bot that will add Commons category (P373) statements, so these don't usually need to be done by hand.

Wikipedia and Wikidata

How Wikidata integrates with Wikipedia, as the most high-profile project in the Wikimedia movement, brings up some common questions and concerns. For more information see Wikidata:Wikidata in Wikimedia projects.

1. How is Wikidata being used on Wikipedia?

   Wikidata is used for a number of functions on Wikipedia already. Some of these are somewhat opaque to the user, and some are more readily seen. A more complete breakdown can be found at Wikidata:Wikidata in Wikimedia projects.

   Since 2013, all interlanguage links have been handled by Wikidata. The identifiers in the "Authority Control" box at the bottom of many articles in Wikipedia editions are also drawn from Wikidata. A number of Wikipedia language editions also now make extensive use of Wikidata-driven infoboxes.

   In 2017, Interlingua Wikipedia had 100% of its articles using infoboxes and none contained any local data, and Catalan Wikipedia reported that more than 300,000 of its 600,000 articles (or about 58%) used infoboxes derived from Wikidata. French Wikipedia also has tens of thousands of infoboxes created from Wikidata. However, interestingly, English Wikipedia has not adopted Wikidata-driven infoboxes in any large scale as the community debates how much to use them.

2. How does Wikidata handle vandalism?

   Wikidata makes use of recent changes patrolling, as well as ORES, an AI tool which helps to find possible bad-faith edits. There are also some external tools which allow users to review changes in a certain scope (eg. their language). Still, Wikidata tends to have a much lower level of vandalism than Wikipedia, largely because it is relatively new and lower profile. However, since it is being used more in information boxes and authority control records, it may face more challenges. Read more at the guideline Wikidata:Vandalism.

3. Does Wikidata have a Biography of Living Persons (BLP) policy?

   In 2018, Wikidata:Living people is adopted as an official policy.

Other

1. How do I make a list of the articles?

   Look up the item you want to make a list of and make a note of the item's Q number, then replace the 42 in the following URL with the Q number from the item you want to make the list from and follow the newly created link: https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbgetentities&format=xml&props=sitelinks&ids=Q42

2. How do I directly link to a specific Wikipedia resource using the Wikidata item identifier number?

   Use the Special:GoToLinkedPage form. In the first field (Site), enter the language and site code (e.g. "enwiki"). In the second field (Item id), enter the item id, including the Q prefix (e.g. "Q2063748"). Alternatively, you may specify the parameters directly in the link (e.g. Special:GoToLinkedPage/enwiki/Q2063748).

See also

• Help:Contents
• Help page at Meta