Talk:Q5

Conflict?

How this item corresponds to Homo sapiens sapiens? Infovarius (talk) 10:56, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Homo sapiens sapiens is a subset. One structure would be:

• Homo (Q171283) - Humans (Homo, latin for Human)
• anatomically modern human (Q5891007) - anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens)
• archaic human (Q284851) - archaic humans (Homo, minus Home sapiens sapiens).

However if you want to define Human to be Homo sapiens, then the subsets don't work out this way. I'd assume you'd generally want to declare a modern human to be Homo sapiens sapiens, unless you are suggesting that they may be a Neanderthal or something. Ghouston (talk) 07:47, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Homo sapiens idaltu (Q131686) introduces the extra complication that anatomically modern human (Q5891007) and Homo sapiens sapiens (Q3238275) aren't necessarily the same thing. Ghouston (talk) 21:14, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Documentation

I have added some doc on how we should use items of this class. This is a rough first try, please improve. Note that I have marked some properties as "required" that does not really mean they are more important, just that we should have data about sufficiently many of them that it seems to make sense to check if it is here or not, and possibly to add "novalue" or "somevalue" when we can't add a standard value.

Thanks Zolo, I like this idea a lot. The class hierarchy constructed by going "up the chain" of subclass of (P279) is especially nice. For example, it highlighted how a redundant subclass 'organism' was set for human. Since that information was redundant with the information deducible via the item's value for parent taxon (P171), I've deleted the claim 'human subclass of organism'. Emw (talk) 13:27, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

DDC 128

{{maintenance|DDC=128|DDCMAIN=|TREEVIA=279|TANDEM=|TANDEMTREEVIA=|SHOWALL=|WMFLCODE=eo}}
12:25, 27 April 2014 (UTC): draft, please use the template talk page for comments;

tree might be delayed by ~15 minutes; suggested values for TREEVIA and TANDEMTREEVIA: subclass of (P279) , instance of (P31) , part of (P361) , has part(s) (P527) , occupation (P106) , field of work (P101) , etc.

in order to see another language please change the WMFLCODE-parameter value in preview mode only
human (Q5) · ^{purge · T · WLH · tree · reasonator} · DDC: 128 · DDCTANDEM: 000 · tree ^{using subclass of (P279)}

Fictional characters

Fictional characters are not to be classified ("instance of") human, because they don't really exist as real organisms, am I right? Some of them have the "DEPRECATED main type (GND)" as "person" now, like for example Q786846. Adeliine (talk) 19:39, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that is right, there was a rather long discussion about it some time ago, but I can't remember the link. --Zolo (talk) 04:44, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Late to the party, but one can use fictional analog of --Rasinj (talk) 23:34, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Cleanup page

As it may not always be possible/convenient to check funny values based only on the class structure documented above, I made a quick action-oriented page at Wikidata:Periodical cleanup/Humans. --Zolo (talk) 08:16, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Q5 and Q215627

Hello @Micru:, about claim human (Q5) <subclass of (P279)> person (Q215627). There are two issues:

1. technical: person (Q215627) is widely used in constraints check system. Removing this claim drops very large number of reports. So please change settings on these pages before removing the claim.
2. logical: I am do not understand why the claim is incorrect. Is this language-specific issue maybe? For Russian articles this claim is acceptable. Some combinations of meanings of these terms looks strange, but the most combinations are looked good as I see. — Ivan A. Krestinin (talk) 18:07, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

@Ivan A. Krestinin: Regarding:

1. ok
2. There are three main type of items: the thing in itself (which at most we approach declaring "instance of"), a general representation we make out of it (human), and other identifiers that are attached to it (person). For the thing itself you can say where it is, which physical parts it has, etc. For the representation we can say what tangible, real characteristics shares with other existing instances, but what about the third? Theoretically you can declare that "<dolphin> subclass of <person>" or "<animated character> subclass of <person>", and that would be fine because it is a subjective concept. But in real life, what physical, tangible elements do a <dolphin> and an <animated character> have in common? None.

The subclasses tree is transitive, so it is problematic to mix concepts that clearly have no connection with the world other than in the mind of the observer (person), with concepts that do have a connection with the reality because they can be sensed (human), because when you mix them you can reach weird conclusions.--Micru (talk) 19:44, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

You want to avoid mixing philosophical and physical terms as I understand. Ok, lets think about ways to resolve issue 1. We need some class item that will include humans, fictional characters and animals maybe. In other words: everything that can has sex or gender (P21), date of birth (P569), mother (P25) and etc. — Ivan A. Krestinin (talk) 20:16, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The best way to connect philosophical terms with classes is using manifestation of (P1557).--Micru (talk) 20:39, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

@Micru:. I don't see any issue with "human: subclass of person". "person" does not make "imaginary person", so I do not see why "subclass of:person" entails "humans don't exist". The more controversial point is: "are fictional characters persons". I think they should not, and, currently, they are not: fictional character (Q95074)subclass of (P279)Salvador Sturla (Q2215627) is marked as deprecated.

@Zolo: Following upwards the subclass tree, "person" is a subclass of "abstraction", abstractions do not have a "material existence", therefore stating "<human> subclass of <person>" entails that a human does not have a material existence. "Fictional characters" can exhibit "personhood", as personhood is an inmaterial information component. As such I think that neither "human" nor "fictional character" shold be subclass of "person", but both can be a "manifestation of" person.--Micru (talk) 15:45, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

@Micru: ok. I am not really convinced that "person: instance of abstraction" makes sense. To me person is a superclass of natural person (Q154954), which means something like "a physical body recognized as having special features making it a person (sentience, moral rights whatever ?)

In any case, I just realized that for constraints on property:birth, property:father and the like, the superclass that would seem to make most sense is "living organism" (and its fictional equivalent). --Zolo (talk) 16:11, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

@Zolo: First of all we need to sepparate the label from the concept that represents. The label "person" can have many concepts associated, one of them as you say is "living organism", but that is already expressed by Q5 because it has the alias "person". Then we have "person" as a philosophical concept and that is Q215627. This philosophical concept started in the 4th century as a an abstract concept (metaclass), that nowadays is defined by "personhood", which is an arbitrary set of qualities that make up the metaclass "person". "Natural person" is another metaclass, and as such it should not be instantiated.--Micru (talk) 10:34, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

@Ivan A. Krestinin:. Apparently, the constraint violation bot appears to consider fictional characters as subclasses of "person". I think this is because is does not take rank into account (it does not see that fictional character (Q95074)subclass of (P279)Jarošov (Q2215626) is deprecated). I think the bot should really ignore deprecated values, and perhaps also ignore normal values when there are preferred values. That said, constraint that are valid for persons should usually also be valid for fictional persons. The solution to this probably invovles fictional or mythical analog of (P1074). --Zolo (talk) 12:40, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

"Deprecated" is not equals to "invalid" so it is not simple question how bot must handle deprecated values. There are different cases. Now bot simple ignores rank. fictional or mythical analog of (P1074) is used very undetermenistic as I see. For example see [1]. — Ivan A. Krestinin (talk) 18:27, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

According to mw:Wikidata/Data model, deprecated statements are "statements that may not be considered reliable or that are even known to contain errors". So, despite the somewhat confusing name, it seems that it can be equated with "invalid", or at least, that it can be safely ignored in constraint violation checks. --Zolo (talk) 20:27, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Usage of fictional or mythical analog of (P1074) may deserve to be cleaned up - and fictional things will always be free to be messy - but I think that using it for constraint violations could lead to tolerably good results. Another solution would be to create new class items (say, if we want to accept both fictional dog (Q15720625) and dog (Q144), we can create a new item: "real or imaginary dog"), but that seems a bit cumbersome. --Zolo (talk) 19:49, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Statements like "human subclass of item with given name property" are not a good fit [are they a better fit?]

The claim "human subclass of item with given name property" is not a good fit. Subclass of is best suited as the property that reflects information-rich concept hierarchies from the real world. We should not shoehorn it to encode which properties a class has. That's not what the rest of the Semantic Web does, and there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to depart from that convention here. Other properties, like has characteristic (P1552), would be much better for that. Jura1, what do you think? Emw (talk) 15:00, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

The subclass has no pretension to work for the rest of the web or to provide a functionality for some other unheard of website. For that concept, you may as well ignore it.

It's there to provide a validation if "given name" is applied to the right items. Earlier we used a "person" class, until some contributors started adding and removing these, breaking the related reports.

We are trying various approaches and this is one of the them.

Maybe you'd want to build a sample with your idea and if it works, eventually we could replace the current approach. --- Jura 11:59, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Jura, could you provide links to discussions on this, including the situation with the 'person' class? Thanks, Emw (talk) 13:49, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Just scroll upwards on this page. BTW, do you have any links supporting your comment and a sample of a working alternative? Thanks. --- Jura 10:27, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

It is not self-evident that this claim (humans being a subclass of 'item with given name property') is useful and necessary. I think the person who adds such an unusual claim should be the one giving arguments for it. 'Just scrolling upwards' achieves nothing.

The disadvantages are obvious. Imagine that for each property with constraints an item 'item with property X' would be made. That would mean that an item like this (human (Q5)) would be a subclass of all those abstract items. Real information about what being a human entails would be eclipsed.

Regarding a working alternative, Emw already gave one: use has characteristic (P1552). And many other properties have a list of allowed items on their talk page, why wouldn't that be enough in this case?

To my relief, Filceolaire removed the claim twelve days ago. Bever (talk) 04:02, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

A similar problem below: #Human instanceOf descriptive item used as unit. It's a mess in Wikipedias if this stuff pops up there in articles. Bernd Muller (talk) 20:27, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Not all humans have given names. Some slaves don't. Some children who die, die before they are given a given name as their society doesn't give out given names at birth. The implication that people without a given name aren't human seems to be very politically incorrect and there's no reason to make it in our project. ChristianKl (✉) 13:28, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

lb:Mënsch

Please add lb:Mënsch here. 91.9.113.210 00:05, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

It has a taxobox, proclaiming it is about Homo sapiens. I added it there. -Brya (talk) 04:13, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Human instanceOf descriptive item used as unit

User:Infovarius, [2] What does it mean that this subclass of Homo sapiens is an instance of "descriptive item used as unit"? What about lions, apes, elephantes? are they also instances of "descriptive item used as unit"? Plants? Cars? TV towers? Bernd Muller (talk) 20:24, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

@Bernd Muller:, I don't know about other animals, perhaps they are also instances of this class. I found it useful for Q5 because it can be used as a unit in different statements (population, number of wounded, alumni and so on...) --Infovarius (talk) 15:21, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Anything and everything can be used as a unit, that is a completely useless item. I'll delete it now, and it should only be put here again once it is properly and unambiguously defined, what the thingy could be good for. Grüße vom Sänger ♫ ^(talk) 05:20, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

human - homonym (Q160843)

human - homonym (Q160843): 1 - taxon Homo Sapiens Homo sapiens (Q15978631)); 2 - human (mythology); 3 - real human --Fractaler (talk) 12:56, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

To provide the others with a bit of background about this cryptic words, see here on my discussion page. It started with his changes here, that were reverted, about God as the designer, clay as the material, the human is made from, etc. All this stuff doesn't belong here in this item, but in something different, probably human (Mythology). This here is about the real stuff, the homo sapiens. Sänger (talk) 13:28, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

This item Q5 deals with human as a component of human civilization, human society, etc. So, this speculation of "produced by evolution" or "created by God" is out of place here. - Brya (talk) 16:31, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Relation to anatomically modern human (Q5891007)

I have removed the statement human (Q5)subclass of (P279)anatomically modern human (Q5891007). See Talk:Q5891007. Mushroom (talk) 16:31, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

supersets

organism (Q7239) --Fractaler (talk) 06:41, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

If you would start writing in sentences, perhaps anybody could understand, what your purpose could be. This is just the utterance of a word without any purpose, at least obviously.

Do you want to know, discuss, change, interpret, whatever anything? Cryptic utterances of single words are not helpful at all. Sänger (talk) 08:35, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

I mean: Q5 - set, organism (Q7239) - superset --Fractaler (talk) 13:11, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

So you want to know, whether your assumption, that human (Q5) is a part of organism (Q7239) is something, other editors agree with, is that right? Sänger (talk) 16:24, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Actually I think he means to know if it's a subclass (see Help:BMP). A class thing has "instances", ie. stuffs that exemplifies the concept of a thing (I'm a thing). I have also parts (my arm is a part of myself). A class C is a subclass of a class M if any example of C is an example of M. Any human is a being, the set of all humans is hence a subset of the class of all beeing, hence human is a subclass of beeing. And not a part. But also, any human is a mammal ... author  TomT0m / talk page 17:19, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Please note that human (Q5) is already a subclass of organism (Q7239), just not directly: human (Q5) → omnivore (Q164509) → animal (Q729) → Opisthokont (Q129021) → Unikont (Q964455) → eukaryote (Q19088) → Biota (Q2382443) → organism (Q7239). Mushroom (talk) 17:25, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

About nation (Q6266): the part of (P361) property implies that all humans are part of nations, which is false. They can be, but not necessarily. Mushroom (talk) 17:33, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Ok, but supeset humanity (Q1156970) ⊃ set nation (Q6266). Superset nation (Q6266) ⊃ set ????? --Fractaler (talk) 15:39, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

human - homonym (Q160843). And for eхample = "human organism". Subset "human organism" ⊂ set organism (Q7239).--Fractaler (talk) 15:39, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Subset Biota (Q2382443) ⊂ set taxon (Q16521), subset taxon (Q16521) ⊂ set taxonomy (Q8269924). Homo sapiens (Q15978631) ⊂ set taxon (Q16521), Q5 ∉ taxon (Q16521). Subset Q5 ⊂ set common name (Q502895) --Fractaler (talk) 15:39, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

???? Can't you write in proper sentences instead of this gibberish? Sänger (talk) 16:40, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Ок, 1) Biota (Q2382443) is a subset of set taxon (Q16521). 2) taxon (Q16521) is a subset of set taxonomy (Q8269924). 3) Homo sapiens (Q15978631) is a subset of set taxon (Q16521). 4) Set Q5 is not a subset of taxon (Q16521). 5) Set Q5 is a subset of set common name (Q502895). --Fractaler (talk) 17:08, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

???? Still not clear, what you want to do/change/implement/criticise/say. Sänger (talk) 17:57, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Only to say: subset "human organism" (those Q5) is a subset of set organism (Q7239)--Fractaler (talk) 18:12, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

It would help if words like "set", "subset", "superset" and "homonym" were not used. But Q5 is not about "human organism". - Brya (talk) 18:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Ok. Human is an organism? --Fractaler (talk) 10:48, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

No Q5 is not an organism. But Q15978631 is an organism. - Brya (talk) 11:12, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

"Homo sapiens" is not an organism (real object), just name (taxonomic name, unreal object, an abstract in the Biological classification, identifier (Q853614)): The binomial name for the taxonomic species of the human population is Homo sapiens. Like carbon (Q623) is chemical element (Q11344) (table cell, group (Q16887380), abstract), but carbon-12 (Q1058364) is atom (Q9121) (real object), you can detect it --Fractaler (talk) 12:52, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

OK, to be precise. Homo sapiens is a name (a "binominal" name, not a "binomial name") for a class of organismes, and thus the identifier for such an organism. On the other hand, Q7239 is the class of all organisms. - Brya (talk) 16:18, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Homo sapiens - homonym: 1) Homo sapiens (name, identifier, taxonomic rank (Q427626)) (systematics object, unreal object, for example Homo sapiens sapiens); 2) Homo sapiens (organism)=human (real object, for example Albert Einstein) --Fractaler (talk) 10:37, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

No, Homo sapiens is not a homonym of Homo sapiens sapiens, and Homo sapiens is not a homonym of "human". - Brya (talk) 12:27, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Of course Homo sapiens is not a homonym of Homo sapiens sapiens. Homo sapiens = "Homo sapiens (name, identifier)" and "Homo sapiens (organism)". And if "Homo sapiens (organism)" is not a homonym of "human", then why in Also known as - human, man, mankind, woman, womankind, people? --Fractaler (talk) 14:18, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

You may want to look up what a "homonym" is. - Brya (talk) 17:29, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

homonym (Q160843) - one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings. Word "Homo sapiens", different meanings: 1) name (abstract); 2) (live) organism (real - human, man, mankind, woman, womankind, people). Like carbon (also homonym) - 1) chemical element (abstract) 2) carbon atom (real). Like word "Albert Einstein" - 1) name; 2) human; 3) street 4) statue 5) Automated Transfer Vehicle and so on. --Fractaler (talk) 07:27, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

1 (live) organism File:Vampyroteuthis_illustration.jpg, but 11 names: 1) Vampyroteuthis infernalis Chun, 1903; 2) Cirroteuthis macrope Berry, 1911; 3) Vampyroteuthis macrope Berry, 1911 4) Melanoteuthis lucens Joubin, 1912; 5) Watasella nigra Sasaki, 1920; 6) Danateuthis schmidti Joubin, 1929; 7) Hansenoteuthis lucens Joubin, 1929; 8) Melanoteuthis schmidti Joubin, 1929; 9) Melanoteuthis beebei Robson, 1929; 10) Retroteuthis pacifica Joubin, 1929; 11) Melanoteuthis anderseni Joubin, 1931 --Fractaler (talk) 07:27, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

This last bit of 1 organism and 11 names seems to have nothing to do with this discussion? OK, lets take "one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings" as a basis. Homo sapiens (actually two words, not one word) is a name, and this name can be used to indicate a taxon, or an organism belonging to this taxon. That still is only the one name, not several names with the same spelling but applying to different taxa. I have no idea why somebody added "human, man, mankind, woman, womankind, people" to Q15978631, but this is a Wikimedia project and users do add the weirdest stuff. But Q15978631 is about Homo sapiens. On the other hand Q5 is about "human", or perhaps "human person", or "person". Obviously "human" does not have the same spelling as "Homo sapiens". - Brya (talk) 11:41, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

1 organism and 11 names - other example (organism and organism's name), like human and labels. So, we have delete "human, man, mankind, woman, womankind, people" from Homo sapiens (Q15978631) and Homo sapiens from Q5? --Fractaler (talk) 14:36, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

We should indeed delete "human, man, mankind, woman, womankind, people" from Homo sapiens (Q15978631), as far as I know Homo sapiens is not present in Q5. - Brya (talk) 17:45, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

or an organism belonging to this taxon => this means that I'm a homo sapiens. I'm also a human ... so every human is a homo sapiens. That would definitely qualify for

⟨ human ⟩ subclass of (P279) ⟨ homo sapiens ⟩

. Also, or an organism belonging to this taxon this works for the parent taxons as well ... that's why subclass of (P279)  could definitely use instead of parent taxon. Said differently : wikidata does not deal with name but with concepts. Those two concepts are indistinguishable ... the taxon has a name ? great. Is this taxon the name itself ? definitely not. That's where your reasoning fall apart Obviously "human" does not have the same spelling as "Homo sapiens" => the spelling of a denomination is totally irrelevant to define the concept. author  TomT0m / talk page 20:26, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Term "human" - English common name (Q502895). English common name (Q502895) - English common/general terminology (Q8380731). But term "Homo sapiens" - taxonomy (Q8269924). taxonomy (Q8269924) is not English common/general terminology (Q8380731). taxonomy (Q8269924) uses Latin (Q397) (and only, no English common/general terminology (Q8380731)) --Fractaler (talk) 07:40, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

wikidata does not deal with name but with concepts - with URL. For example, "http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5" is http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/1), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/2), ... https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/n). URL is not a concept. --Fractaler (talk) 07:52, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

In the relationship "word<->meaning" and in the relationship "Qid (or URL) <-> meaning" it seems to me that "word" and "Qid" are on the same place. By "Wikidata deals with concepts" I mean that what's interesting in Wikidata is "meaning". That is, Wikidata does not focus on "words", their place is mainly on the "label" part of the data model. If you prefer, in this relationship, the URL is like another label. Following the string, biologic taxonomy deals with organisms, not with the taxons who models them. In my humble opinion, biological taxonomy is a specific kind of classification. So we should find a way to express that taxons are essentially a kind of classes. Or, at the very least, to express a relationsip between Q5 the other item, something like "equivalent class" or "class with the same instances". author  TomT0m / talk page 10:12, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

"word<->meaning" - how about disambiguation? the same place - URL without words. URL is like another label - universal, global, common label (all languages use wikidata's URL, wikidata's term). biologic taxonomy deals with organisms - the first problem is terminology (Q8380731), vocabulary (Q6499736), glossary (Q859161), etc: intersection (Q185837) of this -> no transitive Wikidata property (Q18647515) (=chaos (Q1787424)). For 1 word = 1 meaning we need use 1 terminology (Q8380731) (no disambiguation) --Fractaler (talk) 14:01, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

We need disambig because the "word<->meaning" is not a mapping, but a n-n relationship (one word can have several meanings, one meaning can have several associated word. In wikidata, we should not have a need for disambig because an item should have a clear definition. "For 1 word = 1 meaning we need use 1 terminology (Q8380731)" => not enough. Wikidata is designed to be able to present different viewpoint, which means that we're able to use several terminologies. But ... if we have several terminologies which use different terms for one meaning, does that mean we need two items for each terms ? No of course, we'll have to analyse if the definitions are the same ... In the end this does not help us here to know if a human is an homo sapiens. However it's hard to argue that this is two really different stuffs or if the "home sapiens" taxon is just what we call "humanity" or not. Terminologies are not always disjoint, plus what is interesting for us is less the terms themselves than the definitions of the terms. author  TomT0m / talk page 17:05, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata is designed to be able to present different viewpoint, which means that we're able to use several terminologies - viewpoint uses terminology (Q8380731) (we can see words). There are: 1) Terminology with a large number of homonym) 2)Terminology with a little number of homonym. Now Wikidata at first step of evolution (few URL type 2) ). So, now - present only 1) viewpoint. For example, still no pages for human (also homonym) : 1) human (science), 2) human (religion), 3) human (philosophy), 4) human (naive viewpoint), 5) human (society), ..., n) etc. Without such clarification, we will have chaos as now --Fractaler (talk) 08:17, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

P3512

@Brya: what is the proper way to describe locomotion methods of a human? d1g (talk) 10:21, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Not. This item is about a human as a member of human society. - Brya (talk) 10:36, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Should I repeat edits for Q15978631 item then? d1g (talk) 10:46, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

My guess would be no. There already is the property "gait", which seems to include this already. - Brya (talk) 10:50, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

opposite of (P461)

human corpse (Q42335118)--Fractaler (talk) 18:33, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

A human corpse is the opposite of an animal corpse? - Brya (talk) 18:50, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

live humam, person (Q5) is the opposite of a human corpse --Fractaler (talk) 19:03, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

The problem is cadaver (Q48422) is mixing cadaver, carrion (Q202994), carcass (Q2432249), human corpse (Q42335118) ... --Succu (talk) 21:30, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean, cadaver (Q48422) (dead body) = carrion (Q202994) = carcass (Q2432249) = human corpse (Q42335118) and is homonym (Q160843). But en-description for cadaver (Q48422): dead body, no homonymy (Q21701659) --Fractaler (talk) 13:33, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

The problem is the perspective adopted. "Human" can be defined from any number of perspectives, and in each there could be an opposite (robot is opposite of human, slave is opposite of human, etc). It basically is nonsense (logic = nonsense). - Brya (talk) 03:51, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

I support all arguments by Brya. --Infovarius (talk) 09:04, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean, that description Q5 (common name of Homo sapiens (Q15978631), unique extant species of the genus Homo) said, that Q5 is not organism (Q7239), but is common name (Q502895)? --Fractaler (talk) 13:33, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

dead human (Q18093576) is human corpse (Q42335118)? --Fractaler (talk) 09:54, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Probably not: Winston Churchill may be regarded as a dead person; he can be found in history books. Human corpses are found in mortuaries. - Brya (talk) 11:41, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Can be found in history books as common name (Q502895) or as organism (Q7239)? --Fractaler (talk) 13:29, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Can be found in history books as a member of a class, of which the members go by the common name "human". - Brya (talk) 19:24, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

When a user (person, bot, knows nothing about any "member of a class") uses Wikidata as a hierarchy of concepts (ideally), he gets the following chain: Winston Churchill (Q8016) is human (Q5). human (Q5) is common name (Q502895). So, Winston Churchill (Q8016) is common name (Q502895). --Fractaler (talk) 05:41, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Only if he looks wrong. What Wikidata says, is Winston Churchill is human; human is instance of common name of Homo sapiens. - Brya (talk) 05:48, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

"common name of Homo sapiens" is "common name"? --Fractaler (talk) 06:14, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Obviously not. - Brya (talk) 11:49, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

And "evolution of Homo sapiens" is not "evolution"? --Fractaler (talk) 12:18, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

"Homo sapiens" is just a Latin name. Is it OK to assign Winston Churchill as an instance of Homo sapiens sapiens (Q3238275) instead? "Human" is so ambiguous. Ghouston (talk) 09:42, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

To be precise, Homo sapiens is not a Latin name. I don't see that Homo sapiens sapiens is less ambiguous than "human". Before you attempt to assign Winston Churchill as an instance of Homo sapiens sapiens (Q3238275), you had better organize a RfC, this is quite different from how everbody does things here. - Brya (talk) 11:49, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Homo sapiens (or Homo sapiens sapiens) is an ambiguous. I don't understand the instance concept (there is a theory of sets, everything else is its synonyms), but I think that a species (just a line in the list of all species) has either a living or extinct representative. If we use scientific terminology, then it will be Homo sapiens sapiens (organism), if non-scientific terminology, then human (organism). And then we have Winston Churchill (name) and Winston Churchill (dead person). The less ambiguities, the greater the order. And vice versa. --Fractaler (talk) 12:18, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Supersets

part (Q15989253) (of human social group (Q874405))? --Fractaler (talk) 16:58, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

P373 value, Commons category

I recently changed the Commons category (P373) value to point to c:Category:Homo sapiens and User:Brya changed it back to c:Category:People. However, I also asked at Property talk:P373 whether it makes sense for two Wikidata items to link via P373 to the same Commons category, and the answer seems to be that it doesn't. We already have Category:People (Q4047087) and Category:Homo sapiens (Q9414408) with their associated main items that link to these Commons categories, so it seems that P373 should be left blank on this item. Commons doesn't have a category for the common name of Homo sapiens. There is structural difference in that Commons considers "People" to be a subcategory of "Homo sapiens", while on Wikidata Homo sapiens is a subclass of Person, but I'm not sure what to make of that. Ghouston (talk) 23:02, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Be that as it may, what really stands out is that a link here to c:Category:Homo sapiens is really very wrong. If this is linked to an item it should be Homo sapiens (Q15978631) (as indeed it is). I am not aware of any community decision not to have Commons categories in regular items (items not on Categories), that is to restrict them to items on Categories. Maybe that would make sense in the long run, although I estimate it would be quite disruptive in the short term. Anyway, there are extremely many items (items not on Categories) that have a statement linking to Commons categories. In the meantime, a link to c:Category:People is useful here, if only to prevent users from putting in the superwrong c:Category:Homo sapiens. - Brya (talk) 04:07, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

I don't understand. Having a link to c:Category:People doesn't prevent anybody changing it to Homo sapiens. I already did it yesterday, but I accept that it's wrong because that Commons category is already associated with Category:Homo sapiens (Q9414408). However, the link to c:Category:People seems equally wrong, because c:Category:People is already linked to Category:People (Q4047087). I'm not sure how to judge that one is super wrong, and the other just wrong. Ghouston (talk) 06:31, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Category:People (Q4047087) is a Category-item. - Brya (talk) 06:59, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Sure, and it's already linked to c:Category:People. Category:Homo sapiens (Q9414408) is also a category item. Commons category (P373) values are intended to go on article-type items anyway. Ghouston (talk) 08:35, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Also for a long time I do not understand division Category:Humans (Q6697530) (humans) and Category:People (Q4047087) (people). "People" is not "humans"? "humans" is not "people"? What is the difference? --Fractaler (talk) 11:07, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Homo sapiens (Q15978631) is not a Category-item, nor are an immense number of items that have {{P}373}}. - Brya (talk) 12:00, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

According to enwiki the distinction between Category:Humans (Q6697530) (humans) and Category:People (Q4047087) (people) is that human = 1 person and people = a collective so big that it is not considered to consist of persons. The Commons category People is about humans, not about what enwiki means by People. - Brya (talk) 12:06, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

"collective so big that it is not considered to consist of persons" - ok, of whom, then, does so big collective consists? --Fractaler (talk) 12:21, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

According to deWP (which is of the same definition quality as enWP, enWP is just one of a lot of WP, by no means it has any definition power over other projects) Category:Humans (Q6697530) is about the (sub-)species, Category:People (Q4047087) is about concrete persons, also fictional ones, not species. Sänger (talk) 16:13, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

As to the collective see en:People.

        As to different wikis, very likely more than one concept is involved here, if somebody would care to put things in order. In this case, dewiki will be an odd duck, not because of any less "definition quality", but because dewiki routinely has two categories for taxa, which usually get two Wikidata items. In this case, the dewiki category has just been swept up in an indiscrimate gathering. - Brya (talk) 17:25, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

The deWP has as well a completely different concept for categories in most cases as the enWP, I don't know about other projects, but the enWP is always taken as a bad example on how to definitely not construct a consistent category system on the deWP ;) There are two different types of categories, that must never ever be mixed: thematic categories and object categories, i.e. is a vs. has a connection to. It's hard enough to get items with slightly different meanings in different languages in one WD-object, I don't really think this is so much useful for categories, where everything depends on local definition, and most is not really interobjective. Why use cats at all here? Sänger (talk) 18:25, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

en:People:A people is a plurality of persons. So, people is group. Group of persons. --Fractaler (talk) 18:13, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

That's only the definition of one single project in the huge wikiverse, it's definitely not the definition of the current connected item in deWP, and I don't know about the other hundrets of projects with the same definition power. Sänger (talk) 18:29, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Ok, by your version, people is a group or not? --Fractaler (talk) 18:40, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

I've already written it above: By the currently linked Kategorie in deWP it's not necessary. One is about the Taxon, the other is about concrete, even fictional, persons. So just leave this out completely, as the cats are not defined in the same way in all projects, they are thus useless as items here. Sänger (talk) 18:59, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

A fictional person isn't a person, any more than a fictional president of the USA is a president of the USA. However, it's possible to imagine "person" being a superset of individuals of Homo sapiens; perhaps it can include other species of animals, AIs, and undiscovered aliens. In that case, we can declare Homo sapiens to be a subclass of People, so that any individual declared an instance of Homo sapiens also inherits personhood. But then the categories on certain other Wikis, such as Commons, don't use this expanded definition, and their People categories represent instances of Homo sapiens. The Wikidata category item that represents such categories shouldn't be associated with person (Q215627).

Then we have this human (Q5) item in Wikidata. If we were just creating a database of things that exist, there'd be no need for such an item. You'd just assign a "common name" property of Human to Homo sapiens (Q15978631) and also add "Human" as an alias (the common name is already there, the alias isn't). However, Wikidata includes more than just items that represent real-world concepts: it can also have an item for every Wikipedia article and category, and we do have human (Q5). I think it's a mistake to use this item in a big way, such as identifying individual people as instances of Human: they should instead be instances of Homo sapiens (ignoring the Homo sapiens sapiens item, which may be reasonable.) Ghouston (talk) 04:58, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Actually, to avoid needing to change a million items, human (Q5) is clearly the older item in Wikidata, and originally represented the human species from a data modelling point of view. It really makes no difference whether it's label is Human or Homo sapiens (ideally the other would be an alias). The other item Homo sapiens (Q15978631) was obviously added somewhat later to reflect the fact that enwiki has two articles for the same real-world concept (probably just after enwiki created it): it would be nice it could be marked in some way on Wikidata as useless for data modelling. Ghouston (talk) 05:14, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Supersets

part (Q15989253) (of humanity (Q1156970), people (Q2472587))--Fractaler (talk) 19:52, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

human (Q5) is not a subclass (=specialisation) of part (Q15989253) as you suggested. --Succu (talk) 20:09, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

The set "human" is a subset of the set "part of people"? --Fractaler (talk) 05:58, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

inverted human and human who may be fictional

For some reason this property was a subclass of "human who may be fictional". Where it would seem more correct to have the grouping the other way, otherwise we have those humans who are definitely not fictional as a subclass which is wrong. I have removed that subclass, and made the other a subclass of human. If that is incorrect, then we need to step back to just having them both as subclass of person and not have them overlap at all.  — billinghurst sDrewth 23:54, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

@billinghurst: I think it's correct for this to be a subclass of "human who may be fictional". Conceptually "human who may be fictional" contains both "fictional humans" and "real humans". Our standard practice is to tag real humans with P31 Q5, so I don't think we should change to say explicitely "real human". ChristianKl (talk) 01:16, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Really? Are you telling me that you are possibly fictional? I don't believe it, in fact in your being proven to be real, you are should not ever be offered that subset. If you are using the word "may" best they could be is side-by-side as "may" defines options, and real people are factually not possibly fictional.  — billinghurst sDrewth 03:02, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

While the label "human who may be fictional" suggests that fictional humans belong to human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568), the current categorization (with human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568) being a indirect sublass of hypothetical entity (Q24199478) and hypothesis (Q41719)) doesn't: probably nobody assumes that Harry Potter or Charles Swann (Q2960274) exist at any time or place in reality. human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568) is for legendary or mythical human beings, that are/were assumed by some worldview, culture, religion, etc.

As it is highly dubious if those mythical/legendary beings that make up the class of human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568) existed (and often with strong evidence that they didn't) I would not make human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568) a subclass of human (Q5) because this way you smuggle legendary/mythical beings into a class for things that existed.

In my opinion it was ok to have human (Q5) as a subclass of human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568), even though it somehow implies a highly sceptical world view. I won't oppose the deletion of this relation, but I don't think that the inversion is a good idea. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:27, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

With the use of the English language labels here, if we are talking Venn diagrams, the "humans who may be fictional" sits inside "human" they are a subset, not a superset, or they sit entirely beside as a separate set. If you want that to be a superset, then change the label to clarify that it is a superset, something like "humans, including those who may be fictitious" (noting the two changes to including and the term fictitious). I had already excluded clearly those who are clearly characters of fiction.  — billinghurst sDrewth 12:23, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Just to clearify: My answer was a reaction to ChristianKl's claim

"Conceptually 'human who may be fictional' contains both 'fictional humans' and 'real humans'.".

I was explaining why human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568) (I'm speaking about the item with the number Q21070568 as it is connected to other classes) should not be a superclass of fictional human (Q15632617).

Actually I'm quite indifferent if human (Q5)} should be a subclass of human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568). I just don't think you should make human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568) a subclass of human (Q5), so if you want to leave them unconnected, I'm fine with it.- Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 13:39, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

My understanding is that human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568) refers to all nonfictional or fictional humans. Perhaps the label should be changed to be clearer, and avoid the ambiguity of "may". (Another issue with this item and related items is that we've incorrectly been using "fictional" to also mean that which is "nonexistent"/"hypothetical"/"incorrect", as opposed to specifically imaginative literary creations, but that should probably be discussed elsewhere.) --Yair rand (talk) 17:32, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

@Yair rand: I have difficulties with that definition and use and due to real case scenarios. The Dictionary of National Biography (Q1210343) has articles where these people have specifically been treated as real people at the time of the writing of the biography, though the modern day treatment of the people described in those biographies now doubts that they were true. A query to find those would be something that says instance of (P31) -> human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568) and described by source (P1343) -> Dictionary of National Biography (Q1210343). So they may be real people, how else would you define them?  — billinghurst sDrewth 20:30, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

It seems trickly. It would be clearer to have an item for "humans whose existence is disputed", but what would count as disputed? Many religious figures like Mohammed, Jesus, Moses or Buddha would probably end up attached to it. Ghouston (talk) 00:35, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Discussion on human (Q5) vs Homo sapiens (Q15978631)

There's a discussion at Wikidata:Project chat#Multiple items for the same concept that's relevant to this item. Ghouston (talk) 02:43, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

It seems there is some sort of agreement that the distinction between human (Q5) and Homo sapiens (Q15978631) causes problems on Wikidata, although no real enthusiasm for my proposed way of fixing it. Ghouston (talk) 23:16, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

There was only one user who responded, and he disagreed with you. Anyway, to achieve a storage of structured data, it is not helpful to delete structure. - Brya (talk) 03:49, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

human (Q5) is non-scientific term, but Homo sapiens (Q15978631) is scientific term of the same simulated object. Ie, it turns out that the links need to be duplicated both for human (Q5) and Homo sapiens (Q15978631). But supersets will already be different for them (human (Q5) - in the trivial space, Homo sapiens (Q15978631) - in the scientific space) --Fractaler (talk) 16:58, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

"Human" is not a non-scientific term, but different sciences apply. - Brya (talk) 17:28, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Is the term "Human" the taxonomic term? --Fractaler (talk) 18:26, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

No, the term "Human" has nothing todo with taxonomy. --Succu (talk) 19:08, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Scientist uses term "human" in article, if it can be understood as homonym? --Fractaler (talk) 19:31, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

I didn't want this discussion to be about whether "human" or "homo sapiens" is the best term to use. I don't really care, and I suggested picking one and making the other an alias. However, having two items on Wikidata for the same thing causes problems: a) other items on Wikidata link randomly to one or the other, and there's no sensible way to decide which one they should be using b) links between Wikipedias aren't set up properly, because some Wikipedias link only to "human" and others link only to "Homo sapiens". I don't know how many are like English in having a page for both. Ghouston (talk) 22:07, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

There are two different items for two different concepts, each item with its own statements. Structured data, as it should be. It may well be that not all sitelinks are placed optimally, but placing them optimally would require work, as would maintaining the optimum. It may also be that two items are not enough and that we really should have three, four or more items. - Brya (talk) 05:20, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

They do claim to be about different concepts. human (Q5) describes itself as an instance of common name, of Homo sapiens, so apparently it's an item about a name and not about the actual species. In that case, shouldn't it be site-linked to wiki articles that only talk about the common name? It's also described as an instance of Q22302160, but I don't understand what that's about. Homo sapiens (Q15978631) on the other hand, seems to be a straightforward item about a species of animal. Ghouston (talk) 06:10, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

picking one and making the other an alias: Sooner or later so it seems and will be. The main only remain the terms of the scientific dictionary (as most accurately describing the world), and trivial words will remain as atavisms and rudiments, as an outdated name of the scientific term. But now most of those who use "human" instead of "homo sapiens". Fractaler (talk) 07:48, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm sceptical that human (Q5) is set up to be used for anything unscientific and Homo sapiens (Q15978631) for the rest. If we had a single item for Homo sapiens, with Human marked as the common name, how crazy would you think I was if I suggested splitting them, without any clear explanation of the basis for the split? Ghouston (talk) 08:10, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

I mean, where science is needed, accuracy (ie, lack of homonymy), "homo sapiens sapiens" (single-valued term, non-homonym) is used. In all other cases "human" (homonym (Q160843)) Fractaler (talk) 08:21, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

We just need an item for humans, as we exist today, it really makes no difference whether its (English) label is "Human" or "Homo sapiens" or "Homo sapien sapiens". I prefer human just because it's shorter and likely to be easiest for people to use. When we want to contrast some other group found in the fossil record, then of course those groups will have their own items. Ghouston (talk) 08:56, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

So, we have 2 cases: 1) humans, as we exist today 2) group found in the fossil record. What item for 1)? For 2)? --Fractaler (talk) 09:20, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

The item 1) is just human (Q5), because that's what individual humans are instances of. All of the properties on Homo sapiens (Q15978631) also apply to these humans, so Homo sapiens (Q15978631) should be merged into human (Q5). For the fossil humans, we just have items like Cro-Magnon Man (Q179234) as required. Cro-Magnon Man (Q179234) would also be a subclass of human (Q5), I suppose, because human (Q5) is somewhat inclusive. Ghouston (talk) 09:34, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm contradicting myself by saying that we should have an item for humans "as we exist today" and then suggesting that item also includes fossil Homo sapiens. I think most statements about "Homo sapiens sapiens" would also apply to "Homo sapiens" though. There's nothing really special about the division of Homo sapiens sapiens, and since we don't have living examples of the other human groups to compare, it's somewhat of an academic distinction, and one that could change depending on what views are popular among scientists. Ghouston (talk) 09:46, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

+Homo sapiens idaltu (Q131686): human? Homo sapiens? --Fractaler (talk) 09:58, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes to both. Ghouston (talk) 10:19, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

The way that species should be defined is controversial in science at the moment[3]. "New species of Orangutan discovered:" [4] Somebody has proposed that a group of Orangutan should be a separate species, because they are found in a particular geographical area, and have minor physical differences like frizzier hair and a different diet. How many species would you divide Homo sapiens into if you applied criteria like that? Ghouston (talk) 10:27, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Now human (Q5) is person (Q215627) (is object with family name (Q101352), pseudonym (Q61002),date of birth (Q2389905),marital status (Q1282093),given name (Q202444), etc.). Homo sapiens idaltu (Q131686) also is person (Q215627)? --Fractaler (talk) 11:23, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Is there any reason why Homo sapiens (Q15978631) shouldn't be person (Q215627) too? Ghouston (talk) 22:06, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

human (Q5) subclass of (P279) person (Q215627), but people (Q2472587) subclass of (P279) human social group (Q874405), and human social group (Q874405) subclass of (P279) group of humans (Q16334295) ... weird stuff. Ghouston (talk) 22:14, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

The Idaltu belongs to Homo (Q171283), as does the current human, known as Mensch, Homo Sapiens or Homo sapiens sapiens, as you can see all redirects to the first one, and in the same category Homo. Sänger (talk) 22:32, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

You'd have to look carefully at each different language Wikipedia to work out what each of its articles is about. That German article seems to be about Homo sapiens, with common name Mensch, and refers to de:Archaischer Homo sapiens as a sub-article. en:Human, on the other hand, says it's about Modern humans (Homo sapiens, primarily ssp. Homo sapiens sapiens), but then it talks about early Homo sapiens evolution and there's another article en:Anatomically modern human, so I'm not really sure in that case. Ghouston (talk) 00:44, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

That's the general problem with WD: It tries to press items in certain meanings that are not always inter-language, and often enough the enWP is used as a reference or fix point, while this has no validity at all, enWP is just one project among many with no special weight at all. It was fine as long as WD was only the location to store interwikilinks and pure data like number of inhabitants, birthdates, LOC-numbers etc., but now, as WD is expanded to explain and define the whole world in tons of interlinked items and qualities, this is no longer the case. Those definitions are often enough impossible to make intercultural, as a lot of definitions are just cultural agreements. Sänger (talk) 08:53, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

•  Comment The human / homo sapiens debate is no different from the similar sets of common animal vs. species name. It exists for animals and plants, and it reflects how they have been used in the wikis, eg. London (Q84). It may be less than perfect, but that is how it is, and presumably now we manage it. Scientific discussions down the tighter species path, the broader holistic path for the social aspect/construct.  — billinghurst sDrewth 02:37, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

There's a way to deal with Wikipedias having multiple items for the same thing: mark some with Wikimedia permanent duplicate item (Q21286738), so that they don't confuse the relations in Wikidata. I'm not sure if that's appropriate for en:Homo sapiens. It probably just needs an item "Homo sapiens as a taxonomic classification" which can then be ignored. Ghouston (talk) 05:43, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

As they represent different concepts, it would be a gross distortion to mark them as "permanent duplicated pages". - Brya (talk) 05:53, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

The only different concepts I can see is that maybe human (Q5) represents "modern humans", which would be a subclass of Homo sapiens (Q15978631). Otherwise, I'm mystified. Ghouston (talk) 06:09, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

In that case you are contradicting yourself: above you wrote "Homo sapiens (Q15978631) [...] seems to be a straightforward item about a species of animal", which means you did see a distinction. - Brya (talk) 06:49, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, there's a distinction in the current setup, but not one that makes any sense to me. human (Q5) is a subclass of person, but not a subclass of Homo sapiens. It's also an instance of common name, and of Q22302160. Ghouston (talk) 08:18, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

If "Homo sapiens (Q15978631) [...] seems to be a straightforward item about a species of animal", then that item is not a problem. This item, human (Q5) is very heavily used, so there is a very solid consensus that it is sensible as it is. If you want change, you should come up with a plan to address that consensus rather than posting here on this Talk-page. - Brya (talk) 12:12, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

It's not 100% the same. Currenlty, human implies personhood while homo sapiens doesn't.

If there's the idea of merging there's also the question of whether we label anything as human which is "homo sapiens" but not "homo sapiens sapiens". ChristianKl (✉) 12:41, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

There is no difference between this two items, if deWP would be used as the reference, those two would definitely be merged. We could link the redirects in deWP to those identical items here, but afaik that's not really encouraged to do. Anyway, any proclaimed difference between these two identical items is only valid in the exact cultural, language specific and scientific circumstances as the one proclaiming this difference. Sänger (talk) 13:06, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

It wouldn't bother me if human (Q5) was used to refer to humans as they currently exist, i.e.. all currently living humans and humans in the historical record; notable ones are already declared to be instances of this item; along with all fossil humans who are apparently identical. That would exclude Neanderthal (Q40171), which are now classified as either a species Homo neanderthalensis, or a subspecies Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. This is pretty much the definition of Homo sapiens sapiens (Q3238275), which would have to be marked as a duplicate of this item. Homo sapiens idaltu (Q131686) is also claimed to be distinguishable from living humans. Using this item for living humans and their identical ancestors should be well-defined, even if scientific classifications change, and it would be a subclass of Homo sapiens (Q15978631). Homo sapiens (Q15978631) itself seems ambiguous, since whether Neanderthals are included or not depends on which classification is used: I'm not sure how Wikidata handles such variations in taxonomy. I suppose it picks a preferred authority? Ghouston (talk) 21:33, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

On the whole Wikidata does not "pick" any taxonomic authority, but includes all taxonomic concepts. - Brya (talk) 06:18, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Includes for whom/what? --Fractaler (talk) 08:13, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

What is a process: 1) human, or 2) homo sapiens sapiens?

I think human is a process (Q3249551) (visible, obvious process of confinement of atoms in one place, the creator (tool) is ontogeny (Q193603)), and homo sapiens sapiens is result (Q2995644) (of process, of phylogenesis (Q2393320); tools: mutation (Q42918) genetic variation (Q349856), etc.). --Fractaler (talk) 12:09, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

I don't have the faintest idea, what this sophistry with a lot of imho nonsense interlinking of items is about. A human is an entity, not a process. A human is a homo sapiens is a homo sapiens sapiens, that's all just the same. None of this items is a process, but some are clearly superfluid. Sänger (talk) 13:09, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

"Human" is the name of the process of holding a combination of atoms together during a person's life. Sometimes this combination can be quite beautiful. The end of this process (the retention of atoms together) is called the death of a human. So, in addition to the process of retaining human atoms, you can also observe the process of decay of a human (the decay of the atoms that made it up). Death of a species (homo sapiens sapiens) is a species extinction. --Fractaler (talk) 13:41, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

This is not a philosophy seminar, this is a database of facts. Your superficial sophistry is imnsho useless blahblah without any real-world use for WD. What's the purpose of this strange concepts you try to introduce here? Sänger (talk) 13:49, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

The philosophy seminar is where terms are used without a clear definition. database of facts: point (Q44946) is fact (Q188572)? Or, for example, entity (Q35120) is fact (Q188572)?

I think use of unclear terms is realy "useless blahblah without any real-world use for WD". My goal: to give a clear definition of "human", "homo sapiens sapiens", which ensures their transitivity. can you say, for example, human zygote (Q170145) is a human? Human embryo (Q33196) is a human? Human organism (Q7239) is a human? human corpse (Q42335118) is a human? When did the human begin, when did he continue, when did he end? The beginning, the middle and the end are the signs/properties of what? And similarly for "homo sapiens sapiens". --Fractaler (talk) 08:01, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

And as there is no clear definition of when a human being starts to be a human being this discussion is futile. Ask a catholic, a hindu, an atheist, whatever about this, and you will get 10 answers from 5 people. So there is no way to define it here, why bother? Sänger (talk) 08:18, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Oh, thanks, one more term! "Human being" is a "human"? How about "homo sapiens sapiens being"? And if there is no way to define it here, how is it possible to classify? Why then all these disputes on this page and in the project chat? We can just use a reliable, evolution-tested method - a random selection method. If some random description does not survive, we will try another. Someday it turns out to be brought into conformity with reality --Fractaler (talk) 08:56, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

There is no need for your sophistry here, just leave it. WD will never and should never be a model of the world, it's just a database for data in the other projects in the wikiversum. Sänger (talk) 10:12, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Are you sure? --Fractaler (talk) 12:43, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I am. And I know from several encounters with your erratic editing pattern here that you have some very strange and unfathomable agenda, that doesn't fit the consensus. You add a lot of nonsense, a lot of futile and nonsensical relations nobody really wants, and you often write completely illegible stuff in strange syntax. Sänger (talk) 16:38, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

So as not to take the topic aside, can I put this statement (WD will never and should never be a model of the world, it's just a database for data in the other projects in the wikiversum) here? If so, do you need to specify the author of the statement?

If you do not understand something, please ask, I will be happy to explain, as, for example, here Fractaler (talk) 07:48, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

About strange and unfathomable agenda, completely illegible stuff in strange syntax, etc. Look: "Fractaler is someone who knows English". Is it true nonsense, etc.? Does Fractaler know English? And now we introduce a subset: "Fractaler is someone who knows English very little". --Fractaler (talk) 07:48, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

To answer your question in the commentary: clear interlanguage definitions are pure luck, and will never be a) complete and b) correct. It#s a bit like Gödels Gödel's incompleteness theorems (Q200787): You either have a complete, or a consistent set of axioms, but never both. So don't bother to reach one, and don't abuse WD to get one. Variatio delectat. Sänger (talk) 19:06, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, 2D people from Flatland (Q728312) will never understand what a ball is. Passing the ball through their flat world will be as follows: the point that changes in the diameter of the circle is again a point. But if they mutate, then a new (3D) world will open for them. Then a) and b) problem go far away. Fractaler (talk) 20:36, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

So you will never understand WD, did I get this right? You try to press the very various realities of different cultural background in a strict corset of useless relations, defined at random by your own understanding of "The World". Forget it, don't try, just leave it. It's not worth a damn. There are far too many subtle differences in the definition of most items in various languages, it will never fit all, so it will be a hegemony of some random (OK, probably english, as english, probably even just the american variety of it, are often enough taken as a fix point, while they never ever deserve this (as does russian and german and esperanto...). Sänger (talk) 21:05, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

What does it mean "to understand"? For example, to say which superset, subset(s), element(s) has a set? Yes, we now can say, which superset, subset(s), element(s) has, eg, a set human (Q5). Does this correspond to reality?

by your own understanding - own? Is it possible for a scientific point of view to belong to someone? The scientific point of view can not be someone's. It belongs to science, not to human.

Yes, people use terms from the people vocabulary. WD creates its own dictionary, glossary of terms of the WD terminological space. It can use a person only through an interpreter (as now through label, alias, description, links, relations, etc.). When the machines have the opportunity to add items themselves, describe the world/space, objects that a person does not perceive (for example, objects >3D, radiation object, ultraviolet object, infrared object, etc.), then the human (he will already be in the role of "flat human from Flatland (Q728312)") really can not understand (those, why superset Q234*1, but not Q234*2, where subsets Q234*3, elements Q234*100_500? etc., because: no label, no description, no alias for human, but only relations) what the machine added. And then the struggle of machines with the person for the right to add information corresponding to reality will begin. --Fractaler (talk) 07:44, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

????

What's this supposed to mean? More machine nonsense, like the trolling imports from Botpedias, that clog the database without any real value (ceb. and sv. as the worst examples, where LSbot creates lot's of nonsense without proper validation from external databases, and disregards and duplicity, subtlety and so on)? That's a nightmare for thinking people. Feed ceb. from here could be OK, but not the other way around, wikipedia is no valid source, and a botpedia even less. Machines should always take fifth, sixths or hundredth seat in comparison with real people, I couldn't care less but about machines. Sänger (talk) 12:21, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Botpedia, LSbot is an object that understands >3D objects? Or do they perceive radiation (infrared, ultraviolet), ultrasound? This means that while Wikidata are used only to describe the model of the world within the framework perceived by human for human. The machines will not have these frames. They can better describe the reality. --Fractaler (talk) 12:39, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Judging by the results, it seems dubious that Lsj is a human, as no judgement seems involved. And it is possible that "machines [...] can better describe the reality", that is for machines with that same outlook. But that is not the purpose of Wikidata: the machines should start their own project. - Brya (talk) 04:52, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Let Skynet (Q478507) create its own botpedia, imho even take LSbot with it, and leave us here with John Connor (Q376577) ;) Sänger (talk) 10:19, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

The problem is that no one can formulate the purpose of Wikidata of the Wikidata. --Fractaler (talk) 15:10, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Instance of common name conflicts with subclass of Person

Right now human (Q5) is both instance of (P31) common name (Q502895) (for three items, including Homo sapiens sapiens (Q3238275)) and subclass of (P279) person (Q215627). This is a conflict per constraints of subclass of (P279). —⁠andrybak (talk) 12:09, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

subclass of (P279) person (Q215627) was recently added. I have no real idea what it means (perhaps it should be reversed?), but removing it seems the simplest solution. - Brya (talk) 16:04, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi, but if we just remove person (Q215627), all human (Q5) items have a warning saying human (Q5) need to have a subclass of (P279). — eru ^{[Talk] [french wiki]} 16:29, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

subclass of (P279) person (Q215627) was there since ever and should stay there. Wikidata items describe real world concepts, not the name of the concept. So remove all these "instance of name" because a specific person, e.g. George Washington (Q23), is not a name. --Pasleim (talk) 16:36, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Pasleim: I see you are right: subclass of (P279) person (Q215627) has been there for a long time. I am sorry for responding hastily. This "Conflicts with “instance of (P31): common name (Q502895)" has been there since 12 May 2013, but there seems to be no reason given.

        Lots of things that are known by common name are classes, and are subclasses of another class. I agree that "instance of: common name" is awkward; it was adopted as a temporary measure, pending a discussion which never came. Perhaps "instance of: concept known by a common name" or "instance of: group held together by a common name" would be better? - Brya (talk) 03:36, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Although a statement has been there for a long time, it doesn't mean that it could not be wrong. The statement subclass of (P279) person (Q215627) should be replaced with subclass of (P279) Homo (Q171283). Also, the relationship is rather the reverse, person (Q215627) should be subclass of (P279) human (Q5). Actually, several of the properties which now describe human (Q5) should rather be properties of person (Q215627) instead. I'm proposing that Homo sapiens (Q15978631) should be merged with human (Q5). Saarik (talk) 09:20, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Instance of "group of organisms known by one particular common name"

Human instanceOf "group of organisms known by one particular common name" ? 78.54.224.108 16:14, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

human is an instance of group of humans

@Ghouston: The elements of "group of humans" are "humans". Thus, "human" is an instance of "group of human". --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 10:47, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

I think, "group of humans" would be a subclass of Humans. Since Humans is the set of all humans, and "group of humans" is the set of all groups of humans, each group being a subset of "humans". Ghouston (talk) 10:50, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

No, maybe that doesn't work either, I'm not sure what the relationship is. Ghouston (talk) 10:51, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Obviously, one particular human is not an example of a group. - Brya (talk) 11:10, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

I think Eulenspiegel1's statement is true in a sense. human (Q5) represents all humans, including past and future, which is a particular group of humans, so it's an instance of group of humans (Q16334295). It would probably just confuse people though. Ghouston (talk) 11:36, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Brya, that's why "human" is not a subclass of group of human. "X subclass of Y" of means: Every example of X is also an example of Y. "human subclass of organism" is a true statement. Because every example of a human is also an example of an organism.

Yet, we don't talk about subclass of (P279). We talk about instance of (P31). And here, "X instance of Y" means: X is an example of Y. And human (Q5) (which represents all humans together) is an example of "group of humans". In particular, human (Q5) is even the biggest group of humans. --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 11:50, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Makes no sense: human (Q5) represents the class of all humans together. On the other hand, group of humans (Q16334295) is a discernable group of humans, set apart from other groups of humans, not the not-discernable class of all humans together. - Brya (talk) 14:24, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

group of humans (Q16334295) is not a group, but the set of all possible groups. Each instance would be a particular group. Each instance would also be a subclass of human (Q5). Ghouston (talk) 23:54, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

OK, group of humans (Q16334295) is the set of all possible discernable groups of humans, different from other groups of humans. Each instance may also be a subclass of human (Q5), although not neat classes (with characters neatly differentiating them). - Brya (talk) 07:09, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

1. group of humans (Q16334295) is the set of all groups of humans, which have an own article in Wikidata.

2. What do you mean with "different from other groups of humans"? When two groups are not different, then the two groups are similar and you use the Property said to be the same as (P460) or permanent duplicated item (P2959).

3. What is the biggest group of humans? The biggest group of humans is the group which contain all humans. This is human (Q5).

4. human (Q5) is a discernable group. I assume, it is the most discernable group of humans. Yet, even if it's not the most discernable group, it is at least a discernable group. --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 09:22, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

• OK, group of humans (Q16334295) is the set of all sets of humans, which have an own article in Wikidata.
• By "different" I mean "different" = discernable. Pretty basic choice of word.
• Q5 is not a set of humans, it is the class of all humans, probably the vaguest class of all.

Brya (talk) 10:37, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

• In any case, I don't think it's useful to add the statement, because it doesn't really add any useful information, and even if you convince us, it's only a matter of time before somebody else deletes it because it doesn't look right. Ghouston (talk) 10:40, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Brya,

1. Different means "discernable"? Normally, these are two different meanings. Yet, it doesn't matter. The description of group of humans (Q16334295) is "any set of human beings" it's not "discernable set of human beings".

2. Q5 is not only a class, it's also a set. For example, it's an instance of organisms known by a particular common name (Q55983715). Every class which is an instance, is a set. The differece between set and true class is: A true class cannot be an instance.

3. Why is human (Q5) vague? It's extrem well-defined which organism is in this group and which organism is not in this group. There exists many other groups where it is much more complicated to decide whether someone is in the group or not.

Ghouston, it add the information how the two articles belong together. Also it helps for programs: If you have a class (in this case group of humans (Q16334295)) you can define some properties to this class and then apply them to the instances.

Why it doesn't look right? It doesn't look right (and it isn't right) if a set is not instance of the group of this set. --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 13:58, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

It is highly dubious if Q5 is a set, since it is so vague a class. It is not a matter of organisms: Q5 consists of named individuals of a society. Given how many societies there are, and how they differ in recording individuals, the class is very vague. Anybody trying to define it as a set will be faced with years of work trying to eliminate errors, duplications, etc. - Brya (talk) 14:47, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

If something is a set and if something is vague are two different things! There exist vague sets and there exist well defined true classes.

You think: "If something is vague, then it is not a set." That is wrong!

Why it is not a matter of organism? Human is a subclass of organism. And it is an instance of "group of organisms known by one particular common name". So it is a matter of organism.

What errors, duplications etc. do you mean? --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 16:29, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Sets are discrete. Q5 is not a subclass of organism. And the "instance of "group of organisms known by one particular common name" " is a makeshift construction, for want of something better. It is not really applicable here. Q5 is an exception to most anything. - Brya (talk) 17:07, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

No, there exists non-discrete sets: For example $\mathbb {Q}$ or $\mathbb {R}$ (see rational number (Q1244890) or real number (Q12916) are non-discrete sets. Nevertheless, "human" is a discrete set. There is no continuum. Between two humans there aren't infinite other humans.

"human is subclass of organism" means "Every example of human is an example of organism". If you think that's wrong, give me an example of human which isn't an example of organism.

Why is "group of organisms known by one particular common name" not applicable here? "group of organisms known by one particular common name" and "group of humans" are both groups. And in both cases "human" is an instance of it.

What do you mean with "makeshift construction"?

What errors, duplications etc. do you mean in your answer before? --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 18:10, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Any human isn't an example of organism. A human is not a "which" either. Given the central position of Q5, you need to convince a lot of users of your point of view for the change to be accepted. So far you have not convinced many. - Brya (talk) 18:59, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

I convinced Ghouston: First he said it is not right. Now, he said it looks not right.

So we are on the same line what's right and what's wrong. We can discus now, if the information is useful. We don't talk about if the information is right, because about this I convinced him. We will also talk about what is more important: If the information is right or if the information looks right.

In contrast, you didn't convince anybody.

It's hard to convince you, because there is a misunderstanding of the basics:

When you started the conversation you mixed "instance of" and "subclass of".

After I explained you that this is wrong, you argued, "human" is not a set because it's vague.

After I explained you that there also exist vague sets, you argued that it is not a set because sets are discrete.

After I explained you that there also exists non-discrete sets, you didn't answer to this line.

So, if there a better understanding of the basics (What is a set? What is the difference between instance of (P31) and subclass of (P279)?) it's much more easy to convince you. Yet, first we have to clarify the basics.

A much lesser problem is the understanding of human (Q5). For example, I'm not a human robot, I'm not a human machine, I'm not a human thing, and I'm not a human concept. I'm a human organism. And all other humans I know are also no robots, but organisms. So, I am very surprised that you know an example of a human who is no organism. Of course, in science-fiction there exists some fictional human (Q15632617) who are no fictional organism (Q30017383). Yet, all real human I know, are real organism. Or do you say that biology is wrong? --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 22:28, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't need to convince anybody, since I am not proposing a change. - Brya (talk) 03:59, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Let's focus on the content: You believed that human is no set, because sets are discrete. I explained you that there exists non-discrete sets. Is there any other reason that you doubt human is a set? --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 22:24, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

How are world population (Q11188) and group of humans (Q16334295) related? --Succu (talk) 22:30, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

What about ethnic group (Q41710)? --Succu (talk) 22:38, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

ethnic group (Q41710) is simple: ethnic group (Q41710) subclass of people (Q2472587) subclass of group of humans (Q16334295).

world population (Q11188) is a little bit more complicated. The current relation is: world population (Q11188) subclass of human population (Q33829) subclass of group of humans (Q16334295).

Yet, looking at the articles of world population (Q11188), "world population" is a number. Or in other words: World population (at time $t$) = group cardinality (P1164) "human living on earth (at time $t$)". --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 22:57, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Is the answer sufficient? Are there any other doubts or concerns that human (Q5) is a set? --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 11:22, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Why should we treat humanity (Q1156970) as countably infinite set (Q185478)? Another instance of?--Succu (talk) 21:51, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

I doubt hunter-gatherer (Q27443) should be treated as group of humans (Q16334295). --Succu (talk) 22:28, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

way of life (Q24034076) should be part of the theme. --Succu (talk)

It is not a set. It is unknowable, with its definition subject to change without notice. - Brya (talk) 12:07, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Why you mean the definition subject change without notice? The definition of human is clear. Look at the human rights. It's clear, which organism counts as human and which organism doesn't count as human. --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 12:39, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

I can see some difficulties. It may be OK for living humans, but it's not possible to place a boundary at the point where the first "human" appeared (we are taking "human" as "Homo sapiens"). This is a problem with species in general. So it's not possible in principle to build a set of all humans who have lived, even if aliens appeared and gave us DNA samples and video recordings of everybody into the distant past, because there's no sufficiently precise definition. The set would also be constantly changing since new humans are born all the time, more than one per second on average. It's also not clear if humans who aren't born yet are covered by the item, and obviously we can't enumerate them. Ghouston (talk) 21:31, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Two answers:

1st answer (main answer): If the first person is unknown and there exist future person, this doesn't matter.

See for example European people (Q394067): There is: European people (Q394067) instance of ethnic group (Q41710) subclass of people (Q2472587) subclass of group of humans (Q16334295). Thus, European people (Q394067) instance of group of humans (Q16334295).

All your concerns to "humans" also apply to "Europeans": The first European ist not exact defined. There are also constantly new born Europeans. Nevertheless, European is an instance of "group of humans".

This shows: Even if the first person of a set is unknown. And even if there are future persons in the set, the set can be an instance of "group of humans".

"Europeans" is not exat defined: Imagine a person, who have a house in West-Istanbul (European side) but live at his/her friend in East-Istanbul (Asian side). Is this person an European or an Asian? It's not exactly defined.

2nd answer (less important answer): Human is very well defined: All organism which belong to the same species as Carl von Linné (Linnæus) are humans.

Two organism A and B belong to the same species if one parent of A and one parent of B can bear a child together which can bear a child.

Thus, the first human is well defined. Even if we don't know this person. --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 01:38, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Sure, "Europeans" are even more poorly defined than humans. We end up with groups that are more like the "categories" that cognitive linguistics people talk about [5]. I'm uncertain if any of this helps identify the relationship between "humans" and "groups of humans", since the poorly defined term "humans" appears in both, so whatever it may mean, they can still potentially be in agreement. Ghouston (talk) 02:16, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

The description of "group of humans" is "any set of human beings". The description is not "only non-category sets of human beings". Thus, it doesn't matter if the set is a category or not as long as it contains only humans. --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 10:51, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Once again, Q5 is not defined in terms of species. Whether or not an individual is accepted as part of a species is not directly relevant for Q5. What matters for Q5 is if an individual is accepted as part of a society. - Brya (talk) 07:12, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Why it matters if an individual is accepted as part of a society? It matters if an indivdidual is accepted as human. The name of the group is NOT "group of human societies". The name of of the group is "group of humans". A group of human society is also a group of human. Yet, there can also exist other group of humans who have nothing to do with society.

And once again, all you said would also apply to European people (Q394067). Yet, "European" is an instance of "group of humans". This shows that your argument about society doesn't matter. --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 10:51, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

European people (Q394067) is not called "European". It's not a class where indvidual European people like Albert Einstein are instances of that class. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 14:52, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

It may show it to you. Given the misconceptions you harbour on Q5 this does not appear to mean much. - Brya (talk) 11:19, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

OK, if there are no further objective arguments, you try an argumentum ad hominem. I could answer like: "It doesn't show it to you. Given your misunderstanding of the difference of instance of vs. subclass of, given your misconception of sets and your misconception of human, it doesn't mean much." Yet, this answer would be as unproductive as your answer. Thus, I try a more objective answer which focus more on arguments rather than on the other person.

1. I will not only claim, that "European" show, that the society-argument doesn't matter. I will explain, why the society-argument doesn't matter.:

The "European" is even more poorly defined than humans. (See the answer of Ghouston from 02:16.) Yet, if the poorly defined "European" is well enough defined to be a set, than the much better defined "human" is more than ever good enough defined.

There is unclear who was the first European. Nevertheless, European is an instance of "group of human". Thus, a set can be an instance of "group of human", even if the 1st person of this set is unclear.

2. Also I gave you two explanations why your argument is wrong. One explanation with the Europeans. The other explanation was, that the group is "group of humans" and not "group of human societies". Of course, we could first discuss the one explanation and afterwards we discuss the other explanation. Yet, it would be much more productive if we discuss the two explanations at the same time.

3. And last but not least: I asked you a question: "Why it matters if an individual is accepted as part of a society?" It would be very helpful for the discussion if you answer questions, instead of insulting the questioner. --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 19:39, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

As to the last, Q5 deals with humans as part of a scociety. As to convincing, it is upon the user who wants to add something to convince others.

        You are arguing on the basis of your brand of logic, but the reality is that logic is one of the biggest sources of error in the WMF-franchise. - Brya (talk) 06:08, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

The article Q5 is called "human". It is not called "humans as part of the society". Thus, all humans are instances of Q5. Of course, there exist humans who are not part of any society, e.g. recluses. Yet, even these humans who are not part of any society are instances of Q5. --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 15:40, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

You are going round in circles. - Brya (talk) 03:32, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

No, I'm not going round in circles. These are new arguments. Where did I argue before, that Q5 is "human" and not "humans as part of the society"? Where did I argue that humans who are not part of the society, e.g. recluses, are instances of Q5? --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 07:36, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

@Rest: @Ghouston, Succu:

Maybe "human" is not perfect defined. Yet as shown, other groups like "Europeans" are even more bad defined and are still instances of "group of humans". Thus, even bad defined groups can be instances of "group of humans".

Are there any further concerns or doubts that "human" is an instance of "group of humans"? --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 14:06, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Going round in circles may mean that you agree with yourself, but nothing beyond that. - Brya (talk) 18:24, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

No, going round in circles mean, that someone brings the same arguments. That's not true.

I bring new arguments and you bring no arguments. --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 20:35, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Your terminology (Q8380731) is ambiguity (Q1140419). Is your "group" used in the sense of set (Q36161), class (Q217594) or more adequate in the context of an ontology (Q324254) class the frame WD is devoted to? --Succu (talk) 21:02, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Some pre context. --Succu (talk) 21:56, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

• human (Q5) is a class in relation to individual humans. It isn't a group. To me it seems like the initital comment in this thread confusing the nature of what a class is with what a group is. There's some group of humans that encompasses all instances of human (Q5) but that group is not represented by human (Q5). ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 14:47, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Uses of "has quality" P1552

The statements for has characteristic (P1552) seem -- really questionable (or else I'm misunderstanding them). The property description says it should be applied to "non-material" properties, and human skin color (Q853516) and human facial hair (Q1847641) don't seem to satisfy that! Could someone clarify this (and/or remove the incorrect statements)? JesseW (talk) 07:18, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

"human skin" is a material. Thus, it's wrong to say "human has quality human skin". It's better to say "human has part(s) (P527) human skin" or "human skin part of (P361) human".

"human skin" is a material thing but "human skin color" isn't. Thus, it's wrong to say "human has part(s) (P527) human skin color" or "human skin color part of (P361) human". Because the color of the skin is no object (in opposite of the skin itself).

Thus, you say "human has part human skin" but "human has quality human skin color".

For facial hair I'm unsure if "has part" or "has quality" is the better one. --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 12:39, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

How does human skin color (Q853516) helps to distinguish individuals from each others (=groups)? --Succu (talk) 22:40, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Read the description of has characteristic (P1552): "the entity has an inherent or distinguishing non-material characteristic". human skin color (Q853516) is an inherent non-materia characteristic. --Eulenspiegel1 (talk) 13:32, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Why is there no link to the French Wikipedia article?

Although there are 189 entries  – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sebdm (talk • contribs).

@Sebdm: because the French Wikipedia has no article about this concept. Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 10:33, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Individual humans are no longer organisms

Via this discussion, I noticed that items that are instance of (P31) human (Q5) are no longer considered to be organism (Q7239). This seems to be due to the removal of the subclass of (P279) omnivore (Q164509) link.

Motivating example.

I've readded the omnivore (Q164509) link to fix this issue - please let me know what you think. --- ElanHR (talk) 17:40, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Edit: A better visualization from @TomT0m: --- ElanHR (talk) 17:46, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

• I don't think omnivore (Q164509) is very helpful: firstly because it's not accurate, since some humans eat only plant-based food, so these humans aren't instances of omnivore (Q164509). Secondly, it doesn't establish that humans are hominids, apes, primates, mammals, animals, etc. Ghouston (talk) 22:59, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• The first point is perhaps mistaken, since "Omnivore" may only imply an ability to survive on meat and plants, not a requirement that every individual does so. Ghouston (talk) 23:03, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes, omnivore is more an ability to eat "everything" than an actual diet, so you can be vegan and omnivore, there is no contradiction here (and it's not limited to human, Panda eats almost only bamboo but is omnivore/carnivore). Cheers, VIGNERON (talk) 11:08, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

@ElanHR: I integrated this view in a gadget. author  TomT0m / talk page 15:20, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Updated links for TomT0m's tool: Wikidata:Tools/Enhance user interface#Classification.js and Wikidata:Project chat/Archive/2019/08#Work in progress : a gadget to visualize class trees and subclass-of paths between two classes - See also Template:Item documentation. Daask (talk) 15:45, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

subclass of human

This claim currently exists: academician (Q414528)subclass of (P279)human (Q5). However, it feels wrong to me to actually use this as a class, eg. Albert Einstein (Q937)instance of (P31)academician (Q414528). I'm wary of using instance of (P31)anything alongside instance of (P31)human (Q5). Is there a policy on this? It feels like bad practice from my experience, but I don't remember where I derived this sentiment from.

In any case, I'm actually wondering what this means for academician (Q414528). Is it bad practice to have subclass of (P279)human (Q5)? Should we remove that claim from academician (Q414528)? If so, what about this other claim that currently exists: academician (Q414528)subclass of (P279)member (Q9200127) and member (Q9200127)subclass of (P279)legal person (Q3778211)? It seems odd to have academician be a subclass of legal person (Q3778211) but not human (Q5).

Related but separate discussion is at Talk:Q414528 § How should this be used?

Daask (talk) 15:33, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

There are quite a few subclasses like that, as you can see by querying it (257 results). The subclass statements seem correct to me, but individual humans are still only "instance of human" by convention.

SELECT ?item ?itemLabel WHERE { ?item wdt:P279 wd:Q5. SERVICE wikibase:label {bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en"}
}

Try it!

Ghouston (talk) 21:45, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Why does homo sapiens have it's own item?

They are literally the same thing. 2620:0:2820:2001:85D5:83F6:5BBD:4FA8 21:45, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

A human is a member of species whereas Homo sapiens is a species. Thus, "human" is a class whereas "Homo sapiens" is not a class but rather an individual entity. Admittedly, this is rather technical. Nonetheless, having distinct entities in Wikidata is key for maintaining ontological precision. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:15, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky: Actually taxa are classes too. Indeed, we have that individual of taxon (P10241)subproperty of (P1647)instance of (P31). We just make an exception for humans, for which individual of taxon (P10241) is not used. We use instead the superclass instance of (P31) indicating the common name (Q502895) (human (Q5)) instead of the scientific name (Q10753560) (Homo sapiens (Q15978631)). --Horcrux (talk) 10:01, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

It seems that you are right and that my explanation as a rationale for having two entities is incorrect in so far as it does not match the wider Wikidata practice. (The explanation could theoretically be used as a rationale to drive a systematic separation practice, but it isn't.) Some background for my thinking follows.

Grammatically, whether taxon is seen as a class depends on the manner by which it is referred to. When it is referred to by a common name, which takes an indefinite article and a plural, it is indeed a class, at least grammatically. However, when it is referred by a proper name/scientific name, e.g. Amanita muscaria, it is not a class, at least grammatically.

When these two manners of reference are combined in labels and aliases of one entity, e.g. Q131227 Amanita muscaria/fly agaric, it seems the entity is treated as a class and an instance at the same time, that is, as if the common name were the primary label, by being connected by subclass-of relation to another entity. And Wikidata does not seem to care about systematically generating a massive duplication to separate common names from proper names. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:37, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

What, then is rationale for having two entities in Wikidata? Let me produce some speculation. "Man/human" is not necessarily the same concept as "homo sapiens". The former can be defined as "that animal or being which alone in the world, as far as we know, uses language to transmit results of classification of observed things under headwords". This may be not 100% accurate but seems to be approximately correct. By contrast, "homo sapiens" is a natural kind that results from a particular biological classification made in some rather late point in time of the existence of humans, distinct from subspecies "homo sapiens sapiens", and depends on the concepts of species and subspecies. Man/human and homo sapiens are coextensive (referring to same individual entities), but that does not make them the same concept. Man/human is a concept available (under whatever name) to the ancients and to a prehistoric man; that is not true of homo sapiens.

Again, a speculation; perhaps someone will find it interesting. Or someone has a better or truer explanation for the reader. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:51, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Instance and subclass

How is human subclass of person, shouldn't this be other way around? Also, I recently reluctantly used human as an instance for monarch; it seems to me that instance=human should be used every time where subject is human - for example, monarch must be human, but worker can be machine; professor must be human, but lecturer can be machine, and so on ? Santasa99 (talk) 05:21, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

properties for this type (P1963)

for everyone reading in Ayack removed a many properties for this type (P1963) statements in this item with the statement:

There are almost 3000 properties for authority control for people. We won't add them all to this item...

@Ayack: Okay, I see your point. Lets limit properties for this type (P1963) to those properties that most humans are expected to have. Most external ids seem to be for a very specific subset of humans. – Shisma (talk) 19:05, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I perfectly agree with Ayack. --Horcrux (talk) 19:42, 3 February 2024 (UTC)