Wikidata:Property proposal/Zoning symbol - Wikidata

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Place

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Authority control

To be able to identify the reason for the protection of buildings and areas.

The proposal includes an item-based and a string-based property for the classification.

1. String – The definitions for a given symbol vary between municipalities (in Finland), and the only way to record this information is via a string property rather than designated items, as they are in flux. The recorded zoning symbol will later assist in recording the classification item. The symbol can be used as a qualifier, a direct property on the item, or a property on the classification item, or a qualifier for the statement using the item property.
2. Item – ready for use in many jurisdictions. Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 10:35, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

•   Weak oppose I think the idea to capture the *reason* for protection makes sense but I dont agree with the approach. I think a better approach would be to use heritage designation (P1435) and then an appropriate subclass Q-item such as class A Swiss cultural property of national significance (Q8274529) or class B Swiss cultural property of regional significance (Q12126757). You can make equivalent items for Finnland which capture the information you want. If the symbols themselves are not stable, can you use a "logical" Q item that captures the logic behind protecting a certain structure (eg cultural, natural, etc). Maybe I dont understand enough what you plan to do, but to me it seems better to capture this information using a subclass of building protected by city plan (Q60986091) that expresses the intent (different levels or protection, reason for protection etc). Can you elaborate what these codes stand for that you plan to use and what their meaning is? If they are in flux, does it make sense to capture them in Wikidata? Best regards --Hannes Röst (talk) 15:00, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for your thoughtful comments! I have discussed this with the authorities managing the zoning classifications. Although the types of zoning are more consistent, the notations vary wildly. There will be work aimed at unifying the notations across municipalities and regions, but it may be years ahead. In the meanwhile, I would like to have a property to store the classification as a string, and advance to using items when the meaning becomes stable. I am using the approach to the extent you mention: The actual zoning symbol is interpreted as a broad subtype of protection. The zoning symbol would be a qualifier to that data. I think it would not make sense to make even more granular classes for protection (Items for each type of protection for each municipality). For the time being, and even in the method you suggest, a property is still needed where to write that specific zoning code. I may need to misuse an existing property, I just cannot decide which one. This resembles closest to object named as (P1932), identifier (Q853614) or the like. The reason to capture this information in Wikidata is to act as a reference when more information is added, a sourcing statement, and to provide additional detail to the entry. Cheers, Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 12:40, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a sample of the data, the 4899 protected buildings in Helsinki are described with 71 different zoning symbols for the building and 208 for the land lot. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 15:16, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am changing the examples slightly to make use of subclasses of protection. The need for the new property still remains. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 15:29, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• As it seems to be some abbreviation, couldn't you just use "short name"? --- Jura 09:23, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for pointing that out. Unluckily it would not be semantically correct to claim that "SO" is a short name for building protected by city plan (Q60986091). However, I could use it as a stopgap property to store those values. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 09:08, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • What does "SO" stand for? Acronym is an alias for Property:P1813 --- Jura 09:11, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Exactly! Different municipalities use the symbols differently. According to the Ministry of Environment guidelines, zoning symbols starting with a capital S designate some kind of protected area. SO is not among the mentioned examples. I don't know the exact meaning of the symbol. The idea would be to record the symbols with all their variance and add exact and standardized symbols when they are available, with another property that records items. Also not to take over the original research work of the authority, just record. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 13:16, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • I see. Maybe code (P3295) then. --- Jura 13:25, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • Thanks! I had myself ended up with code (P3295) myself for a fallback property :-) – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 14:13, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Unfortunately it is impossible to use item values for the zoning symbols for the Finnish material. If there's opposition towards this proposal, I would like to discuss more broadly the need for zoning symbols and their datatypes internationally. Where could this discussion take place? Cheers, Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 09:08, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
•   Support with a more specific name (for Finland). --- Jura 13:25, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you! Perhaps name it so that a possible future property for a zoning symbol with datatype item can also be named in a sensible way. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 14:13, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not sure if it's a good idea to do this large scale with strings. If you want to do an experiment for Finland, I wouldn't mind.
      I suppose we could have a property "located in planning zone" with items as values. This property could be applied to specific buildings in that zone. The item used as value would be consistent with the zones of the applicable zoning in the area. --- Jura 14:27, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thinking about this a bit more: it's indeed probably not easy to do items. Maybe we could create this as "located in planning zone with code" and apply directly to buildings and such. Once items created, one could replace it with the item based property. --- Jura 15:03, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Susannaanas: shall we updated this accordingly? --- Jura 06:49, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, that sounds good. I would like to note that there are symbols for buildings as well as areas. I don't think they need separate properties at least for now, but the naming should take that into account, so that it fits areas as well as buildings. I would myself prefer "zoning symbol" but I am happy with whatever seems best and most understandable. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 08:32, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • How about "has zoning plan status (symbol)"? Item based property would be "has zoning plan status (item)". --- Jura 10:45, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • I am ok with that. The naming can possibly be perfected later on if the professionals in the field have great suggestions. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 06:09, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • What if the name could remain "zoning symbol" and the item-based property could be called "zoning classification"? The zoning classification could also have zoning symbol as a property. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 10:58, 26 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • If the name is too short, it might just end up being incorrectly used. I agree that my suggestions are somewhat suboptimal and maybe we will come up with something better. --- Jura 23:22, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • BTW I like "zoning classification". I think it could work for both, e.g. with "(abbreviation)" and "(item)" in the property label. --- Jura 04:48, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • I am ok with that. I wonder if the property could be created soon. WLM is approaching and I need to import almost 5000 items with this property. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 06:20, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • Ok. I added the template for the item version/edited the description. BTW, I'm not sure if the qualifier "applies to jurisdiction" should be mandatory for the string version nor that the string version needs to be used as qualifier only. --- Jura 06:48, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
            • OK. The building is in the jurisdiction it is (although borders may change). For the second part, I agree that it can be used as property directly on the item. I think Example 4 is showing that. I did not make that very clear.– Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 06:52, 15 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• @Hannes Röst: what do you think of the updated proposal. --- Jura 11:26, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Weak support Personally I like the idea with the "item" better because there is meaning to the symbol but I am fine with the abbreviation as well. Since I am not an expert on Finnland, I assume the use case is there even though I think it will lead to issues to use strings and abbreviations instead of logical items that correspond to different levels of protection. I think we can store these abbreviations but they will not be very meaningful for most users of the database. On the other hand, for example in Germany/Switzerland there would only be a few zones (agriculture/business/residential/mixed) which can be represented by a Q-item for each country and then connected logically, which also make sense to store in the database and I think the second proposal makes a lot of sense there. --Hannes Röst (talk) 14:03, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I had to proceed with the import, here's how I modeled it in the absence of the property. The property will remain useful, and now we have more time to think it through thoroughly.

– Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 17:53, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I actually like this solution better than introducing a property temporarily for something that we know we want to delete again in the future. --Hannes Röst (talk) 20:39, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Somehow this suggests that the heritage status is stated as "AK" in the reference. Wasn't this about zoning in the first place? --- Jura 06:37, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]