Wikidata:Property proposal/leased to - Wikidata

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I was editing items for railway companies, trying to trace the evolution of ownership and control of different parts of the UK railway system in the 19th century, and realised we didn't seem to have a property to express this -- a basic economic concept, relevant across a wide variety of domains, as the examples show.

There are a handful of cases where people have added statements of the form significant event (P793) = lease (Q716894) (query:https://w.wiki/BLAj), but even then people seem to have been stuck for a way to indicate the beneficiary of the lease:

• Statement [1] on Girl with a Pearl Earring (Q185372) uses significant event (P793) = lease (Q716894) / owned by (P127) = which is surely wrong, and confusing;
• statement [2] on AsiaSat 8 (Q17486654) uses significant event (P793) = lease (Q716894) / used by (P1535) = , which may be the least bad option so far, but still doesn't seem quite right (eg for a painting? Or the New Territories?);
• statement [3] on Lucas Espinoza de Brito (Q104153397) is weird, because there the subject is the lessee rather than the object leased, and hard to interpret, so may need re-structuring anyway;
• some other statements use significant event (P793) = lease (Q716894) / operator (P137) = , which again seems not quite right, at least not for the more general case.

So it looks to me that we do need a new property here.

If we do make this a qualifier on a significant event (P793) = lease (Q716894) statement, there may then be some latitude for the new property to have a broader meaning than specifically "lessee", perhaps it could be something like "recipient" or "beneficiary", given that lease (Q716894) would already be conveying that the context was a lease. Broader, more widely usable properties are often a good thing. (But on the other hand might such a broader new property get misused in ways we might not want, or get used when people ought to be using other, more specific properties?)

Another possibility might be to try to alter or slightly re-purpose the existing afterward owned by (P11812) or the (barely used) destination of transfer (P12694); but adapting the first one would go against its focus on ownership (which is good and clear); while adapting or using the second may risk making statements incomprehensible. So it does still look to me like a new property is needed here.

(Aside: WD:WikiProject sum of all paintings may have thoughts on whether there is a need for an appropriate analogous qualifier for significant event (P793) = loan (Q3777645) / commodate (Q1580844) / long-term loan (Q94796160) and other events that may transfer possession but not ultimate ownership. However from this 2023 discussion Long-term loan it looks like the project may be moving in a different direction for that. Also note also that long-term loan (Q94796160) is defined to be a legal status, rather than an action).

* (Proposal noted at Wikidata_talk:WikiProject_sum_of_all_paintings#Possible_new_property_for_"beneficiary_of_transaction_that_transfers_possession_or_usage_but_not_ownership"_? -- Jheald (talk) 13:45, 27 September 2024 (UTC) )[reply]

• On balance, having thought about it some more, my   Support is for the proposal as written. For two reasons: 1) Yes, there is value to using the significant event (P793) = lease (Q716894) mechanism where the lease is one historical event amongst many. We might even include a Wikidata usage instructions (P2559) note to encourage this. But where the lease represents a current ongoing state of affairs (eg the Hippie Hollow Park (Q5768318) case ?), rather than a historical event, then to my mind it makes more sense to make the "leased to" a main statement in its own right; 2) there is a virtue to clarity and simplicity, expressing one particular concept and doing so directly; "leased to" achieves this. So it is "leased to" that I recommend for this property, rather than anything broader or less direct. -- Jheald (talk) 02:14, 28 September 2024 (UTC) (proposer).[reply]
•   Notified participants of WikiProject Companies Jheald (talk) 20:40, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
•   Support Makes sense. I'm not aware of any other applicable property, a solution with significant event (P793) is clearly substandard. --Jklamo (talk) 22:33, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
•   Support clearly needed. -PKM (talk) 22:07, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]