Training modules/dashboard/slides/12803-a-wikidata-item

A Wikidata item

This image shows different elements for Wikidata items.

This is an example of what a Wikidata item looks like.

At the top are the label and the item identifier (the Q number). Each item has a unique item identifier that distinguished it from all other items on Wikidata. The label is the name of the item in English (or whatever language you have set up). Because Wikidata is multilingual, it's possible that the label will be different depending on the language you have set on your computer.

Labels may not always be enough to help human readers distinguish one item from another. In addition to the well-known author Douglas Adams, there's a British painter (Q21454969), an American engineer (Q28421831), and even an American cricket player (Q10268476). So how do we tell them apart? That's where the description comes in. This Douglas Adams is described as an "English writer and humorist". Another description that might help identify him could be "author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

Next to descriptions are aliases – in this case, we have "Douglas Nöel Adams" and "Douglas Noel Adams". While each item can only have one label (per language version) it can have multiple aliases. Like the description field, aliases help us to narrow down which specific Douglas Adams we're looking for.