Wikidata/Development/Order

Several components in an entity can appear multiple times, and for most of them it is relevant to preserve their order and to allow re-ordering. This is true for the following elements:

  • The claims/statements of an entity
  • The qualifiers within a claim
  • The references of a statement
  • The snaks within a reference

Within each group, the elements retain the order in which they have been created, i.e. adding a new reference will be added at the end of the list of references in a statement.

The simplest way to implement this would be:

  • all exports should retain order for the given elements
  • in JS this probably means that we need to list the order explicitly
  • provide an API to enable re-ordering
  • implement re-ordering in the UI

Suggestion for the API:

  • wbpromote / wbdemote with one parameter which is the identifier of a claim / reference / snak (works also for qualifiers) and, if possible, pushes the identified element up or down in the order