Topic on Talk:Wikibase/Indexing/RDF Dump Format

Disputed interpretation

In an edit at wikidata:Help:Dates Jarekt changed a statements to read "Wikibase software interprets years 1801-1900 with precision 7 as 19th century" and "Wikibase software interprets years 1001-2000 with precision 6 as second millenium". There is discussion on the associated talk page.

I believe Jarekt is referring to the interactive user interface, but I consider it wrong to refer to that interface as "Wikibase software". I believe the RDF API is just as much a part of Wikibase software as the interactive interface. The RDF data model documentation indicates RDF follows ISO 8601 and XSD 1.1 standard. Both of those indicate precisions by truncating the unneeded information. So, for example, for precision 100 years and a year of 1900, it would be truncated to 19 and understood to include any year from 1900 to and including 1999. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:30, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

RDF Dump Format deals with how data is stored not what it means. Current Wikidata standard of interpreting concept of 1st century as years 1-100, second century as years 101-200, etc. and 1st century BC as years 100 BC-1 BC, is perfectly consistent with international understanding of those terms for hundreds of years.See 1st century, etc. If you like to redefine those term than discussion on ''RDF Dump Format'' talk page is not the right place. Wikidata is not consistent with ISO 8601 and XSD 1.1 standards, which is unfortunate but as wikidata:Help:Dates mentioned Wikidata dates are "resembling ISO 8601" but do not follow it. Other difference is how we store BC dates and section d:Help:Dates#Years_BC explains conversions which are done to from the format used by Wikidata to RDF Dump format.

I do not understand your point about of Wikidata GUI not being part of "Wikibase software". I never tried this but I believe that if you create a different instance of wikibase using wikibase software than it comes with the GUI. So I am lost...

When I wrote "I consider it wrong to refer to that interface as "Wikibase software" I meant that the interactive user interface is not the only Wikibase-provide method to read and write data, so that writing as if the meanings implicit in that interface were followed by all intefaces is incorrect. I completely reject the notion that "RDF Dump Format deals with how data is stored not what it means." Explaining what the RDF Dump Format means is the purpose of this page.