Wikidata:Property creation

This page documents the agreed procedure for creating properties.

Property creation criteria

Properties can only be created by a property creator when all the following conditions are met:

1. A formal property proposal has been made via WD:PP.
2. The proposal was made by somebody other than the property creator.
3. The proposal has received consensus in favour of creation. It is the job of the property creator to weigh consensus, but generally:
   • All opposing points of discussion should be addressed before creation occurs. If there is still disagreement, it is up to the property creator to consider the thoughtfulness and logic behind points of discussion (i.e., an opposing voice with no thought behind it should not block creation, but a single reasonable opposing voice against many supporters may do so).
   • The creator themselves should remember their responsibility to participate. If they disagree with consensus support or opposition, they should first participate rather than make a judgement call.
4. The proposal was first made over a week ago.

If all conditions above are completed, the status of the proposal can be updated to ready. Updating the status can be done by anyone and is a signal for property creators that the property is ready for their assessment and generally creation.

Create the property

1. Create the property with Special:NewProperty including the label, description and datatype from the proposal. Polish them if needed, and add any labels and descriptions in additional languages from the proposal, or in which you are fluent. As the initial version is likely to be translated in many languages, try to be thorough.
2. Add appropriate statements to the property, including:
   • instance of (P31): Wikidata property (Q18616576)/Wikidata property for an identifier (Q19847637) (or appropriate subclass(es), mandatory)
   • Wikidata property example (P1855) with the example item(s) as value(s) and the new property as a qualifier (recommended)
   • If applicable, add property constraint (P2302). (See Help:Property constraints portal for usage of this property)
   • Consider adding complex constraint (Q102745616) to the property talk page.
   • For creating external identifiers, see Wikidata:External identifiers for statements to add
   • See below for further suggested properties.
3. Copy the {{Property proposal}} from the proposal page to the talk page of the new property, rename it to {{Property documentation}}, and clean it up. The |status=, |description=, |datatype= |formatter URL=, |example=, |allowed values=, and |source= parameters (and any empty lines) should be removed from the template once the corresponding values have been added to the property and its statements and constraints; the template will pull them from there. Example: Property talk:P409.

Properties can be completed by copying from existing properties using moveClaim (Q110793966) or wikibase-cli (Q87194660).

Update the proposal page

1. On the proposal page, add the number of the property in the |status= field of {{Property proposal}}. Add a discussion closure comment if needed.
2. Notify people who want to use the new property. Generally that would be the user who first proposed it and maybe some of the other participants in the discussion. Use the {{Ping}} template below the property discussion.

Update example items

Add the new property to the example items specified in the proposal. If there were no examples in the proposal, try to find at least two, because of multi-value constraint (Q21510857).

Update navbox template(s)

See Category:Property by topic navigation templates and Wikidata:Property navboxes.

See also

• Wikidata:WikiProject Properties to discuss, analyze, and improve properties.
• Wikidata:Property creators
• Dedicated property proposal entities and namespace proposal