Training modules/dashboard/slides/12802-minding-ps-and-qs

Minding your Ps and Qs

Recall from the Introduction to Wikidata training module that Wikidata consists of items, statements about those items, and qualifiers.

Items, which begin with Q, describe some entity in the world. Q2 is the planet Earth, Q42 is the writer Douglas Adams, and Q4648 is the island of Bali. Because the Q-number associated with items is difficult for humans to remember, each item also has a label which gives the name of the item in English and other languages.

Items are associated with statements which describe various properties of the item. A statement consists of a property and the value associated with that property. For Bali, the property instance of has the associated value "island". That's just Wikidata's way of saying "Bali is an island". Properties, as you recall, are P-values – "instance of" is P31.

You don't need to remember P and Q values, Wikidata makes it easy to connect them with the associated labels.