Property talk:P937

Type “person (Q215627), group of persons (Q134601727), notname (Q1747829), job activity (Q192581), position (Q4164871), field of study (Q1047113), profession (Q28640), working animal (Q228534), organization (Q43229), project (Q170584), character (Q95074)”: item must contain property “instance of (P31), subclass of (P279)” with classes “person (Q215627), group of persons (Q134601727), notname (Q1747829), job activity (Q192581), position (Q4164871), field of study (Q1047113), profession (Q28640), working animal (Q228534), organization (Q43229), project (Q170584), character (Q95074)” or their subclasses (defined using subclass of (P279)). (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P937#Type Q215627, Q134601727, Q1747829, Q192581, Q4164871, Q1047113, Q28640, Q228534, Q43229, Q170584, Q95074, SPARQL

Value type “physical location (Q17334923), fictional location (Q3895768), watercraft (Q1229765), administrative territorial entity (Q56061), geographic location (Q2221906), workplace (Q628858), building (Q41176), human settlement (Q486972), region (Q82794), organization (Q43229), educational institution (Q2385804)”: This property should use items as value that contain property “instance of (P31), subclass of (P279)”. On these, the value for instance of (P31), subclass of (P279) should be an item that uses subclass of (P279) with value physical location (Q17334923), fictional location (Q3895768), watercraft (Q1229765), administrative territorial entity (Q56061), geographic location (Q2221906), workplace (Q628858), building (Q41176), human settlement (Q486972), region (Q82794), organization (Q43229), educational institution (Q2385804) (or a subclass thereof). (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P937#Value type Q17334923, Q3895768, Q1229765, Q56061, Q2221906, Q628858, Q41176, Q486972, Q82794, Q43229, Q2385804, SPARQL

Contemporaries:
if [item A] has this property (work location (P937)) linked to [item B],
then [item A] and [item B] have to coincide or coexist at some point of history. (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303). Known exceptions: Dura-Europos (Q464266)
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P937#Contemporary, SPARQL

Allowed entity types are Wikibase item (Q29934200), Wikibase MediaInfo (Q59712033): the property may only be used on a certain entity type (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P937#Entity types

Scope is as main value (Q54828448), as qualifier (Q54828449): the property must be used by specified way only (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P937#Scope, SPARQL

None of Palestinian National Authority (Q42620): value must not be any of the specified items.
Replacement values: Palestine (Q219060) (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P937#none of, search, SPARQL

None of Third Reich (Q518617): value must not be any of the specified items.
Replacement values: German Reich (Q1206012), Nazi Germany (Q7318) (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P937#none of, search, SPARQL

None of European Union (Q458): value must not be any of the specified items. (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P937#none of, search, SPARQL

None of China (Q29520): value must not be any of the specified items.
Replacement values: People's Republic of China (Q148), Republic of China (Q13426199), Qing dynasty (Q8733), Ming dynasty (Q9903), Yuan dynasty (Q7313), Song dynasty (Q7462), Tang dynasty (Q9683), Sui dynasty (Q7405), Jin dynasty (Q5066), Cao Wei (Q320930), Shu Han (Q320925), Eastern Wu (Q274488), Han dynasty (Q7209), Qin dynasty (Q7183), Zhou dynasty (Q35216), Shang dynasty (Q128938), Xia dynasty (Q169705), Chinese Empire (Q12060881) (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P937#none of, search, SPARQL

None of Ancient Greece (Q11772): value must not be any of the specified items. (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P937#none of, search, SPARQL

None of National Convention (Q219825), French Directory (Q219817), French Consulate (Q877619): value must not be any of the specified items.
Replacement values: French First Republic (Q58296) (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P937#none of, search, SPARQL

None of America (Q126852): value must not be any of the specified items.
Replacement values: United States (Q30) (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P937#none of, search, SPARQL

None of Africa (Q15), Asia (Q48), Europe (Q46), Oceania (Q55643), North America (Q49), South America (Q18), Afro-Eurasia (Q27527), Americas (Q828), Eurasia (Q5401): value must not be any of the specified items.
Replacement property: continent (P30) (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P937#none of, search, SPARQL

Not world value
(Help)
Violations query: SELECT ?item { ?item wdt:P937 wd:Q2. ?item wdt:P31 wd:Q5. }
List of this constraint violations: Database reports/Complex constraint violations/P937#Not world value

This property is being used by: ru:Шаблон:Персона/Ислам av:Шаблон:ГІадан/Ислам ba:Ҡалып:Шәхес/Ислам da:Skabelon:Infoboks person, da:Skabelon:Infoboks Wikidata person tg:Шаблон:Шахсият/Ислом, tg:Шаблон:Шахс/Ислом eo:Ŝablono:Informkesto sciencisto, eo:Ŝablono:Informkesto reganto, eo:Ŝablono:Informkesto sciencisto/dokumentado d:Template:Creator/statictest, d:Template:Creator/wrapper eu:Txantiloi:Biografia infotaula automatikoa hu:Sablon:Építész infobox uk:Шаблон:Архітектор, uk:Шаблон:Картка:Міфічний персонаж commons:Template:Wikidata Infobox/core cy:Nodyn:Wikidata Infobox es:Plantilla:Wikidata Infobox, es:Plantilla:Ficha de militar id:Templat:Wikidata infobox mw:Template:Wikidata Infobox/core mr:साचा:विकिडाटा माहितीचौकट/core sa:फलकम्:Wikidata Infobox ur:سانچہ:خانہ معلومات ویکی ڈیٹا/کور q:fr:Modèle:Wikidata Infobox/core de:Vorlage:Wikidata Infobox/core az:Şablon:Memar gu:ઢાંચો:Wikidata Infobox/core ta:வார்ப்புரு:Wikidata Infobox/core hi:साँचा:Wikidata Infobox/core sv:Mall:Wikidata Infobox/core s:zh:Template:Wikidata Infobox/core ckb:داڕێژە:Wikidata Infobox/core c:Template:Artwork via c:Module:Wikidata art Please notify projects that use this property before big changes (renaming, deletion, merge with another property, etc.)

should be used for all persons, group of persons, family, list of persons:

e.g. House of Este (Q677173) work location (P937) Este (Q34607)--Oursana (talk) 12:37, 25 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

list of the bishops of Padua (Q1837310) work location (P937) Padua (Q617) --Oursana (talk) 09:31, 16 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I removed the mention the restriction to artists or creator in the English and French description. That does not have any use. Other languages should be changed too. --Zolo (talk) 16:17, 13 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

I used it on "Jack the Ripper" .. somehow this seems odd. --- Jura 19:48, 28 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

"location where objects were active" <-> "active objects (for this location)"? --Fractaler (talk) 13:49, 28 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

This property is meanwhile also used to indicate the work location of a job or position, e.g. librarian (Q182436)work location (P937)library (Q7075). This has a slightly different meaning than the originally proposed one to indicate the specific work location of a specific person. Should we extend the scope or delete those statements? --Pasleim (talk) 20:21, 5 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Pasleim: extension is quite natural, please keep info d1g (talk) 18:15, 29 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

 Comment this seems to mess up the constraint and the initial definition. > del
--- Jura 08:31, 1 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

I agree with Jura1 (talk • contribs • logs). Also, this sort of expansion can be dangerous, leading to situations like Marian the librarian working not in the library in River City, but in library. Peter F. Patel-Schneider (talk) 15:27, 12 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

• In the meantime, I like the approach librarian (Q182436) uses (P2283) library (Q7075) qualified with object of statement has role (P3831) workplace (Q628858)
  --- Jura 18:22, 12 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Requiring objects to be located in an administrative territorial entity seems bad. E.g., some people work at sea or Antarctica, like Louis Bernacchi (Q19999). Ghouston (talk) 02:49, 8 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Can we have instead an object constraint for class physical location (Q17334923)? Ghouston (talk) 03:41, 8 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

May be it's better. See also this discussion: Property talk:P131#City: ATE or not ATE. --Infovarius (talk) 16:42, 9 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

I can't even put Egypt (Q79) as a work location without the warning. OK, I'll change it. Ghouston (talk) 02:56, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Let's try "instance or subclass of location". Ghouston (talk) 03:02, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Currently we have a constraint error when using a school, university or similar (including hospitals...) as 'workplace', because they are not considered as physical places. A workaround I have found is to state the school / university, etc. as the employer. However this is a bit unintuitive in some cases and even sometimes just wrong. In many countries people working in some public institutions are not considered employed by the institution ; their employer is the State, and the school / university / hospital, etc. is usually considerd as their workplace. I think a change should be introduced here. CaféBuzz (talk) 17:49, 11 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

I can only agree with that. It should be possible for a professor to specify the university as their P937. Jan Mathys (talk) 17:11, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hi, @CaféBuzz, @Jan Mathys, I think that we have affiliation (P1416) exactly for such cases. See the property proposal for P1416.

work location (P937) was meant to be used as a geographic location, not as an organizational relation. If a researcher etc. is not employed by an institution (so we can't use employer (P108)), but is affiliated with it, then we should use affiliation (P1416). If desired, work location (P937) can be the city at which they work.

There are now items where the institutions are wrongly duplicated between work location (P937) and one of the other two, causing errors in local wiki templates, while in fact the institutions should be included only in employer (P108) and affiliation (P1416) (according to employment status), and only geographic locations should be in work location (P937). E L Yekutiel (talk) 07:17, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi @E L Yekutiel. This solution seems ok indeed, thanks. Hence I suggest to complete the aliases on affiliation (P1416) ('assignement' and other synonyms) to facilitate user's researches of suitable properties. CaféBuzz (talk) 01:58, 22 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Merci beaucoup @CaféBuzz!

Sorry for my late (and long...) response. Most of it are my ideas about required changes regarding the current property (P937); but first of all, I think that your suggestion for clarifications in affiliation (P1416) is a good idea.

Regarding the current property (P937), I think that there are several things that should be done about it, but since they would affect many items, I will start a discussion about them in WD:Project chat first (which will contain much of what I'm writing here). My suggestions for P937 are:

1. Clarifying in the description of P937 that the intended usage is for geographic locations. Regretfully, this is not explicitly stated in the P937 property proposal, which only links to C:Template:Creator which "inspired" the creation of this property, without elaborating too much about the intended usage, which is maybe why this intended usage remained unclear (although the examples in that "inspiration" template page indeed use cities as the work locations).
2. Ideally, I think that educational institution (Q2385804) should be removed from the allowed value type list, under value-type constraint (Q21510865) (the second list in the property constraints). This would trigger warnings when people will try to assign non-geographical values to this property, so they can know that it is not the intended usage (it will also show these warnings in all items already using such values for this property; see 3 below).
3. Fixing current wrong usages. Currently, there are about 4700 items using P937 with educational institutions. Among them, there are about 1700 for whom the work location (value of P937) is a duplicate of the employer (value of P108), and about 2300 where there is no employer (P108) data at all, both of which are relatively simple cases (but there are many of them).

Anyway, let's see what the community will say about these suggestions, before I do anything with P937.

P.S.: during the writing of this comment, I noticed that not only educational institution (Q2385804), but also organization (Q43229) is included in the allowable type list, and to my understanding, it should be removed as well. The searches above don't work for organization (Q43229) (the query times out) so I don't have the item lists and amounts as before (maybe sub-searches will work, I'll try that later).

Sorry again for the very detailed response, and thanks again for your response! E L Yekutiel (talk) 14:59, 24 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

How detailed is it useful to document work location? For example, many people go on official work trips, perhaps to a conference or to visit a client. Should all these be added? Or should it require some sort of permanency? If so, that would likely make most scientific field trips not fit. One way to think about it that just struck me, and which resembles how some tax authorities would look at it, would be, if the employee is expected to pay for the commute or will the company pay for it. If the first, then that is the person's work location. But if the employer pays for it, it is something out of the ordinary work location. Obviously, there could be some exceptions, as the world is complex. Perhaps a diplomat is expected to divide the work in an embassy in one city and a consulate in another, and be paid for the trips in between. Or a researcher has a regular office at the university campus in a city, but spends more time at a research facility elsewhere in the country. But should an archaeologist have each three-week excavation or a biologist every one-week excursion noted (both of which may have significant impacts on the research and the field)? And at the same time, if either of those starts turning into several months long projects, perhaps it should? What would be a good balance or rule of thumb? Ainali (talk) 07:10, 2 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Sabine von Mering (talk)
Ambrosia10 (talk) 12:55, 24 August 2023 (UTC) Daniel Mietchen (talk) 13:00, 24 August 2023 (UTC) Dag Endresen (talk) 13:10, 24 August 2023 (UTC) MNHNL pbraun (talk) 13:22, 24 August 2023 (UTC) AHendriksen-collecties (talk) 12:38, 25 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Notified participants of WikiProject Research expeditions, who may have thought on this. Ainali (talk) 07:25, 2 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

WikiProject research expeditions has suggested using this property on research expedition items to show the locations where work has been undertaken during that expedition. See for example Q101428109 (this is currently the only research expedition item that uses the work location property in this way). The reasoning is that using this property helps distinguish these work locations from locations the expedition may just have stopped at. For example an expedition may call into a particular port to collect supplies but no research may have been undertaken at that location. The WikiProject has also used this property to give locations where a person has been collecting specimens but is NOT participating in a research expedition. Using the work location property in this way solves the issue of what to do with such data where the collecting trip is not regarded as a research expedition. The Donald Petrie Wikidata item Q5294994 has been used as an example of how to deal with this type of data. Scholarly articles about prolific collectors are often produced giving the locations and dates the collector has worked and having these work locations as well as the start and end dates of the time worked at that location as linked open data can help natural history institutions to improve data related to specimens collected by those collectors. - Ambrosia10 (talk) 08:32, 2 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

I very much like using it on the expeditions themselves with high fidelity. I am less certain about persons. Donald Petrie (Q5294994) is interesting as it shows the potential of how much data could be added. I imagine that some scientists could have a lot of data. Or a science communicator like David Attenborough (Q183337), where we also easily could find sources of his work locations. Stepping outside of science, what do we do for politicians, who regularly travel and meet both the constituency and also other politicians? I am thinking that a general election campaign tour should not add tens of items, but perhaps Brussels (Q239) could be added to most prime ministers of EU member states as they are expected to do work in the European Council (Q8886)? How could we generalize what is worth adding to a person? Ainali (talk) 09:01, 2 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

I think it comes down to whether such statements have a citation to support them and also whether someone is prepared to do this work. Taking Donald Petrie, his specimens are held in the four main herberia in New Zealand as well as multiple organisations around the world. Having this data in Wikidata can assist all these institutions in ensuring the specimen data they hold in their collection management systems is correct, this is particularly helpful if this type of data is shared with or linked to aggregators such as GBIF. The Wikidata item and its structured data can also help feed into the world wide digital extended specimen efforts. I'm thinking of the wider use cases here, and have been encouraging institutions to add this type of data to Wikidata where everyone can make use of it instead of closed, inaccessible systems, where each institution has to replicate the same effort into each of their databases. Ambrosia10 (talk) 09:33, 2 June 2024 (UTC)Reply