FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ for USERS

❔ Why can't I see my edit or contribution?

🅰️ Great question! We have a pipeline for verifying edits made to ensure everything meets our quality standards for adding to our website and ultimately to Wikidata—as such, everything submitted to UMIL gets reviewed by one of our reviewers, passed up to an editor, and then added to UMIL. This can happen quite quickly, and we do have some automatic functions in place that will show you your edits rapidly. That said, don't be too alarmed if you don't see it immediately, or get a notice from somebody on the UMIL team notifying you about an issue, or asking for some clarification about your contribution.

Curious about the pipeline? Here's a rough diagram of how it works:

❔ I don't see my language in the dropdown to add a new instrument name?

🅰️ This is a tricky one, and we're sorry your language is not available. We use all languages the Wikimedia Foundation recognizes, which, while a large umbrella, may not contain all languages, dialects, or regional variances. In this case, your submission will likely take some time to process, as new languages must be added to Wikidata through their own language addition process (the process for which begins here: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Monolingual_text_languages).

UMIL cannot currently host items in languages it does not have, but is working on making this possible. We encourage you to reach out about the absence of your language to both Wikidata through the above link to have your language added, as well as us, to have your language and objects added on UMIL (visit Contact Us at umil.linkedmusic.ca.

What is a language code in UMIL?

See: A language code in UMIL.

Why are there multiple Chinese-related language codes?

Chinese-related language codes can look confusing because Chinese can be classified along multiple independent axes:

• By language / variety (e.g. Mandarin, Minnan, Yue, Wu, Hakka)
• By historical period (e.g. Classical Chinese vs. modern languages)
• By region or usage standard (e.g. Taiwan, Macao, Hong Kong, Mainland China, Singapore)
• By writing system (e.g. Traditional vs. Simplified characters, Latin-based romanization)

Wikidata preserves all of these distinctions, even when they overlap in everyday usage.

Also see: Understanding the Chinese (Sinitic) language family in UMIL.

Why are some language codes not recommended?

Following Wikidata's guideline:

Not all language codes supported by Wikidata should be used. Some were invented by MediaWiki or used for the wrong language and we now prefer a different language code.

FAQ for DEVELOPERS