Wikidata Constraints on MARS (Extended Technical Report)
This work addresses the problem of precise constraint specification and checking for Wikidata users and developers, representing an incremental improvement to prior logical frameworks.
The paper tackles the incomplete and ad hoc representation of Wikidata constraints by proposing a logical framework based on multi-attributed relational structures (MARS), showing that nearly all existing property constraints can be fully characterized within it in a natural and economical way.
Wikidata constraints, albeit useful, are represented and processed in an incomplete, ad hoc fashion. Constraint declarations do not fully express their meaning, and thus do not provide a precise, unambiguous basis for constraint specification, or a logical foundation for constraint-checking implementations. In prior work we have proposed a logical framework for Wikidata as a whole, based on multi-attributed relational structures (MARS) and related logical languages. In this paper we explain how constraints are handled in the proposed framework, and show that nearly all of Wikidata's existing property constraints can be completely characterized in it, in a natural and economical fashion. We also give characterizations for several proposed property constraints, and show that a variety of non-property constraints can be handled in the same framework.