Wikidata:Property proposal/Accused of
Accused of
[edit]Return to Wikidata:Property proposal/Person
| Description | Crime or other misdeed a person has been accused of, but not proven or convicted |
|---|---|
| Data type | Item |
| Example 1 | Luigi Mangione (Q131411648) → killing of Brian Thompson (Q131389544) |
| Example 2 | suspect (Q224952) → crime (Q83267) |
| Example 3 | Jeffrey Epstein (Q2904131) → sex trafficking (Q21129531) |
Motivation
[edit]At the moment, we have convicted of (P1399), that documents a crime that a person has been proven by law to have committed. We lack a property to denote that a person has been accused of a crime but not convicted. Using convicted of (P1399) with a qualifier to state that it is not proven is not good enough; it still suggests that the person may be guilty, breaking the rule that a person is innocent until proven guilty, and worse, potentially prejudicial to that person's trial, something which is illegal in some jurisdictions. An "accused of" property has no such connotation, and is also, like "convicted of", describing a fact that needs no qualification.
Explanatory note for Example 3: Jeffrey Epstein (Q2904131) had been convicted of (P1399) solicitation of a minor, but at the time of his death he was still awaiting trial for the sex trafficking charge. So this "accused of" property would definitely be the appropriate for Epstein's sex trafficking charge.
A question: Jimmy Savile (Q713479) was accused of, but never tried or convicted (or, to any significant extent, accused) of any of his various vile crimes, even though he was undoubtely guilty of all of them: would this be the appropriate property? I'm not sure. Perhaps "known for", "occupation" or "significant event" might be appropriate for Savile? The Anome (talk) 17:28, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Discussion
[edit]
Support I've run into this issue multiple times. -wd-Ryan (Talk/Edits) 17:10, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Comment I am not sure if this a good idea in terms of the Living people policy as accusations are not proven by law. We do have charge (P1595), which means we can have items about the trials/investigations where these people have been defendants. These trials/investigations may be added with significant event (P793) to the people concerned. Samoasambia ✎ 05:19, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
- charge (P1595) is almost what I was looking for, but it can only be applied to trials, not to the person accused. Would loosening the constraints on that property to allow it to apply to people be a solution to the problem? The Anome (talk) 21:28, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
Oppose I'm sure it can be established that the accussation factually happened, but associating someone with something they may not have even done does not sound like something I want in Wikidata. --Egon Willighagen (talk) 15:35, 30 December 2024 (UTC)- Oppose Per Egon and the Living people policy. Ainali (talk) 18:46, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose unproven accusations should not be primarily featured on the item of a person. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 22:59, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose as per comments before. I think it opens a somewhat dangerous precedent for misinformation, though the examples make sense. Perhaps an alternative for very high-profile cases would be using significant event (P793) with some qualifiers as previously suggested. Maybe extending the use of charge (P1595) is in order too, no strong opinions. TiagoLubiana (talk) 20:45, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
