Deleting properties

As a general rule, properties should not be deleted. This is mostly due to a risk of a property being used in the wikibase by some other item or property and breaking that connection. However, properties do get created in error all the time.

Recommendation for properties created in error

If you would like to delete a property because the 'type' is incorrect, consider repurposing the property to be some other property that would use this data type. You can always put something like '[Hold for new property of type {external id}]' in the label.

If you must delete a property, follow these steps

Change the label to note the a deletion is coming : [To Delete] in front of the existing property name
Create the correct version of the property that will be used
Do a SPARQL query for the property to be deleted to see if any existing items (or properties) are using that property
Be sure to add the correct version of the property to anything that is using the property to be deleted
Do a SPARQL query of items (and/or properties) that are using both to-be-deleted and the new property to compare the the query of items using only the to-be-deleted property to make sure all items/properties are caught
Remove the to-be-deleted property from all items/properties where it is currently in use (this can be done through a batch process - API or otherwise or manually depending on the number of items)
Delete the property