How should we reconcile when two existing Wikidata entries both seem plausible?

[liampond]

Following up on a conversation from the 23 May 2025 lab meeting.

If we have two plausible existing Wikidata entries, how should we reconcile them? Should we leave it blank? @annamorphism suggested making an entirely new Wikidata entry that can always be merged with one of the existing ones later.

[annamorphism]

tagging @Sbebastien for some examples from Dig That Lick to help think through the issue

[Sbebastien]

Here is a Bobby Lewis who has 2 potential Wikidata entries: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q888609, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q888607.
From the dig that lick database I know that he should be on an album Flugelhorn Gourmet, with the track Moon Love, and the performers on the album are:
Barbara Haffner (other), Bobby Lewis (voc, flg, other, tp), Dick Bovell (other), Elliott Golub (vln), Everett Mirsky (other), Jim Ryan (other, p), Larry Gray (b)

[annamorphism]

Interesting. Both Bobbys (Bobbies?) have MusicBrainz IDs, which you would think would help but neither lists this recording. Ditto for Discogs. AllMusic associates Flugel Gourmet with Q888607 (he's also labelled a trumpet player, which is helpful for differentiating him from the other Bobby, but we can't count on that information always existing in a useful way.) So that resolves this one guy short term, but doesn't give a general solution.

[Sbebastien]

There is also Tom Dempsey, there is no clear Wikidata entry for him, there is one entry that could be him but I'm not sure: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q66709154
From the dig that lick database I know that he's on an album Beautiful Friendship on the track Focus Pocus, the performers on the album are:
Eliot Zigmund (dr), Joel Frahm (ss, ts), Tim Ferguson (b), Tom Dempsey (g)

[annamorphism]

In this case AllMusic and German Wikipedia both refer to Beautiful Friendship, so it's probably the right Tom. But, again, that's not really generalizable.

[Sbebastien]

Paul Austerlitz is a similar case, there is a Wikidata entry for a Paul Austerlitz but it has no real information on it: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q131779276,
From the dig that lick database I know that he is on the album Journey on the track Santiago, with performers:

Angelina Tallaj (p), Dave Zinno (b), Gustavo Rodriguez (other), Jose Duluc (other, voc), Juan Valdez (b), Julio Figueroa (other), Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng (other), Paul Austerlitz (bcl, voc, ts, cl), Regie Gibson (other), Renee Cologne (voc), Wellington Valenzuela (dr)

[annamorphism]

this one is tricky! you'd think there wouldn't be too many jazz bass clarinetists with the same name, but to be sure this was the guy on the album i had to look at the works associated with the VIAF ID (and even then, it could technically be a different "Journey"; his page at the Library of Congress clears this up, but it's not linked in Wikidata: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n96053934.html).

In general I'm still wondering whether there's a useful ID that can somehow be used to disambiguate, or to eventually flag duplicates in the long term, without having to research every jazz musician...