Series manifest

reconciler.Series.GetManifestAsync(...) builds an ordered, provenance-rich manifest of works linked to a Wikidata series entity. It is generic enough for books, comics, films, television, music, games, and other media where Wikidata uses the same relationship properties.

using var reconciler = new WikidataReconciler();

var manifest = await reconciler.Series.GetManifestAsync("Q19610143"); // The Expanse

foreach (var item in manifest.Items)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"{item.RawSeriesOrdinal}: {item.Label} ({item.OrderSource})");
    Console.WriteLine($"  scope: {item.MembershipScope}");
    Console.WriteLine($"  media: {item.MediaKind} ({string.Join(", ", item.InstanceOfQids)})");
    Console.WriteLine($"  source: {string.Join(", ", item.SourceProperties)}");
}

Properties Used

The manifest service uses existing Wikidata and Wikimedia infrastructure in the library. It does not use SPARQL.

Property	Use
P179	Incoming `part of the series` links from works to the series
P361	Incoming `part of` links from works to the series
P8345	Incoming `media franchise` links when explicitly requested
P527	Outgoing `has part` links from the series or collection items
P1545	`series ordinal` qualifiers for ordering
P155	`follows` previous-work chain
P156	`followed by` next-work chain
P577	publication date fallback

Request Options

var manifest = await reconciler.Series.GetManifestAsync(new SeriesManifestRequest
{
    SeriesQid = "Q19610143",
    Language = "en",
    IncludeCollections = true,
    ExpandCollections = true,
    IncludePublicationDate = true,
    IncludeDescriptions = false,
    MaxDepth = 2,
    MaxItems = 500
});

Collection expansion is factual only: if a discovered item has P527 children, it is treated as collection-like and can be expanded. The library does not decide whether short fiction should be collapsed, hidden, or displayed as missing; consuming applications own that product behavior.

Each row has a structural MembershipScope derived from its relationship path:

Scope	Relationship meaning
`MainSequence`	Incoming P179 or direct outgoing P527 membership
`Supplementary`	Incoming P361 membership, such as short fiction attached to a larger series
`CollectedContent`	A P527 child reached by expanding a collection or anthology
`BroaderContext`	An explicitly requested franchise member reached through P8345
`Unpositioned`	A direct series member without ordinal or chain evidence when the same container has a positioned main sequence

These scopes are factual classifications, not title heuristics. A consumer can show all related works while using only MainSequence count facts for labels such as “3 films” or “9 novels.”

When one entity is discovered both directly and through an expanded collection, a root-scoped ordinal keeps it in MainSequence. Without root-scoped ordering evidence, the expanded path remains CollectedContent; an ordinal belonging to the nested collection is never promoted to the requested parent series.

Each row also exposes InstanceOfQids and MediaKind. These values come from the member entity itself, so consumers can distinguish different media entities that share a label without inheriting the requested container’s media type or using title allowlists.

The service classifies the requested container before traversing it. Ordered series, album releases, TV shows/seasons, comic series, and manga series are sequence-compatible containers. Franchises, universes, Wikimedia list articles, and publisher/production lists are reported as their own ContainerKind; they are not treated as immediate ordered series by default. Set IncludeFranchiseMembers = true only when the caller explicitly wants franchise expansion.

SeriesManifestResult.ExpectedCounts reports count facts separately from concrete manifest rows, and every fact carries the scope it counts. This lets callers preserve sparse external knowledge such as issue, volume, chapter, episode, or track totals without inventing missing child entities or allowing supplemental works to inflate the main total.

Ordering Confidence

Each SeriesManifestItem.OrderSource explains the strongest evidence used for ordering:

Source	Meaning
`SeriesOrdinal`	P1545 ordinal was found and used
`PreviousNextChain`	P155/P156 chain positioned the item
`PublicationDate`	P577 publication date was used
`LabelFallback`	label sort was the only usable ordering evidence
`Mixed`	item was ordered with fallback evidence in a mixed-evidence manifest
`Unknown`	no useful ordering evidence was available

RawSeriesOrdinal preserves the original Wikidata qualifier value. ParsedSeriesOrdinal is populated when the value can be parsed as a decimal, so values like 0.1, 1.5, 6.5, and 9.5 sort correctly while string ordinals remain safe to inspect. OrdinalScopeQid identifies the container that supplied that ordinal; for example, position 4 inside an anthology must not be presented as book 4 of the broader series.

Warnings

Wikidata series data can be incomplete or modeled inconsistently. Always inspect manifest.Warnings and manifest.Completeness.

Common warning codes include:

NoChildrenFound
MissingOrdinals
ConflictingOrdinals
BrokenPreviousNextChain
PreviousNextConflictsWithOrdinal
MaxDepthReached
MaxItemsReached
DuplicateItem
LabelFallbackOnly

The Expanse Example

var manifest = await reconciler.Series.GetManifestAsync("Q19610143");

Console.WriteLine($"{manifest.SeriesLabel}: {manifest.Items.Count} items");
foreach (var warning in manifest.Warnings)
    Console.WriteLine($"{warning.Code}: {warning.Message}");

The Expanse is a useful real-world example because Wikidata may include novels, novellas, collections, and relationship links with varying completeness. The service returns the factual evidence it can find and exposes warnings/provenance so applications can choose how to present partial coverage.