#Wikipedia articles do not always fit #Wikidata needs

At #Wikidata you can add all kinds of nifty attributes to all kinds of subjects. But it can be VERY confusing.

When you read for instance the Wikipedia article about the Umayyad Caliphate, you will find illustrations for two distinct understanding of the word.

There is a map that shows the area that was the Umayyad Caliphate and, you find a map showing the genealogy or the Umayyads. These concepts are related but they are not the same thing. I could argue that all the soldiers, civil servants, the artisans and scientists defined the Umayyad Caliphate as much as the Caliphs themselves did.

The Umayyads are also a family that includes Caliphs, Emirs and many others including spouses, princes and princesses. Some of them lived during the Umayyad Caliphate, others during the Emirate of Cordoba.

In Wikidata the term "Umayyad Caliphate" is now used to indicate that some people are part of a "Noble family". There should be something like "Umayyad family". It is easy to create such an entry.. Should terms like these be the "red links" for new Wikipedia articles ?
Thanks,
       GerardM

Most of the data in #Wikidata is curated

I got into an argument. Wikidata it was said should not exist because its data is overwhelmingly in need of curation. It is an argument I have seen before and I positively hate it. First of all, it is not true and second of all many people just do not get what Wikidata is about.

The bulk of the information of Wikidata is replacing the old interwiki data. Good riddance to old unwieldy and hard to maintain data. Everybody who used to be involved in the interwiki connections is now involved in Wikidata. This means that there is an existing community doing the same old thing but in a more efficient way.

Much of the information that is accumulating in Wikidata is data imported from other sources. When the German Wikipedia has an article on a particular person, it is linked to an external source identifying this person with a number. This external source has a lot of data that may find its way into Wikidata. Data that has been researched in the past for its validity. When data is imported from such trusted sources, it saves our community from adding other data.

The data in Wikidata is licensed with a CC0 license. Anybody may use it. As data not present in the other sources finds its way into Wikidata, there will be people who feel strongly that this data has to be present and has to be correct. When you feel strongly about a specific category of knowledge, you can organise a workshop to add data and find sources to back up what you claim to be true.

This is what I do.

I strongly believe that information boxes that use data that is not from Wikidata is foolish. The only valid argument to have them is because Wikidata does not include all the attributes that are necessary. This argument is becoming more and more irrelevant as time goes on.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikidata has a #homonym problem

You do not solve disambiguation in Wikidata with a "disambiguation page". It cannot be done because Wikidata supports all languages and each language has different homonyms.

The obvious solution; add a description.

When description are added, you can select the right homonym among others. When descriptions are added, you know what or who the subject is. 

When descriptions are added, you are halfway towards implementing a dictionary like OmegaWiki. What OmegaWiki has in addition to Wikidata is information about the word itself; if it is a noun and when it is, what gender it has, what its plural, diminutive etc is. Another thing OmegaWiki has are verbs and other words that typically do not get a Wikipedia article.

Guess what, Wikidata has already implemented half the features of OmegaWiki. It is not as tough to add the other half.

Thanks,

      GerardM

Sources from #Islam will benefit #Wikidata

With currently over 12,000,000 "items" registered in Wikidata, most of them registered with bots there is a monumental task waiting to be undertaken. It is adding sources to all this information stated as facts.

In Wikipedia it is policy that facts stated in an article need to be supported by sources. It is also a matter of principle that Wikipedia itself can not be considered a source itself. Stating that something is true because Wikipedia says so is good for more than a smile. Oh and, there is not one Wikipedia, there are over 280 Wikipedias; enough reasons to snicker.

One of the things people are taught in Islamic schools is that they should rely on the original sources. When something of a religious nature is stated, it should be supported by what can be read in the original sources of the Islamic faith. In Wikidata many people and subjects that have to do with Islam have found their way as a fact that is not sourced. They include genealogical information like the one shown above or similar information about Q9458.

Having sourced information is important because some information present in Wikipedia is certainly wrong. Having incorrect information in Wikidata is even worse because it may present information used in 280 Wikipedias.

Bringing together people who know the relevant sources, who are willing to learn about Wikidata and edit its information is something you can do in a workshop. Organising a Wikidata workshop together with a mosque are two novelties; as far as I am aware there have been no workshops organised around Wikidata and, organising a Wiki workshop with a mosque is something I have not heard about either.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Lua template wanted for use of #Wikidata in #Wikipedia

Denny said some magical words to me;

• you can convert a list of Wikipedia wiki links to links to Wikidata using Lua. 
• you can check if there is an article on THIS Wikipedia
• you will show the Wikidata data when there is no article

He even said that it is not hard to do and provided this as a pointer.

I am preparing a Wikidata workshop and I would be REALLY pleased when this list was available doing all the song and dance mentioned above. There are so many other lists that could benefit from this as well. 

I am convinced that such functionality will motivate people to write stubs and articles on subjects that are important to them. I am also convinced that it is a powerful incentive to create data that accomplishes things like this.

Thanks,

     GerardM

#Wikipedia lists could fall back to #Wikidata

I have been playing with Wikidata and it is really good fun. I find many uses for it and some of them have to be tweaked a bit to be even better. Take for instance a list of popes. There is a list with articles on the English Wikipedia for each of them. There are so many popes, that it is obvious that many Wikipedias do not have the list and certainly not articles to all of these popes.

Wikidata could come to the rescue. When a list is made up of values available in Wikidata and when the links to articles fall back to Wikidata, we are able to provide relevant information and, we have the perfect opportunity to suggest to our readers to write a stub or an article.

In effect such a list allows us to provide improved information by using the strength of Wikidata in any of the languages we support. When you think about such a list, it is not much different from an info-box.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikipedia red links should link to #Wikidata

When a subject does not "merit" an article in Wikipedia, it does not follow that the same subject is not of value in Wikidata. Consider for instance the son of a famous person who died at the age of three. He completes the list of all the children of that person something that is definitely "a good thing" in Wikidata.

It is certainly true that many subjects that "merit" an article do not have an article. There may be an article in one language and not in another. Wikidata has the option to add a label for such an article as a place holder and while it has not been written it can show nicely red on a disambiguation page. The point here is that it is legitimate for lists and disambiguation pages to have red links. When such lists are completed in Wikidata they can easily be translated to other languages and provide basic information that may be of interest.

The red links in the list of Muhammeds are both kings of the Sayfawa dynasty. Sadly they are not even all the kings called Muhammed who are part of the Sayfawa dynasty with a red link. Just consider what would happen when disambiguation lists are presented from Wikidata; it makes it easier to start articles because relevant information may be available thanks to work done in another language.

When you consider the options, all "red links" could be known to Wikidata. As a result you can complete all lists without having to write articles and, you will deal with disambiguation issues sooner rather than later and, why have wikilinks when integrity is better maintained in Wikidata anyway?
Thanks,
      GerardM

Spouse does not translate

I love #Wikidata, it gets so many things right. At the same time it fails by design. Consider; there is this article about a woman. In English she may have a spouse. In translation there is a problem; because the spouse has a spouse and it is a different word depending on the gender of the person involved.

This is the kind of problem that has been solved for the MediaWiki software. It means that you consider the sex of the person involved. Applying this principle on Wikidata is possible because we do register if a person is male or female.

It seems obvious; sex matters. In many languages you address people based on their sex. As long as Wikidata is not able to address this issue, it is broken. When this is intentional, it is broken by design.
Thanks,
      GerardM