Sunday, May 19, 2013

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

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Wikidata community should never have allowed to insert data without sources. That counteracts the whole idea and makes almost everything unusable and unmaintainable.

GerardM said...

This is so very much contrary to how a Wiki works...

Consider, for ne specific subject we organise a workshop to add sources. It is a template that can be copied as much as you like.

Thanks,
GerardM

Anonymous said...

No wiki started with millions of entries within one year without having built up a vivid community which can take care of the content, or policies which enables them to deal with the daily problems. Imagine Commons without patrolling new images regarding licences and categories, or any larger Wikipedia without any content or fact control. They would exist, they would be large, but they wouldn't be useful or usuable at all. And if we are honest, Commons is still hardly usuable if you don't visit it from Wikipedia via Commonscat—and even then it's unsearchable for licences, file sizes, multi tags, etc. And Wikipedia would not be as respected as it is by now if the content would not be maintained and checked by so many users. Hence, bot supported projects and, thus, esp. Wikipedia will sink over time because they will and already do lack quality toward quanitity.

GerardM said...

Wikidata is not a Wiki in the usual sense of the word. It starts with replacing the Wikipedia interwiki links. This makes the Wikipedia communities part of its community. Then it will replace the facts contained in an info box in a much better maintainable way.

Lastly when you add a fact with a source, it will be there for ANY Wikipedia..

In consequence ... THINK
Thanks,
GerardM