Sunday, August 25, 2019

There is much more to read; introducing the "one page wonder"

Given that our aim is to share in the "sum of all knowledge", realistically we will not have it all at our disposal to share. It is also fairly likely that we will not know about all subjects.

When you google for a given subject, it is as likely as not that you will drown in too much data, too many false friends or find nothing at all when there is nothing to find in "your" language.

Increasingly, what we know about in the Wikiverse is linked to a Wikidata item. Pictures may depict a subject, articles may be written about a subject and all of them refer to a Wikidata item that may have labels in any language. Items that may even have links to references.

When we are to find for Wikipedia readers more to read, we need a mechanism, a place where we can link a subject to external resources. Resources like the Internet Archive, "your" library. the papers we know in WikiCite but to the free versions of these papers. The page will show the label in "your" language and  a picture. It links to all the pictures depicting the subject as well.

Putting the "one page wonder" in production is easy. It is all on one page and is fully internationalised. The localisation is done at translatewiki.net and when people want to make it useful in "their" language, they will add the missing labels for the Wikidata items.

With the "one page wonder" in place it becomes interesting:
  • Is "your" local library known to us and do we get your permission to find it for you. How do we supply "your" library with a search string?
  • The Internet Archive's wayback machine may have content in "your" language but can you navigate its English only user interface. 
  • What other organisations do we want to partner with to provide you with more to read
  • Will we be able to show local pictures, a Dutch cow looks different from an Indian cow..
  • What other issues will there be..
  • Oh and yes, we can include the Reasonator, queries and what have you.. we just have to think about what to show.
Thanks,
       GerardM

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