tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-120467142024-03-29T08:09:59.303+01:00Words and what notGerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.comBlogger311125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-52453647137322900292021-07-03T21:55:00.001+02:002021-07-03T21:55:09.254+02:00Two "user stories" for Nigeria<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlHWwaql5Pt-KnLVpvab_WT5ustZin0vgDHF2-MKGSTeh6ZA_Le5K-ckFKJfXeI4HqR7FaWTu0HsQcoIoH9JhdGDafWYLSjgA30Zgfo0kyqfGSElmxqCJISnV3F1Mvecl1nmV2wQ/s400/brandweerman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlHWwaql5Pt-KnLVpvab_WT5ustZin0vgDHF2-MKGSTeh6ZA_Le5K-ckFKJfXeI4HqR7FaWTu0HsQcoIoH9JhdGDafWYLSjgA30Zgfo0kyqfGSElmxqCJISnV3F1Mvecl1nmV2wQ/s320/brandweerman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I spoke with my Nigerian friend Olatunde Olalekan Isaac on Facebook about growing more interest for Wikimedia content in Nigeria. I will not bore you with a verbatim discussion we had. Bringing you two user stories is much more satisfying.<p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Nigerian kids looking for pictures of a fireman goto their Wikipedia and search for an "onye oku oku". The search engine knows from where the request comes and shows the pictures of Nigerian firemen first.</p></blockquote><p>The pictures are from Commons, in the meta data of the picture it says where the photo was taken. Happy kids, happy teachers and happy Nigerian Wikimedians because this brings more attention for the projects they care for.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0IjPtXeWSHMRyhck4_jGcDtcmWBMk9Jt-XdMWZuVecOoET2uzB39diQvq5Wz7ZJwtihtzxsCDZVs8QV8eWviKToAaQ5_PkleNAQWzIpwKAmT55XlYuOQ1IZ6y9eYrvpGMscXCvA/s1080/Olatunde+Olalekan+Isaac.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="721" data-original-width="1080" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0IjPtXeWSHMRyhck4_jGcDtcmWBMk9Jt-XdMWZuVecOoET2uzB39diQvq5Wz7ZJwtihtzxsCDZVs8QV8eWviKToAaQ5_PkleNAQWzIpwKAmT55XlYuOQ1IZ6y9eYrvpGMscXCvA/w200-h134/Olatunde+Olalekan+Isaac.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>At first it is an experiment that brings more traffic in their language. They then launch a photo contest in Nigeria.<p></p><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">People find pictures in Nigerian languages and to increase the choice of pictures to choose from, a photo contest is launched of everyday Nigerian objects, traffic signs, shops of all kinds, professionals, "be bold and show us your Nigeria" is the mantra. People find more pictures about Nigeria and even after the contest people continue to increase the selection people use for an illustration.</p></blockquote><p>The Wikimedia Foundation has another challenge, there are copycats all over the world and the public use of Commons increases by 200% in a few months time.</p><p>Thanks, GerardM </p><p></p>GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-17896406297228102102021-06-20T10:57:00.004+02:002021-06-20T11:18:52.970+02:00@Wikimedia and its defined #predisposition towards its editors<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5J_N6yhZ9NgY9LgwVj3H0ivlSApKTQOWEUEyaw5W7MR9YdNDCjyolyfhrkfUiQGqrFICcXjEguQdYdDXhh2WnqPqAfCtkuRahgpVDHPjxYYsjrxqr2juaEin0B-WUo5jCTgfYqQ/s875/biased+sub-set.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="875" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5J_N6yhZ9NgY9LgwVj3H0ivlSApKTQOWEUEyaw5W7MR9YdNDCjyolyfhrkfUiQGqrFICcXjEguQdYdDXhh2WnqPqAfCtkuRahgpVDHPjxYYsjrxqr2juaEin0B-WUo5jCTgfYqQ/w413-h155/biased+sub-set.png" width="413" /></a></div>The predisposition of the Wikimedia Foundation can be found in <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/mission/">its mission statement</a>: "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally". Contrast this with a previous version where: "<a href="https://www.wikimedia.org/">every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge</a>". The Wikimedia Foundation defines the movement with "Wikimedia is a global movement whose mission is to bring free educational content to the world". <p></p><div>It is easy to understand how the Wikimedia Foundation priorities on its communities when developing its programs. The assumption has always been that once the data is available, a public will come. In the second part of its mission statement enabling this dissemination it is defined that the Wikimedia has a defined role for it to play in the global and effective dissemination of the educational content it holds.</div><div><br /></div><div>When you monitor the effectiveness like I have, then you do not care for promises for the future, you want the data to show how a difference is made. An easy one is to compare content delivery in English against all other languages; English content is slightly less than 50% of traffic, this has been the same for many years. When a Commons project that <i>worked for all languages</i> no longer worked because of a failed text integration, it was seen as "we did not test for that". More importantly, the text integration was not removed. This shows that the second part of the WMF mission statement is not seen as critical.</div><div><br /></div><div>I am a candidate for the board. In many ways I am the wrong guy for the job. The wrong guy because I have a platform and I do question the lack of growth in the delivery of the content that we have. For me this is a classic situation where lack of data equals no problem. It is not a bias measured in percentage of Wikipedia articles for one group versus another group, the bias I demand attention for is the percentage of data delivered in a languages relative to the size of the population who relies on this language.</div><div><br /></div><div>The wrong guy because this is not a popular issue. People are offended when you point out that their point of view implies a bias. People fear they lose out because their hobby horse is a niche project comparatively and not part of the mission statement. The right guy because you can check out my past in <a href="https://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/">my blog</a> that I kept for over 15 years, you will find that I have been practical and on mission for dissemination of our content. </div><div><br /></div><div>For me it does not matter if I win or lose; the mission itself is critical and I want the Wikimedia board and the Wikimedia director realise that the second part of the Foundation's mission statement is where it could have done so much better.</div><div>Thanks,</div><div> GerardM</div>GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-88613850083933490502021-04-27T11:03:00.005+02:002021-04-27T11:03:36.919+02:00How to find pictures of a თახვი (it means beaver) or a Wisent? Please help!!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3IGR11iyMjpdUhz8N61E6T249T11BwaZlby-Rawvps7wsX3xSlr8g69D6V34cZ_10B3HVRAtRFHN7kXf17Stuv5F_-Oo-8tpKu7TeO5zhStQAid4SiTje3_o3xf_L3ZwD66oimg/s1280/Beaver_by_mimooh.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="831" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3IGR11iyMjpdUhz8N61E6T249T11BwaZlby-Rawvps7wsX3xSlr8g69D6V34cZ_10B3HVRAtRFHN7kXf17Stuv5F_-Oo-8tpKu7TeO5zhStQAid4SiTje3_o3xf_L3ZwD66oimg/s320/Beaver_by_mimooh.png" width="320" /></a></div>Wikimedia Commons is the biggest repository of freely licensed media files. It serves a global multi lingual community editing Wikipedia and it has the ambition to serve students as well. When you live in Georgia and you don't speak English, you search for a "<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=%E1%83%97%E1%83%90%E1%83%AE%E1%83%95%E1%83%98&title=Special%3ASearch&go=OK&ns0=1&ns6=1&ns9=1&ns11=1&ns100=1&ns106=1">თახვი</a>" and this picture is all that you find.<p></p><p>There is a tool for that. Hay's <a href="https://hay.toolforge.org/sdsearch/#q=haswbstatement:P180=Q47542">sdsearch</a> does a good job when its interface is localised. Sadly, no such luck for Georgian. Wikimedia produced a tool as well; <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MediaSearch?type=image&search=%E1%83%97%E1%83%90%E1%83%AE%E1%83%95%E1%83%98">Special:MediaSearch</a> does a good job. You have to know that the tool exists and when you do, you find that for Dutch <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MediaSearch?type=image&search=Bevers">it does not work at all</a>. </p><p>It is suggested that you can change the preferences for best result. I fail at getting the results that Special:MediaSearch used to provide. There is no documentation.. Please Help!!</p><p>Thanks, GerardM</p>GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-30685102299561713972020-07-26T09:08:00.001+02:002020-07-26T09:08:47.497+02:00Data in Red - A holistic view on the bias for the English language and for AngloAmerican subjects<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWAd6KwtJzMmk8na01tTzc1-EbnCUB6fCfIBqPojEEm6ZfpN-GnN2eXPzzSSvo4CgV_qSAJoqTe_phIJoyDxhL1vPb4MqZYV4U0uLbdYbHuOj8o8_yOxtP29DNnHJFiAtF2Opp6w/s346/woman+in+red.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="246" data-original-width="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWAd6KwtJzMmk8na01tTzc1-EbnCUB6fCfIBqPojEEm6ZfpN-GnN2eXPzzSSvo4CgV_qSAJoqTe_phIJoyDxhL1vPb4MqZYV4U0uLbdYbHuOj8o8_yOxtP29DNnHJFiAtF2Opp6w/s320/woman+in+red.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>First a definition; "<i>When data is biased, we mean that the sample is not representative of the entire population</i>". This approach successfully underpins the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red">Women in Red</a> project currently a percentage of 18.51% women in English Wikipedia has been achieved. Compare the coverage of Anglo-American politicians with the politicians from the whole of Africa, the bias in the data at Wikidata is already obvious, it will then have numbers attached to it.<div><br /></div><div><div>This is not a problem for Wikidata alone and yes, we can have a project and include a lot of data to get to a growth percentage as we did for the Women in Red. Worthwhile in its own right but in this way we do not forge a closer relation with its "premier brand Wikipedia". It would be mere stamp collecting.</div><div><br /></div><div>The best argument for having data in Wikidata is that it is used. This is done in self selecting Wikipedias through global info boxes and lists. Interwiki links are used on every Wikipedia. Integrating the necessary functionality is a meta/technical affair and firmly for the Wikimedia Foundation to own. </div><div><br /></div><div>The functionality to make this happen implements <a href="https://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2016/01/wikipedia-lowest-hanging-fruit-from.html">an existing idea</a> with additional twists.</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Pictures for the subject are linked to courtesy of <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MediaSearch?type=bitmap&q=Woman+in+Red">Special:MediaSearch</a></li><li>Automated descriptions are provided in every language to aid disambiguation. At first the functionality by Magnus is used and it is to be replaced with improved descriptions provided by Abstract Wikipedia</li><li>A Reasonator like display is provided to inform on the data we have on an item.</li><li>Suggestions for the inclusion in categories and lists are provided based on Wikidata definitions for categories and lists.</li><li>To help people find sources, alternate sources, <a href="https://scholia.toolforge.org/">Scholia</a> is included when there are papers about the subject. Once existing citations are available, they are an additional resource</li></ul><div>In essence this is a toolset that you can opt into as an individual and/or it is the standard for a project. Particularly for the smaller projects this will prove to be really valuable; it will prevent false friends, it indicates heavily linked items that do not have an article. It stimulates the addition of labels because it is beneficial in finding illustrations. </div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>This proposal is relatively low tech and it will bring our many communities together by providing widely the information that is available to us.</div><div>Thanks,</div><div> GerardM</div>GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-21974461148306224042020-07-21T07:23:00.001+02:002020-07-21T07:23:33.958+02:00What to do to counter an institutional bias of the Wikimedia Foundation (part 2)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPbYu4q91cEzTbe0mqNHq1zgpDJ8pf-wKeSlkW6bGsvK4-1yCKkieMSNoEQgHpK1in7f67SuVC_F3ABp3Mce90fNf3yLf12BuMmiTKFQChBPwozKKbkl46vDIpeX0RMNPz5Z3b1Q/s1200/Set_Knowledge_Free_mural.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPbYu4q91cEzTbe0mqNHq1zgpDJ8pf-wKeSlkW6bGsvK4-1yCKkieMSNoEQgHpK1in7f67SuVC_F3ABp3Mce90fNf3yLf12BuMmiTKFQChBPwozKKbkl46vDIpeX0RMNPz5Z3b1Q/w400-h200/Set_Knowledge_Free_mural.png" width="400" /></a></div>Our aim is to share the sum of the knowledge available to us with everyone, everywhere, in every language. That is what we are to achieve.<div><br /></div><div>As we establish what we, as a movement, are to do, it follows that we need to measure how well we do. When a community does not play an active part for a particular goal, that too will show in the numbers.</div><div><br /></div><div>Commons does not need to work in English only. The "<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MediaSearch">Special:MediaSearch</a>" works in all the languages we support. With this search engine enabled on every Wikipedia, we will learn how well it gets adopted in all our languages. We will know if new Wikidata labels are used in searches on Commons. We will know if more diversity is realised in the pictures used in Wikipedia. We will know how many pictures are downloaded and from what languages.</div><div><br /></div><div>Only in the Portuguese Wikipedia we find the governors of Mozambican provinces only <a href="https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manica_(prov%C3%ADncia)#Governadores">in text</a>. We can include them in Wikidata, make <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GerardM/Mozambican_governors">Listeria lists</a> for them, but how do we disambiguate these politicians. What does it take to make the information for them usable for "abstract Wikipedia"? How do we assemble information about countries like Mozambique and how do we get it to the quality level that some expect? As important, how do we get people from Mozambique interested and involved? </div><div><br /></div><div>Some Wikipedians opine that the Wikimedia Foundation does not need to raise funding for their project. Arguably this is correct, but we can raise funds for other projects, other languages elsewhere because we have more and other ambitions to realise. As we raise more money outside of the USA, more people will gain a sense of ownership. </div><div><br /></div><div>When we are to overcome our bias for English and our bias for Wikipedia, we need to market our other languages, our other projects. We need key performance indicators.. For Wikisource, how many books were downloaded. For Commons how many media files were downloaded and from what language.</div><div><br /></div><div>Results need to be objective and measurable. As our research proves to have been about English Wikipedia we have a problem. We seriously need to consider to what extend it is applicable.</div><div>Thanks,</div><div> GerardM</div><div><br /></div><div>NB While the bias is real and the relationship with English Wikipedians is often antagonistic, it is important to recognise English Wikipedia as the source for much of the information that ends up in other projects. When we collaborate more, our available data will reach more people in an informative way.</div>GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-64310557691608450032020-06-27T10:39:00.002+02:002020-06-27T10:39:52.427+02:00Hey @Wikimedia lets move the needle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHWzXyl_aMQ8YJTjPDcXkKG68uQUoq1YLZWGld1Mm1_LoUt-xlsqTyUM4ghmdlB4KdJnfqccAjgige0X0phGIBT-xguS1kRWkLRZ2GXRlHBhG4Y3sWJERO9c4Ucybw6wjW5wOgdg/s306/move+the+needle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="165" data-original-width="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHWzXyl_aMQ8YJTjPDcXkKG68uQUoq1YLZWGld1Mm1_LoUt-xlsqTyUM4ghmdlB4KdJnfqccAjgige0X0phGIBT-xguS1kRWkLRZ2GXRlHBhG4Y3sWJERO9c4Ucybw6wjW5wOgdg/" /></a></div>The Wikimedia projects are biased. They favour only one language, the English language. When you look at Wikipedia traffic English Wikipedia is something like 50% and it does not represent 50% of our intended public. <div><br /></div><div>The objective is to improve the usefulness of the other projects and thereby increase their traffic. That is, more articles and books are read, more pictures are seen and downloaded.</div><div><br /></div><div>Lets pick one language, Yoruba, as an example. There are currently <a href="https://yo.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A0t%C3%A0k%C3%AC:Statistics">32,624</a> pages in its Wikipedia. There are some 40 million people speaking the language. So what can we do for Yoruba editors and readers. How can we track what makes a difference and also what makes a difference and what can the WMF do to achieve this.</div><div><br /></div><div>* We can improve list support. </div><div>Currently the best support for supporting lists in a Wikipedia is "<a href="https://listeria.toolforge.org/">Listeria</a>". It is supported by Magnus.. Listeria lists have been shown to be more up to date then manual lists on English Wikipedia, for less resourced projects this will be even more true. When existing lists can be easily included in an article, it will expand available information hugely.. Here an example of <a href="https://yo.wikipedia.org/wiki/On%C3%AD%E1%B9%A3e:GerardM/Africa">Listeria lists on the Yoruba Wikipedia</a>. Content of these lists show in Yoruba. Lists are better supported and adopted when it is WMF supported functionality.</div><div><br /></div><div>* Choosing pictures for illustration</div><div>When people look for a picture, they have to goto Commons <i>or </i>they visit Wikipedia articles on the same subject and use these same pictures. When the <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MediaSearch?type=bitmap&q=Agb%C3%A8gb%C3%A8+%C3%8Cj%E1%BB%8Dba+%C3%8Cb%C3%ADl%E1%BA%B9%CC%80+Mushin">Special:MediaSearch</a> is available as a tool from every Wikipedia article, a much richer palette of pictures becomes available to choose from. (The search is for "Agbègbè Ìjọba Ìbílẹ̀ Mushin")..</div><div><br /></div><div>The cool thing is, when this tool is available when writing an article, it is easy to more pro-actively add labels to Wikidata. This will improve the performance for the Special:MediaSearch even more.</div><div><br /></div><div>What would truly support Special:MediaSearch is disambiguation. It is unreasonable to expect that we get descriptions in all the 300+ languages we support. What Reasonator supports are <a href="https://reasonator.toolforge.org/?find=David+Epstein&lang=it">automated descriptions</a>. It makes it easy and obvious to choose the right item in any language.</div><div><br /></div><div>For the Wikimedia Foundation to support other languages, for it to move the needle on any and all languages, we need to measure what is meaningful. The number of searches by Special:MediaSearch and what language was used. The number of pictures used in each Wikipedia. The effect lists have on the writing of new articles.</div><div><br /></div><div>When we did not measure such numbers so far, it is what we should do to move the needle. One needle is the total number of reads quite another is the number of reads for each project. Same for the use of Wikidata and Commons.</div><div>Thanks,</div><div> GerardM</div>GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-47680697564435698492020-06-21T10:09:00.001+02:002020-06-21T10:15:28.570+02:00Marketing @Wikimedia but first some SWOT analysis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdmUYgmCmbqJAwdKL0ams05QwKded3Agb_MtS4MA6u28k37xdaFEc63faDxATVbakibVBdY1dc2WxmqFVWo-ekw45t5Bu3xN05K4nqh64zf71MverfyjUh8zd6hditrhCbYNao8w/s850/marketing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="629" data-original-width="850" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdmUYgmCmbqJAwdKL0ams05QwKded3Agb_MtS4MA6u28k37xdaFEc63faDxATVbakibVBdY1dc2WxmqFVWo-ekw45t5Bu3xN05K4nqh64zf71MverfyjUh8zd6hditrhCbYNao8w/s320/marketing.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The Wikimedia Foundation has <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations">a 2030 strategy</a>, it intends to increase its reach, increase its budget and rename projects into "Wikipedia something" in order to improve its visibility.. <div><br /></div><div>Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites on the Internet, its quality is good and is mostly edited by older white males in the first world. Typically when people mention Wikipedia they refer to the English version but it is only 50% of Wikimedia traffic. From a marketing point of view the English market is saturated, growth can be expected from Wikipedias in other languages and from other projects.<br /><div><br /></div><div><div>The Wikimedia Foundation is very much tied to the United States. Given the current regime and the possibility that it will prevail in November, this reliance is an existential threat. It is likely that the US government will want to intervene in Wikimedia content after 2020. I doubt it is possible, given the current hardware configuration, to move away from the US and still serve the rest of the world with a NPOV.</div><div><br /></div></div></div><div>At this time the Wikimedia Foundation is centrally led, there are satellite organisations in many countries who are limited in what they can do; their budgets are centrally managed. Fundraising is mostly done from the USA and most of it is raised in the USA. That is problematic in its own right because many "Wikipedians" feel that too much money is raised, money not needed to support their project and people in other countries do not get to feel that it is "their" project because of "their" contributions. As a professional fundraiser, I am convinced contributions from the Netherlands could increase at least tenfold within a year.</div><div><br /></div><div>The bias for English is huge and it is compounded by the bias for English Wikipedia. At a conference a Dutch professor stated that research not about or linked to the English Wikipedia is unlikely to get published. It follows that the data used for the 2030 strategy includes this same bias. The MediaWiki software is developed first and foremost for English Wikipedia and it is expected to work for other languages and for other projects. There used to be a development team specialised in language technology.. it was dissolved. </div><div><br /></div><div>There was a time when English Wikipedia did support the other projects. Because of an anti Wikidata stance by some this changed. There is no solution for false friends and <a href="http://magnusmanske.de/wordpress/?p=599">lists are not as well maintained as they could be</a>. When we link to the Wikidata item for an article and no longer to a title for that same article this will change. It is easy enough to build functionality that allows for both and by opt-in projects will understand the benefit and choose to adopt.</div><div><br /></div><div>When marketing is the reason for changing the name of projects, it is important to consider the ramifications. The "Wikipedians" among us claim ownership of the Foundation, insist on actions in their image. They represent a staid community representing a saturated market. With a strategy in place it is possible to disregard them. This makes only sense when the WMF tackles its bias for English as a priority. This is what is needed to realise the 2030 strategy.</div><div>Thanks,</div><div> GerardM</div>GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-80364321527839830082020-06-04T17:45:00.005+02:002020-06-04T21:34:29.027+02:00@Wikimedia and languages - @WikiCommons search, the most relevant development since @Wikidata<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA3oRHGLgb7POL4q3gu1HqTuFGn8ZcQXnEpeMDu3SGvY0BMtzPGE2dVfUvKlgck9y1yWap1esYmK3mDs2IPOBwoV0SJ0f844PgmoFtldFXy_09fjA-w2yzKmX7Rl7oSY72uALp1Q/s1600/Wikimedia+hackathon.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA3oRHGLgb7POL4q3gu1HqTuFGn8ZcQXnEpeMDu3SGvY0BMtzPGE2dVfUvKlgck9y1yWap1esYmK3mDs2IPOBwoV0SJ0f844PgmoFtldFXy_09fjA-w2yzKmX7Rl7oSY72uALp1Q/s320/Wikimedia+hackathon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The Wikimedia Foundation is important for the support of languages on the Internet. The localisation of its software is done at <a href="http://translatewiki.net/">translatewiki.net</a>, it is done in over 300 languages.<br />
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The milestones for multilingual support are:<br />
<ul>
<li>the first <a href="http://wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia</a> in another language</li>
<li>Localisation of the MediaWiki software</li>
<li>Transfer of internationalisation and localistion of MediaWiki to translatewiki.net</li>
<li><a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Language_Extension_Bundle">MediaWiki Language Extension Bundle</a> available for external users of MediaWiki</li>
<li>Support for interwiki links to <a href="https://www.wikidata.org/">Wikidata</a></li>
<li><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MediaSearch">Special:MediaSearch</a>, multi-lingual search for Wikimedia Commons</li>
</ul>
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These milestones have been very much technology driven. For me the one reason why Wikidata became the success it is, is because it was from the start linked to every subject covered by Wikipedia and the solution was so overwhelmingly superior that nobody could reasonably object.</div>
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To make a success of this latest milestone, institutional support is needed. It is for the Wikimedia Foundation, its movement to reduce its bias for English and make room for improved language support.</div>
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My way of phrasing this as an essential objective: "<b><i><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" style="background-color: white; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #14171a; display: inline; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.3125; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">All of </span><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-xoduu5" style="-webkit-box-align: stretch; -webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; align-items: stretch; background-color: white; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #14171a; display: inline-flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap; z-index: 0;">
<span class="r-18u37iz" style="-webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: horizontal; flex-direction: row;"><a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1n1174f r-1loqt21 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/WikiCommons" role="link" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1b95e0; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 1.3125; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: inherit;">@WikiCommons</a></span></div>
<span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" style="background-color: white; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #14171a; display: inline; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.3125; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is available to every single person on the planet</span></i></b>". As we adopt this as our objective, it is first and foremost about making Special:MediaSearch useful in any and all of our languages and make it available from any and all of our Wikipedias.</div>
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As we adopt this, it is essential that priority is given to multilingual search over special interests including GLAM, Open Data, SPARQL and what have you. Priority when we are to open up in multiple languages first. Special interest only gain relevance when it is made obvious how it helps it helps open up Commons in Swahili, Hindi, German or Vietnamese.</div>
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Special:MediaSearch is possible because of everything that went before.. Its functionality is part of MediaWiki and localised at translatewiki.net. The existing search engine is now linked to the labels for items in Wikidata and it was made public after <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/hay/sdsearch/?locale=fr#q=haswbstatement:P180=Q138539">Hay Kranen brought us his proof of concept</a>. It became available warts and all and while finding <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MediaSearch?type=bitmap&q=%D9%85%D9%86%D8%B5%D9%88%D8%B1+%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%B2">منصور اعجاز</a> in Punjabi is huge, it is not great when you do not find cats because a user is called Kočka..</div>
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The challenge to us as an organisation, a movement are we willing to work on our existing bias, open up Commons in all the languages we are said to support and accept that our hobby horses will get attention not in the next but in a future iteration.</div>
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Thanks,</div>
<div>
GerardM</div>
GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-5767120141493902122020-05-28T12:24:00.000+02:002020-05-28T12:24:10.064+02:00@WikiCommons - Sarah T. Roberts versus Sarah T. Roberts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH0CpPgf_o11gjVBujNY1bybOjXe4_NybYFfOagc1XjFuTDuzkQ9PQtsMXu4B9TOHMzAOYsr6KaI9Aad7WUMuQ7oghXBF_Dus69zIL70sBEGW6bYQfvJauR4Nq1duENRjUnUIVIQ/s1600/Sarah+T+Roberts.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="556" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH0CpPgf_o11gjVBujNY1bybOjXe4_NybYFfOagc1XjFuTDuzkQ9PQtsMXu4B9TOHMzAOYsr6KaI9Aad7WUMuQ7oghXBF_Dus69zIL70sBEGW6bYQfvJauR4Nq1duENRjUnUIVIQ/s320/Sarah+T+Roberts.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
I have a renewed interest in Commons because the first steps have been made to make it actually useful. According to Wikidata there are two distinct Sarah T. Roberts. One is an epidemiologist the other is into information & media studies.<br />
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At Commons it was a mess, the picture of Sarah was used to illustrate an info box of the other Sarah. It is not that interesting to tell you how I did what. Relevant is that I did. I did because you will will find things when there is a label for whatever in "your" language..<br />
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Given that we do not research the use of Commons or Wikidata for that matter, why should the WMF give priority to opening up Commons even further? After all, there is no data to support it..<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardMGerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-34532932077353782612020-05-26T20:40:00.000+02:002020-05-26T20:40:13.962+02:00@WikiCommons - Meanwhile in a school in India, Japan, Russia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix8RZvdykg5yBnwnohoyI1Xy_La7zke9orsn3Jtkh1Au0EBNSYF-8phn62u9tPa2j3uSKp1nLRdEZKusCLUkzpP_7U8vhvqfOcCLn1RBh3KSdfHUcgswevL6k2bv2Yn5ivpA-BNQ/s1600/Indian+school.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="870" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix8RZvdykg5yBnwnohoyI1Xy_La7zke9orsn3Jtkh1Au0EBNSYF-8phn62u9tPa2j3uSKp1nLRdEZKusCLUkzpP_7U8vhvqfOcCLn1RBh3KSdfHUcgswevL6k2bv2Yn5ivpA-BNQ/s320/Indian+school.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
These students in India have to do a project. The subject is Botswana. Their teacher wants them to find many pictures so he searched Wikimedia Commons among others for pictures of Mokgweetsi Masisi, the president of Botswana. He marked the pictures that depicts Mr Masisi and now his pupils will find more pictures of him when they look for मोकेगसेसी मासी.<br />
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At the same time in Japan students have to do a project about Botswana. Their teacher is pleasantly surprised when he find so many pictures for モクウィツィ・マシシ...<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardMGerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-45475516839617751232020-05-25T22:59:00.007+02:002020-05-25T23:34:28.111+02:00@WikiCommons - meanwhile in a different universe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNNhNv4bk3A6X8pSFQTwMMNVsjUkn1QDKZIM8iCPgE_35hF4iWr9RNfqAQZF3DmALAzY6UZGegIesoWEwWL1N9PBqRl6cDMygEBXs0q9FLoiBLO-ZCLujxEwqdnoRCkJYwaIl2nw/s1600/galaxy.PNG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="636" data-original-width="1346" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNNhNv4bk3A6X8pSFQTwMMNVsjUkn1QDKZIM8iCPgE_35hF4iWr9RNfqAQZF3DmALAzY6UZGegIesoWEwWL1N9PBqRl6cDMygEBXs0q9FLoiBLO-ZCLujxEwqdnoRCkJYwaIl2nw/s320/galaxy.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
And again there was a discussion that it should not be this hard to find pictures in <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/">Commons</a>. The big difference this time is that there is now a wealth of images that have been tagged for what they "depict". They are linked to Wikidata items and they have a wealth of labels in many, many languages. In essence it has always been an objective of Wikidata to share its content in any and all of the <a href="https://www.wikipedia.org/">300+ languages supported by a Wikipedia</a>.<br />
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The ideas that floated around soon made it into a "<a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/hay/sdsearch/">proof of concept</a>" and as so often it actually worked after a fashion. The first iteration was in true Wikimedia tradition English only. The proof of concept got its second language in Dutch, <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/hay/sdsearch/#q=haswbstatement:P180=Q70283655">Hay Kranen</a> the developer is Dutch. Now there are nine languages and we are waiting for French to be the tenth.<br />
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So what does it do. You can look for pictures in Commons, it has 61 million media files, and when you are looking for available pictures in your language, you will find it as long as Wikidata has a label in your language. This is for instance a result in <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Appelmoes6.png">Japanese</a> and this is the result in <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Appelmoes5.png">German</a>.<br />
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What can you do to make it better? Add labels in your language for the things you want to find and find media files that depicts what you are looking for. When nobody translated the software in your language, you can even do that.<br />
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Why is this so relevant? Have you ever wondered how many pictures you find in one of the smaller languages using Google or Bing? Let me tell you, it is disappointing to be polite. Commons is the repository of the mediafiles that illustrate all the Wikipedias so yes, it covers "almost anything".<br />
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The Wikimedia Foundation has this big strategy for its movement to be inclusive. This is a wonderful opportunity to show how <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development">agile</a> it is, that it understands and supports a need that has been expressed for many many years. The beauty is the the way forward has been expressed in something that already works.<br />
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ABSOLUTELY, there will be challenges in integrating this functionality where it fulfills a need.<br />
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Luckily it is not necessary for it all to be done in one go. The first step can be as little as to take the "proof of concept" an rewrite it in the preferred language of the WMF, internationalise and localise it and keep it stand alone for now. The people who know about it will use it and they will be the first to point out what more they want to be done. A priority will be to retain its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle">KISSable</a> nature.<br />
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The objective is to open up Commons. Open it up in any and all languages. For me it is obvious. I will gladly give it my attention in the expectation that both Wikidata and Commons actually find a public, have a purpose that is more than what we do for ourselves.<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardM<br />GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-19443636611758460872020-04-12T10:12:00.001+02:002020-04-12T10:12:03.295+02:00False friends and ListeriaBot - finding a way out of an impasse <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRB-E9SV0IE0uq0wy7JlP89sa9CtJmN-59YfLr7GdK0rA5Zy1J41ewKWlYxdYPrPJEl_ZdcTk3_qJQvzVq5jAv_S9Co_EPyBF4VBFo6FpMCnT2r06faZQRtSsGOEtAlNUQfNIMiA/s1600/false-friends.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRB-E9SV0IE0uq0wy7JlP89sa9CtJmN-59YfLr7GdK0rA5Zy1J41ewKWlYxdYPrPJEl_ZdcTk3_qJQvzVq5jAv_S9Co_EPyBF4VBFo6FpMCnT2r06faZQRtSsGOEtAlNUQfNIMiA/s320/false-friends.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
ListeriaBot is a bot that maintains lists based on information in Wikidata. In this blogpost I will explain what a Listeria list is, what it is used for. I will point out its qualitative benefits and explain how Listeria can be instrumental to limit bias, stimulate collaboration and help us share in the sum of the knowledge available for us.<br />
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The heart of a Listeria list is a query. In this query it is defined what data is retrieved from Wikidata, it includes the order of presentation and shows this information in a language depending on the availability of labels.<br />
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Listeria lists are defined only once and every day a job run by the ListeriaBot updates all lists with the latest data from Wikidata. In this way available information is provided even when articles are still to be written. When there is an article to read, the label is shown in the upright position, when there is not is shows in cursive.<br />
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The biggest difference between a Wikipedia list and a Listeria list? No false friends. When you seek a specific "Rebecca Cunnigham", it is really powerful to know that your Prof Cunningham will always be known as Q77527827 and is also authoritatively known by other identifiers. From a qualitative point of view, particularly in lists, red links even blue links such disambiguation is a big thing. At this time a typical Wikipedia list has an error rate because of disambiguation issues of around 4%. I frequently blogged about this, the Listeria list I often referred to is for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GerardM/George_Polk_Award">George Polk award</a>.<br />
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Maintenance is another reason to choose for Listeria lists. This was documented by Magnus, a list was maintained up to a point in time as a Listeria list and for all the wrong reasons human qualities were to prevail. Magnus <a href="http://blog.magnusmanske.de/?p=599">compared the results</a> after some time and the human maintained list proved to be the poorly maintained list.<br />
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Categories are lists of a kind, for many categories it is defined what they contain. Consequently Wikidata is easily updated from Wikipedias and can serve as a source for updating categories as well.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzeTyyTHGQp2glWYwWf67b2FFvaiFHKSkb0Ut0hUhiDM6bmxWejz-hUoGWjN8wgNsbV1A-5ZA9C7fVRcxEFf7dI8PSJHetPTMgGUXimyIE-qINCjC0o1DaeMtdpB_3St3CIo9-8g/s1600/Courtney+A+Miller.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="318" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzeTyyTHGQp2glWYwWf67b2FFvaiFHKSkb0Ut0hUhiDM6bmxWejz-hUoGWjN8wgNsbV1A-5ZA9C7fVRcxEFf7dI8PSJHetPTMgGUXimyIE-qINCjC0o1DaeMtdpB_3St3CIo9-8g/s320/Courtney+A+Miller.PNG" width="154" /></a></div>
Ok, the impasse. ListeriaBot is blocked because of a false friend issue. The objective is to find a resolution that will benefit us all. The false friend issue is that images can have a same name in both Wikimedia Commons and in English Wikipedia. The existing algorithm for showing pictures is that local pictures take precedence. When ListeriaBot is to do things differently, it can. Thanks to the wikidatification at Commons, we can indicate with a Wikidata identifier what a picture "depicts". Wikidatification of images can also be introduced for pictures at English Wikipedia and it is then becomes easy to always show what Commons has unless a preference is given to show a specific image for a particular project.<br />
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I have been told that<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:GerardM#April_2020"> I do not assume good faith</a>. When I see the extend people care to go to resolve this issue I am only amused. The objective of what we do is share in the sum of all knowledge and do this in a collaborative way.<br />
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English Wikipedia fails spectacularly by assuming that their perceived consensus is in the best interest of what we aim to achieve. There is no reflection on the quality brought by Listeria, there is no reflection on how its quality can substantially be improved. I fail to understand what they achieve except for feeling safe by insisting on dated practices and dated points of view.<br />
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I wish we could be one community that is known by a best of breed effort with one common goal; sharing the sum of all the knowledge that is available to us.<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardMGerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-52056465988809253742020-03-04T15:53:00.000+01:002020-03-04T15:54:26.883+01:00@Wikipedia; the dread that is one identity that binds us all<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFBhry2V3lSoNSQZcJIg8JDSnouAPeKS9pNKe1ZRPXpLiUdBBK_AIM4viZSUWOq34yE_0_EWpvjpDIaOprBJBb_0WA29DPhaS1pYZ1THb2oSCje7YQ8ixOhgKKYXnpL3RVwKuQKQ/s1600/Essie.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFBhry2V3lSoNSQZcJIg8JDSnouAPeKS9pNKe1ZRPXpLiUdBBK_AIM4viZSUWOq34yE_0_EWpvjpDIaOprBJBb_0WA29DPhaS1pYZ1THb2oSCje7YQ8ixOhgKKYXnpL3RVwKuQKQ/s320/Essie.png" width="320" /></a></div>
On Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/janeenuzzell">Janeen Uzzell</a> praised a blogpost that is the <a href="https://medium.com/@iamjessklein/wikimedia-foundation-all-hands-2020-sketchbook-d962118ecc52">Wikimedia Foundation All Hands: 2020 Sketchbook</a> and indeed it informs about current thinking, most of it is great and still, I find it absolutely terrifying.<br />
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There are several great sketches in there. Katherine Maher gave an asperational talk, I love it for Wikimedia to be seen as infrastructural, inclusive and even that that what we do does not have to be in our projects. Important is that she mentions "support systems" because they provide the input for much of our processes.<br />
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Important is the page on security and risk. All the important concepts are mentioned among them; likelihood, relative impact and management preparedness but also "plan for and mitigate risks".<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6cpHIs0bPi-G3cf0LFguDxlbprb11x1Tm6_ktn9StNVimy2TjU4v-bqN7_GkEd3-XMPrYHw1zUxcwxWkgSIeu_97It3aMMRXCuSoKHp5SobQ1l0Yt6LQGuTqW8PaAg7_0MUovuA/s1600/Slave_branding_iron_%2528replica%2529%252C_Museum_of_Liverpool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6cpHIs0bPi-G3cf0LFguDxlbprb11x1Tm6_ktn9StNVimy2TjU4v-bqN7_GkEd3-XMPrYHw1zUxcwxWkgSIeu_97It3aMMRXCuSoKHp5SobQ1l0Yt6LQGuTqW8PaAg7_0MUovuA/s200/Slave_branding_iron_%2528replica%2529%252C_Museum_of_Liverpool.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
What truly makes me uneasy is when it is said that we aim to clarify who we are in the world in one brand, Wikipedia. The idea is that when we are all branded as Wikipedia, things are likely to become easier. When you check out the website <a href="https://brandingwikipedia.org/">brandingwikipedia.org</a> there is no argument; Wikipedia <i>is </i>free knowledge. When you check out what it is to do<br />
<ul>
<li>project and improve our reputation</li>
<li>support our movement/growth</li>
<li>be opt-in</li>
</ul>
<div>
In the abstract Wikipedia IS wonderful, in reality the concept of what Wikipedia is, is largely determined by the English Wikipedia. It it is fiercely independent, it is hardly inclusive and it has largely determined the maneuvering space the Wikimedia Foundation has. In order to "plan for and mitigate risks", I will mention several reasons why I am anxious because of this branding initiative.<br />
<ul>
<li>In the Commons OTRS they use English Wikipedia notions to determine if pictures can stay or are to be removed. Commons provides a service to all Wikimedia projects</li>
<li>The query functionality for Commons is maintained by people from the Foundation. For more than half a year it puts a strain on the growth and usefulness of Wikidata. Tools have become glacially slow and often malfunction because an edit is not available when needed in further processing. It is <a href="https://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2020/02/dear-krmaher-wikipedia-is-not-flagship.html">not known what the position of the WMF director is in this</a>. </li>
<li>This is about marketing and we have never done much marketing for any of our projects. What we have done was reactive and has been all about the English Wikipedia. Now consider this:</li>
<ul>
<li>Wikisource, <i>we </i>do not know what is available at what quality, it is all about editing and not about having people read the finished article, consequently we do not value Wikisource and fulfill its potential.</li>
<li>So far Commons has always been English only. With the support of the "depicts" functionality, there is room to enable and market a multilingual search engine. In the spirit of "it is a Wiki", it serves as an open invite to add labels in any and all of our languages and open up what Commons has to offer. It is how to market free content the Wiki way.</li>
<li>In Wikidata we know many more concepts than what we know in any individual Wikipedias. We could use our data and inform as we have done for years in multilingual tools like Reasonator. This is an example in <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?q=Q3568028&lang=en">English</a> <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?q=Q3568028&lang=ru">Russian</a> <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?q=Q3568028&lang=zh">Chinese</a> and <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?q=Q3568028&lang=kn">Kannada</a>. NB it takes additional labels to improve results and consequently <i>this </i>is the inclusive approach.</li>
<li>When Wikipedians were willing to reflect on their own performance, we could help them <a href="https://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2016/01/wikipedia-lowest-hanging-fruit-from.html">solve their false friends issues</a>.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div>
One sketch in the sketchbook is a presentation by Jess Wade. It says that even Academia is biased. As the Wikimedia community we do not need to be subservient to any bias and most certainly not the bias that Wikipedia has brought us.</div>
</div>
GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-28507416695559583532019-11-14T12:14:00.000+01:002019-11-14T12:14:10.587+01:00@wikidata - I don't scale, help me scale<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtwOI9yTjaac30KN_-kJOnXHfqopT-pQniteQ5izOD6aUdhkMOOd6ZzJOek573UHvrj1tIooEYiWC5rESMQwhD8yqWr_ffCbath4k8Xd4vZgznwxzzOqXHPQUfcuSYkcyNj_6daA/s1600/scale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtwOI9yTjaac30KN_-kJOnXHfqopT-pQniteQ5izOD6aUdhkMOOd6ZzJOek573UHvrj1tIooEYiWC5rESMQwhD8yqWr_ffCbath4k8Xd4vZgznwxzzOqXHPQUfcuSYkcyNj_6daA/s200/scale.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
At Wikidata there is always more to do and as a volunteer you make the biggest impact when you concentrate on specific subjects. I do not scale enough to do everything I would like to do.<br />
<br />
There are a few area's where I aim to make a difference; of particular concern is where we do not represent a body of knowledge/information in Wikidata. At this time the favour scientists particularly women, young scientists and scientists from Africa.<br />
<br />
To make my work scale, I twitter and blog. I latch on to the great work done by <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=50082878">Dr Jess Wade</a>. She writes articles on well deserving scientists and I aim to add value for those scientists on Wikidata. Typically I add professions, alma maters, employers and awards. In addition I add "authorities" like <a href="https://orcid.org/">ORCiD</a>, Google Scholar and VIAF. This is important because it enables the linking of scholarly papers already in Wikidata or known at ORCiD. I can more or less keep up with Jess and, I happily add information for any and all scientists I come across on Twitter.<br />
<br />
While doing this I learned of the <a href="https://globalyoungacademy.net/">Global Young Academy</a> and as a side project started adding scientists who are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GlobalYoungAcademyTeam">member of the GYA or one of affiliated organisations to Wikidata</a>. I am so pleased I got into contact with <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?q=Q64896669&lang=de">Robert Lepenies</a>. Robert is happy with the opportunity that a Scholia provides for an <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/organization/Q5570796">organisation like the GYA</a>, <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/author/Q64896669">for him</a> and for all the young scientists involved. We collaborated on completing the lists on many wikipedias, Robert added many scientists to Wikidata and is now battling to keep the pictures of these young scientists on Commons...<br />
<br />
What is crucially important for me is that Robert advocates an open ORCiD profile to scientists worldwide so that they may have their Scholia. Both Robert and I do not scale and what would help us most is an easy and obvious way that enables any scientists to start a process that will include all his papers from ORCiD, will update the known co-authors and instruct in what they can do to enrich their Wikidata / ORCiD / Scholia profile even more.<br />
<br />
I am now working on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GerardM/Africa#African_science">African scientists</a> and yes, I would appreciate some help.<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardM<br />
<br />
PS my wife would like this scale to be enough for meGerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-36321775219371883452019-09-07T16:40:00.001+02:002019-09-07T16:49:03.564+02:00Language barriers to @Wikidata<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEintEHzqNTI7dB1uehbNY_ilA0RfAJmB6D-Cza-km-Wl_gZJpjPqGUOVQAqX-rB9Fuq-QhESGHVWgfMYT9Cko6Y3YefUEUu2Om3vXp8AXh44wHW5oynxXHw_BmBAbCUfl-QLokgzg/s1600/language+barrier.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="612" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEintEHzqNTI7dB1uehbNY_ilA0RfAJmB6D-Cza-km-Wl_gZJpjPqGUOVQAqX-rB9Fuq-QhESGHVWgfMYT9Cko6Y3YefUEUu2Om3vXp8AXh44wHW5oynxXHw_BmBAbCUfl-QLokgzg/s320/language+barrier.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Wikidata is intended to serve all the languages of all the Wikipedias for starters. It does in one very important way; all the interwiki links or the links between articles on the same subject are maintained in Wikidata.<br />
<br />
For most other purposes Wikidata serves the "big" languages best, particularly English. This is awkward because particularly people reading other languages stand to gain most from Wikidata. The question is: how do we chip away on this language barrier.<br />
<br />
Giving Wikidata data an application is the best way to entice people to give Wikidata a second look.. Here are two:<br />
<ul>
<li>Commons is being wikidatified and it now supports a "depicts" statement. As more labels become available in a language, finding pictures in "your" language becomes easy and obvious. It just needs an application</li>
<li>Many subjects are likely to be of interest in a language. Why not have projects like the Africa project with <a href="https://zu.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GerardM">information about Africa</a> shared and updated by the Listeria bot? Add labels and it becomes easier to use, link to Reasonator for understanding and add articles for a Wikipedia to gain content.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Key is the application of our data. Wikidata includes a lot, the objective is to find the labels and we will when the results are immediately applicable. It will also help when we consider the marketing opportunities that help foster our goals.</div>
<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardMGerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-22095130167056607552019-08-25T14:20:00.002+02:002019-08-25T14:26:42.611+02:00There is much more to read; introducing the "one page wonder"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUSfsU_Mj-764wQOertrC-GJg9vDMletPSE9_50RfZR8nSkS9VgAeaUoHV6S9Dqj1KA-dKxCsbLicJcK2g5khXkMJ8Zb54tNBFD9WwDK6uNvrM_kcognftsE3zkQwU3n0J14DMxQ/s1600/reading.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="1600" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUSfsU_Mj-764wQOertrC-GJg9vDMletPSE9_50RfZR8nSkS9VgAeaUoHV6S9Dqj1KA-dKxCsbLicJcK2g5khXkMJ8Zb54tNBFD9WwDK6uNvrM_kcognftsE3zkQwU3n0J14DMxQ/s320/reading.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
When <a href="https://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2019/08/helping-wikipedia-readers-find-their.html">we are to find for Wikipedia readers more to read</a>, we need a mechanism, a place where we can link a subject to external resources. Resources like the<a href="https://archive.org/"> Internet Archive</a>, "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.<br />
<br />
Putting the "one page wonder" in production is easy. It is all on one page and is fully internationalised. The localisation is done at <a href="http://translatewiki.net/">translatewiki.net</a> and when people want to make it useful in "their" language, they will add the missing labels for the Wikidata items.<br />
<br />
With the "one page wonder" in place it becomes interesting:<br />
<ul>
<li>Is "your" local library known to us and do we get <i>your </i>permission to find it for you. How do we supply "your" library with a search string?</li>
<li>The Internet Archive's <a href="https://archive.org/web/">wayback machine</a> may have content in "your" language but can you navigate its English only user interface. </li>
<li>What other organisations do we want to partner with to provide you with more to read</li>
<li>Will we be able to show local pictures, a Dutch cow looks different from an Indian cow..</li>
<li>What other issues will there be..</li>
<li>Oh and yes, we can include the Reasonator, queries and what have you.. we just have to think about what to show.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Thanks,</div>
<div>
GerardM</div>
GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-59001406311753458472019-08-11T10:33:00.000+02:002019-08-11T10:46:03.219+02:00How to value open data and why Wikidata won't go stale<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_PjntpoOLAjFfYq052ym_LVTKHBK7PH7J7PC6YJTEltNLl_SbZn1F6AS7SeG-xp-BBGRFm2qXGMeehM72rjKy4K7s8P6XsrkLU9pqf5ZB-7uBosHyx3UsJq8s8lxFdl6ehpF7fw/s1600/Data-Value-Chain-Spotlight.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="674" data-original-width="1200" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_PjntpoOLAjFfYq052ym_LVTKHBK7PH7J7PC6YJTEltNLl_SbZn1F6AS7SeG-xp-BBGRFm2qXGMeehM72rjKy4K7s8P6XsrkLU9pqf5ZB-7uBosHyx3UsJq8s8lxFdl6ehpF7fw/s640/Data-Value-Chain-Spotlight.png" width="640" /></a></div>
The data in Wikidata is data everyone knows or could know. A lot of awful things could be said of its content and quality and all of it misses one important point. It is being used, its use is increasing, it is increasingly used by Wikipedias and that provides an incentive to maintain the data.<br />
<br />
What Wikipedia indicates is that most data is stable, not stale. A date of birth, a place of birth so much remains the same. When we bury data in text, it is always a challenge to get the data out. When we bury data in Wikidata it just takes a query to bring it back to life. Who was a member of multiple "<a href="https://globalyoungacademy.net/national-young-academies/">National Young Academies, Similar Bodies and YS Networks</a>" for instance; you do not find it in the texts of those organisations but you will increasingly find it in Wikidata. Once the data is in there, it is stable and available for query.<br />
<br />
As GLAMS make their content available under a free license, their collections gain relevance as the collection gains an audience. Just consider that only a small part is available to the public in the GLAM itself and on <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Commons</a> it is there for all to find. Commons is being wikidatified and those collections become available in any language gaining additional relevance in the process.<br />
<br />
The best example is what the <a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/">Biodiversity Heritage Library</a> does. It is instrumental in the digitisation of books, it makes them publicly available and gains the collections they are from an audience. Volunteers prove themselves in this process and both professionals and the wider world benefit. From a data perspective the data is new because only now available.<br />
<br />
When <a href="https://comprehension360.corsairs.network/the-tragedy-of-opendata-4b22f05cffe6">a publisher mocks Open data</a>, it is self serving. It is in their interest that data is inaccessible, only there for those who pay. There are plenty of examples of great data initiatives that went to ground and obviously when the data does not pay the rent, publishers will pull the plug. It is different for the data at Wikidata. It is managed by an organisation that has as its motto "share in the sum of all knowledge". The audience the WMF has makes it a world top ten website, it is not for sale and it is not going anywhere. As long as there are people like me who care about the availability of information, the data at Wikidata may go stale in places waiting for another volunteer to pick up the slack.<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardMGerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-60618666017510693922017-01-06T11:14:00.001+01:002017-01-07T08:44:18.728+01:00#Maps - Where did they live?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIlOGz_hQE1G3wYNktZ4AHRZgUg5K-Rsks8t7_hU2MPbzEB2eX2sTOmI0jPYcbR2gmjXVArv73B5dZaIM72vgOrmAxnOwzZPaxeTkBwzMuaaLIK-3xl5Tz86r_JD52EMEUg2u0rg/s1600/maps+of+the+vandals.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIlOGz_hQE1G3wYNktZ4AHRZgUg5K-Rsks8t7_hU2MPbzEB2eX2sTOmI0jPYcbR2gmjXVArv73B5dZaIM72vgOrmAxnOwzZPaxeTkBwzMuaaLIK-3xl5Tz86r_JD52EMEUg2u0rg/s320/maps+of+the+vandals.png" width="320" /></a></div>
This map is in many ways perfect. It tells us a story. It helps visualise what happened in the past. The map is simple, they are the contours of present day Europe, more or less and in it you see roughly where what happened.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Obviously the map could be improved but typically it makes little difference for understanding what it is that is shown when it is seen in isolation.</div>
<div>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-QWrDnEr7MM6SLcpgw9UMqmC4R1ysvUyRb_M_oVvvcIURyF0JfdamFn-6xi0SmkcqmTXpVCmYZdz0ivRO2RuWQ0uvwPqO7HT_jliK1IXyD7g651_233d-sVLEemfOs1Gxop76ug/s1600/Vandal_Kingdom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-QWrDnEr7MM6SLcpgw9UMqmC4R1ysvUyRb_M_oVvvcIURyF0JfdamFn-6xi0SmkcqmTXpVCmYZdz0ivRO2RuWQ0uvwPqO7HT_jliK1IXyD7g651_233d-sVLEemfOs1Gxop76ug/s200/Vandal_Kingdom.jpg" width="200" /></a>When this map is part of a continuum of maps, it will show the movements over time. It will show where they are at a given time. They will show <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=10416611">where the Vandals settled down</a> and show where they fought their battles. Better understanding will emerge but it may get complicated. The Vandals were not the only ones around. It was a time of turmoil and only when the shape of former countries and battles are shown a better understanding emerges.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For many "<a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=3024240">former countries</a>" maps are not available and when they are they are of a similar quality as the map of the Vandals. What I would love is maps as an overlay and just add maps and facts as they are available. Many maps will only over time get some credibility but it is an improvement over nothing to see.<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardM</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-62698505280326277232016-07-02T17:09:00.000+02:002016-07-02T17:32:29.706+02:00#Wikimedia - #notadog and #notmemberofthepack<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi75II9xPPe9yL6A_ZTyWZbvMVDrJlRMcy1tzaEnyAdfliKQq3JI4Nh9e9EmQaSHqzGK8lRYznCwx77JMlUCGp1CXwvJ-LLN3OpO8pYthC3UBI-1jo2CL64AOe44nnlgY5W5WQPPQ/s1600/Not+a+dog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi75II9xPPe9yL6A_ZTyWZbvMVDrJlRMcy1tzaEnyAdfliKQq3JI4Nh9e9EmQaSHqzGK8lRYznCwx77JMlUCGp1CXwvJ-LLN3OpO8pYthC3UBI-1jo2CL64AOe44nnlgY5W5WQPPQ/s1600/Not+a+dog.jpg" /></a></div>
It is controversial when you tell the #Wikipedia crowd that they do not look after their own. I am not a Wikipedian, I do not want to be as my experiences are not that positive. It is not that I do not care deeply about free content and the opportunities the Wikimedia Foundation offers.<br />
<br />
My point is simple; as a community we seem to be only interested in the production and maintenance of content and not really in the quality of the reader experience / the consumption of all the good stuff that exists. I will support it with a number of examples.<br />
<a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=483279"><br /></a>
<a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=483279">Wikimania</a> is the annual Wikimedia conference and it boasts many high grade presentations important for the understanding of the past and the history of what we do. For this reason it makes sense to do a thorough job and include all the presentations in Wikidata so that we provide the same opportunity to explore this content as we do for <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=23054661">TED</a> conferences and presentations. When we do, we will honour the many Wikimedians who presented in the past. This may prove controversial because of the many conflicting notions of notability.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=263">Wikisource</a> is "Wikimedia project, an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki". For readers there is one vital problem. Much of it are works in progress, some need a finishing touch others still need a lot of tender loving care. With a different approach to finished goods and, it is easy enough to know the status of sources, a clean user interface can be delivered to potential readers expanding the reach of the work that is done.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=565">Commons</a> is an "online repository of free-use images, sound and other media files, part of the Wikimedia Foundation". As a repository it functions really well. Large numbers of media files are deposited and used within the Wikimedia projects but my experience is that when you seek an image, it is really hard. The category system is hard to navigate, there are no labels attached to images that help finding relevant content and it is English only. Finding something among 32,289,013 files is really hard. For now I have given up on Commons.<br />
<br />
Being critical of <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=52">Wikipedia</a> is frowned upon. A typical response is "so fix it" but when solutions are offered that improve its quality, typically a suggestion falls on deaf ears. It is easy enough to <a href="http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/01/wikipedia-lowest-hanging-fruit-from.html">improve the functionality of red links</a>, but this idea is probably to mundane to consider even though it has been <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Red_Wikidata_link">proven to be easy to implement</a>.<br />
<br />
People fault me for being blunt. To some extend it is part of the culture I grew up in; to some extend it is because I have lost faith in the "community". My experience is that there is too much group think and I am definitely not a member of the pack, I prefer to make up my own mind, I articulate my opinions and arguments and care not too much when people react negatively without considering the arguments.<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardMGerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-10381300493278959672016-05-04T09:14:00.000+02:002016-05-04T09:14:22.230+02:00#Wikipedia / #Commons - Brigadeer General Loree K. Sutton<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix9SBco8rg7HPtW7u2MRs_phMtrExilrW88WwAZAt1Dy3j2jhc80lyjifm2FJ4_5s-rpEieb7Su6Kg6aJYE7vhUSGAagy0NYZHzOBGBPYeOhkg4XDrqUYFYThJHsEKcEoRRQTLiA/s1600/Loree_sutton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix9SBco8rg7HPtW7u2MRs_phMtrExilrW88WwAZAt1Dy3j2jhc80lyjifm2FJ4_5s-rpEieb7Su6Kg6aJYE7vhUSGAagy0NYZHzOBGBPYeOhkg4XDrqUYFYThJHsEKcEoRRQTLiA/s320/Loree_sutton.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
<a href="http://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?q=Q6680295">Mrs Sutton</a> is psychiatrist who is a specialist on <a href="http://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=202387">PTSD</a>. When you read her CV, it is impressive. She no longer works for the US Army, she works for the <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/loree-sutton-51382a5a">City of New York</a>.<br />
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When you read <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loree_K._Sutton">the article on Wikipedia</a>, you find her picture. It is marked as Public Domain and it is not on Commons. Given that Wikidata is working towards the point where copyright and license information one can only hope that images like this can be easily shared based on the license.<br />
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When Commons started, it was intended as a repository that prevented the same file to be uploaded to all the Wikipedias. As such it served its purpose remarkably well. With Wikidata it becomes trivial to share images like the one of Mrs Sutton.<br />
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I fear that for some this reads as frightening. It undermines the one thing they love. It actually does not need remove the need for Commons as a platform. Quite the opposite; it will bring new tools to finally leverage all the data on images. It may bring this image of Mrs Sutton to Wikidata for starters.<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardM<br />
<br />GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-90279888309904665392015-12-11T08:23:00.001+01:002015-12-11T08:23:36.172+01:00#MissingBassel - What to do for him and, for #Syria<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCqfjNzSOX4b8OmAO3LlDK51_Y8KGReC-UNZJQnC-8HHwpj2E0Ew-YeS_LPYs_MCWsNRGVT6ev_6WDVSUWuQNcKF40ER0tSC0NBEA4qekh7RgI5mlxQX4Ekj1cr_fzFsH96TtoqA/s1600/Tropenmuseum.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="72" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCqfjNzSOX4b8OmAO3LlDK51_Y8KGReC-UNZJQnC-8HHwpj2E0Ew-YeS_LPYs_MCWsNRGVT6ev_6WDVSUWuQNcKF40ER0tSC0NBEA4qekh7RgI5mlxQX4Ekj1cr_fzFsH96TtoqA/s640/Tropenmuseum.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?q=Q982696">#Bassel</a> is a Wikipedian. He has been sentenced to death and according to some, there is not much that we can do. They are wrong. We can do so much even within the confines of what they think is our neutral point of view.<br />
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Bassel is from <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=858">Syria</a>, in many ways people think they Syrians are the enemy. They are wrong. Bassel is a Syrian and he is <a href="http://tools.wmflabs.org/autolist/autolist1.html?q=CLAIM%5B31%3A5%5D%20AND%20CLAIM%5B27%3A858%5D">one of the 735 Syrians in all of Wikipedia</a>. Writing about Syria, about Syrians is what we can do. Without adequate coverage of Syria there is no neutral point of view. We need to know about Syria and its history, the people that make up the Syrians without making information available in Wikipedia, it is all too easy to persist in the idea that they are the enemy.<br />
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When we write articles, we need illustrations. We need illustration about modern Syria and the Syria that once was. Particularly for this last part, our friends in the many GLAM institutions for help. When we explain our need, they are quite happy to raise to the occasion, after all it is for a Wikipedian..<br />
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At the Erasmus award ceremony we got to talk and people from the <a href="http://tropenmuseum.nl/en">Tropenmuseum</a> came up with the idea of checking their collection. They have a small collection of 356 images readily available for upload and, they need some assistance.. It is such a small collection because it is not easy to ask the often Syrian photographers for their permission.. the fog of war you know..<br />
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We can make a difference for Bassel, make no mistake. We can ask our GLAM friends, we can ask Syrians who live abroad, we can ask anyone for illustrations about everything Syria. We can ask ourselves what we can do and the least we can do is make a difference and write about Syria and the Syrians.<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardM<br />
<br />GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-39292633868026965322015-04-23T08:21:00.000+02:002015-04-23T08:24:34.697+02:00#Wikimedia - Robin Reineke - #migrants die<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=19822556" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSFZGOFEieof_1q5dfRCdkafW4j76cTorgMRFhFLO48AXrQb9-HsDMr87-gn2TwtyIR39OUC7sueKa9_6dMk0DV37Gups3dMwZo_oIWg0OKO4ytZlrw0Hm3jQUTDddNEFYuYj17A/s1600/RobinReineke.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=19822556">Robin Reineke</a> is a founder and the executive director of the <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=19822558">Colibrí Center for Human Rights</a>. They work with the Pima County Medical Examiner to identify migrant lives lost. By documenting the lives lost, they make the point that people matter.<br />
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Never mind what border, people on opposite sites of the fence or sea think less of the people on the opposite side. In the USA they die in a desert, in Europe they die at sea. When they are in the Netherlands, it is "OK" for them to drift on the streets.<br />
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People matter and Robin received the<a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=6533207"> Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award</a> on behalf of the foundation she founded. Under normal circumstances, the people of the age that dare to migrate are the power houses of an economy. When they, like the corrupt money are leaving a country its economy is not doing as well as it should.<br />
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Accepting money and not people is an indication of double standards. It has everything to do with the corrupt people being of a similar class.<br />
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I received this picture from Robin to upload to <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/">Commons</a>. At this time it does not work for me.. Sad.<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardMGerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-71968616598117723592015-03-21T17:52:00.002+01:002015-03-21T17:52:21.120+01:00#Commons - Picture of the Year<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAAlWNxKLJHTwrTdHbEzFhNjcscBEukmMQe-iB2V9v4fS6niHGG-eMPowoUCDnnYtJs5kKtSNyiu9M8eJSKMaW6Lh87QXPSPIEEGFWezmq_cFakAhwRvOSRenu8tlDtAmG50N9OA/s1600/poy.PNGhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_butterfly_feeding_on_the_tears_of_a_turtle_in_Ecuador.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAAlWNxKLJHTwrTdHbEzFhNjcscBEukmMQe-iB2V9v4fS6niHGG-eMPowoUCDnnYtJs5kKtSNyiu9M8eJSKMaW6Lh87QXPSPIEEGFWezmq_cFakAhwRvOSRenu8tlDtAmG50N9OA/s1600/poy.PNG" height="278" width="640" /></a></div>
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Every year <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=565">Commons</a> has its Picture of the Year competition. This <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_butterfly_feeding_on_the_tears_of_a_turtle_in_Ecuador.jpg">year's winner</a> shows a butterfly drinking the eye fluid of a tortoise. There is a word for it.. <a class="extiw" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud-puddling#Other_sources_of_liquid_nutrients" title="en:Mud-puddling">lachryphagy</a> I had never heard of it.<br />
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Congratulation to Commons for another successful year :)<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardMGerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-20826812530517834352015-03-12T09:47:00.000+01:002015-03-12T09:47:11.613+01:00#Wikimedia #Commons - 25 million images <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mevlid-i_Halil_Mosque_08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGB_qe4q6dfwhN4jV7Y8Z_PPK1S61orWW5gUUCFv9K-Sq6vR2y1PAaiPjcTfAOMgjwVLelGrwgQ2pZfYKYVODNWDUbvQzlLQV26dQsBk1Wg6oJu2g_Vz7MeM1JLyiE5Iyc2s2sEg/s1600/Mevlid-i_Halil_Mosque_08.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />GerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12046714.post-88726532823284018182014-12-30T10:50:00.000+01:002014-12-30T10:50:37.506+01:00#LOC - #Wounded Knee II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2007678212/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijZAVVneg18DWncyXSFTaN5Ob8puhyphenhyphen9IVGv5iiKm2Rw-9YQE4ergU-ovpYyZCR8QOnbyqrHPa5mBEDZ74HcScQQef5yEfVe9hxaLOz1Zzp50t3yBBPAHP-US2LV_x2nIcfs2tm6w/s1600/Wounded+Knee.PNG" height="410" width="640" /></a></div>
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At the time I <a href="http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2010/03/token-of-appreciation.html">blogged about the restoration of an old photograph</a> take after <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=108413">Wounded Knee</a>. At the time there were many people actively restoring pictures as a group. This is just one of the important restaurations undertaken by <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Durova">Durova</a>.<br />
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Now almost five years later, I learned that the <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=131454">Library of Congress</a> included the restored picture with the original. Now that is awesome.<br />
Thanks,<br />
GerardMGerardMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14287269079265427282noreply@blogger.com0