What is the utility of Wikimedia projects as seen by its editors

I participated in a survey for Wikimedia contributors. The survey was first and foremost about traditional Wikipedia and honestly, there is not much value in my replies.

Over the years I have contributed a lot to many projects. My efforts have to have a purpose otherwise I lose my motivation. It has to have utility, it is what I dream about, it is what I strive for.

Would it not be great when we knew what our community dreams about, what they aim to achieve and as importantly how these dreams might grow into a reality or have grown into realities. Would it not be great when the Wikimedia Foundation builds on what is already there and grows our public, our relevance? It could start with a survey.

Thanks,

       GerardM

MSF, drones, a hospital and what is not in the news - also NOMA

You may know MSF as Doctors without borders. They are not beholden to the whims of politicians. They provide emergency medical care in too many countries, in countries ravaged by war like Palestina, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan.. 

On 2 April 2026, a drone attack struck the Al-Jabalain hospital in White Nile state, Sudan. Seven medical staff were killed. It is shocking and at the time I predicted that it would not be covered in the news. It did not. 

What to do? I read the MSF website and learned about a disease called Noma. In 2023 noma was added to the World Health Organization's list of neglected tropical diseases. I am in the process of deepening the information about Noma in Wikidata. It involves tagging papers with "noma", attributing papers to people. Finding new papers and adding them as well. For a recent "systematic scoping review" I am adding all the citations, adding many more papers relevant to the subject. It results in an informative Scholia on the subject. 

When the news is this bad, doing something positive is a way to cope.

Thanks,

       GerardM

Stamps, a Dutch charity and some science

The Dutch charity "Stichting Koninklijke Kinderpostzegels Nederland"  is best known for the annual sale of "kinderpostzegels". These stamps are sold door to door by primary school children since 1948 when a primary school teacher came up with the idea. It is now considered to be part of the Dutch cultural heritage.

Fast forward to 2026, this charity is probably the best known charity in the Netherlands, it supports disadvantaged children and this year it focuses on loneliness. Loneliness is closely linked to suicide. The numbers for suicide are not pretty; suicide is rising year over year. There is less funding for care so what to do?

The charity commissioned research on how to prevent loneliness. It is truly scientific, done by a reputable organisation, reputable scientists, and as can be expected with plenty of citations. The paper is in Dutch but hey, is Google not your friend?

For this Dutch paper there is a Scholia. Effectively it provides an interactive view, when citations are added, the view will change because of an added cited work, a cited author. When papers are attributed to an author and multiple works happen to be cited, the Scholia evolves and the author is credited for all the papers cited. 

For an NGO this is quite powerful because papers like these underpin the value of their work. It  provides a strong argument to support its work and contribute as a donor or volunteer.

Thanks,

         GerardM

What is good for the goose is good for the gander

The English Wikipedia banned a source used to prove the veracity of statements made in articles. That is in itself not a problem, the problem is that it had been a source that provided proof that could not be substantiated in any other way. 

The problem was with a feud with parties outside of the own organisation.They were threatened, abused.What clinched the argument for the ban was that they changed the narrative by altering the content they provided.

The organisation banned was not the Trump government of the United States of America.

Thanks,

     GerardM

Finance ministers from Burundi

The English Wikipedia has a list with the past and present finance ministers of Burundi. Its quality is in its existence. These Burundians are all politicians and they all shared the same position.

Some of them were missing in Wikidata. The majority existed because a volunteer added them based on information from a database. Given the list in Wikipedia some were missing and have been added. For all of them it is now known that they shared this position.

Reasonator provides an organised presentation based on the information available real time from Wikidata. This presentation is only available when you know about the availability of this tool AND the data. There is one list on a Wikipedia that will update whenever when there are changes. This list could be on any Wikipedia and dependent on articles for an individual the name of the person is shown in cursive or straight up. So with more local articles less will be shown in cursive. 

Why care about improving information about Burundian politicians? It is because it is part of the sum of all knowledge and it should be knowledge available to the public of any Wikipedia that considers it relevant. 

When a Wikipedia is interested in any list of politicians of any country.. It needs only two things, a Listeria like service needs to run and the definition of a list to start of with. This could be done more efficiently. The query could be part of a template making it easier to change the underlying query. We could have templates for politicians, awards, competitions ... 

One benefit of linking to Wikidata is that implicitly more information is available. Some of these finance ministers became presidents or premiers of Burundi. Obviously linking to a Reasonator will be an improvement from a "reader" perspective.

We do have experience with this approach. The result of combined efforts is in this collection of African politicians. With functionality like this available for use in any project, we will be sharing more of the sum of all the knowledge that is available to us.

Thanks,

      GerardM

Reliable sources for Wikimedia in the time of Minnesota in Winter

There are government engineered riots in the streets of Minnesota, people are dying. The sources for what transpires; the traditional sources of repute are suspect. Government sources deliberately polish what transpires to the extend that its lies are obvious given video documentation showing proof of the opposite. News cooperations operate on the basis of "balanced reporting" consequently obvious falsehoods get equal attention invalidating reliability for these traditional sources.

The best that can be said about USA government publications is that it publishes its policy however it no longer provides us with a reliable source. It no longer has the organisations that had a quality making their publications qualify as reliable. Examples abound; think health, climate, traffic, trade, military.

Wikimedia serves a global public. Arguably foreign sources became more reliable and respectable, more likely to provide a narrative that clashes with what some in the USA expect to hear. 

The Wikimedia Foundation is an organisation based in the United States, its infrastructure is centred in the USA. I fear for for the continuity of its products and its quality. It is not a given that this will remain given a US government going to court with the BBC because of what it considers partisan reporting. Wikimedia aims to provide a neutral point of view but given that its traditional sources are increasingly suspect, that it operates in an environment that is no longer free. Given that its bias is also in what it does not cover, I wonder how we measure Wikipedia as a reliable source.

Thanks,

       GerardM

A national project for Nigeria using Wikimedia projects

Nigeria will be going to the polls. There are over 520 languages in Nigeria and for some of them there is a Wikipedia. It is expected that there will be a lot of fake news. Wikipedia is known for its curated information so with a successful multilingual Wikimedia project there is the potential to undo or prevent a lot of damage.

When all the relevant information is to be offered in many languages big and small, there is a need for a scaffolding for the information. on all the parties, all the candidates and all the other entities that may be of relevance.

Wikidata can provide this scaffolding. For the existing members of parliament there is likely an existing item. All the candidates are included in Wikidata and identified as a candidate for the 2027 elections. Assuming that there is a project page for all the language Wikipedias relevant for Nigeria, there will be a Listeria list with all the candidates, the candidates with and without a local article are identified as such. 

Another list could include all the fake news recognised by the project and the parties, organisations, parties involved.

Technically, there are a few things that will make live easier. 

• a template that includes the query for Listeria lists - one , , the Wikidata identifier the query is for.
• all participating projects enable the Listeriabot for its processing
• a trigger that will update a Listeria list wherever it exist 

Thanks,

    PS happy 25th

          GerardM