#DBpedia and #Wikidata

At the #mlwlux conference, the new Wikidata project was discussed. The question raised was, what will that do to DBpedia. To understand, DBpedia is very big in the semantic web world and once Wikidata is going to maintain the data locally, it will affect DBpedia.

Given that the world changes around us anyway, the best thing that could happen for both Wikipedia, DBpedia and Wikidata is that we start actually using and considering the data aspects of the information that resides in Wikipedia.

Much of the data in DBpedia is retrieved from info boxes. What DBpedia is really good at is finding inconsistencies in those info boxes. When info boxes will transition to Wikidata based info boxes, all these inconsistencies will have to be addressed.  When we start now, it will improve consistency and quality in Wikipedia.

Such activity will give the DBpedia and the Wikidata communities a shared goal. Many of the people involved are member of all three communities. Really, once the data is used practically not only on the semantic web but also on the wiki everyone wins.
Thanks,
     GerardM