Saturday, July 14, 2018

#AfricaGap - Where Wikipedias collide

The German and the English Wikipedia collide on the "administrative territorial entities" of the Gambia. I was told to remove entries that I made to Wikidata because they were "Falschinformationen". The German article is much better written but the English article indicates that the German information is likely to be outdated.

A discrepancy like this is obviously best solved to insist on "your" solution. The point that I have been making quite often is that such differences are commonplace and require proper sourcing. The obvious source will not be found on a university website, it will be found in governmental information of the Gambia.

Making information about Africa available in Wikidata makes the errors, the inconsistencies and the lack of data in the Wikipedias more visible. This is not solved by considering your "own" data to be best, it is by proving that information is up to date. According to the English Wikipedia, the Upper River Division is no longer; it is largely replaced by the Basse Local Government Area.

My question: what does it take for the Wikipedias to take their inconsistencies serious?
Thanks,
      GerardM

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