Sunday, March 24, 2019

#Sharing in the Sum of all #Knowledge from a @Wikimedia perspective II

When we are to share in the "sum of all knowledge" we share what we know about subjects; articles, pictures, data. We may share what knowledge we have, what others have and that is what it takes  for us to share in the sum of all knowledge. The question is why should we share all this, how to go about it and finally how will it benefit our public and how will it help us share the sum of all knowledge.

At the moment we do not really know what people are looking for. One reason is that search engines like the ones by Google, Microsoft and DuckDuckGo recommend Wikipedia articles and as a consequence the search process is hidden from us. We do not know what people really are looking for. However, some people prefer the "Wikipedia search engine" in their browser. We can do better and present more interesting search results. From a statistical point of view, we do not need big numbers to gain significant results.

When we check what the "competition" does we find their results in many tabs; "the web" and "images" are the first two. The first is text based and offers whatever there is on the web. What we will bring is whatever we and organisations we partner with, have to offer. It will be centered on subjects and its associated factoids presented in any language.

One template to consider is how Scholia presents. It differs. It depends on whether it is a publication, a university, a scholar, a paper. Large numbers make specific presentations feasible and thanks to Wikidata we know what kind of presentation fits a particular subject. A similar approach is possible for sports, politics. It takes experimentation and that is what makes it a Wiki approach.

Thanks to this subject based approach, language plays a different role. Vital is that for finding the subjects potentially differing labels are available or become available. One important difference with the Google, Microsoft or DuckDuckGo approach is that as a Wiki, we can ask people to add labels and missing statements. This will make our subject based data better understood in the languages people support. Yes, we can ask people to have a Wikimedia profile and yes, we may ask people to support us where we think people looking for information have to overcome hurdles.
Thanks,
       GerardM

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