@Wikimedia interconnection, what it looks like for me

On twitter a reference was made to an article in the Sunday Times. The article is about the response of the UK government to the COVID-19 pandemic. It mentions many people and mentions their roles.

It is up to you to have your own opinion, but most if not all people are known in Wikidata, some have a Wikipedia article and all of them are in the spotlight. So when you get an edited sound bite, when you want to know if someone is "for real", it helps when you can turn to Wikimedia and find what there is to know.

This sound bite about "herd immunity" is too short to be properly understood. The argument made is that herd immunity is all that we have now that the genie is out of the bottle and, who can argue with that? Read the article as well.. After some tinkering, the Scholia for Prof Edmunds shows some 235 papers, many co-authors and still, even more co-authors are missing. The subjects he covered are extensive.. check out that Scholia. Prof Edmunds takes/tool part in UK government deliberations; it is mentioned in that Sunday Times article. He is asked to explain epidemiology to the public.

Wikimedia interconnection for me is to enrich our existing knowledge in cases like this. Tweeting about it, blogging about it may lead to even more and better information like a Wikipedia article. What we as Wikimedians do does not happen in a vacuum, connecting to what happens and who the players are help us and our readers understand who they are in  these early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thanks,
      GerardM

The CDC and its National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is so much attention to every aspect of it; the epidemiology, virology, vaccination, co-morbidity. Mix it with a heady mix of economics, profiteering and graft and what are you to think of it all. What is fact and what is not.

When I read that there is an "Outbreak Management Team" in the Netherlands, an advisory body to the Dutch government, I had a look. I added all the known scientists to Wikidata, looked for "authority identifiers" and attributed some of the papers that are likely theirs to them. It generated a really nice Scholia for them and the team as well.

At first I wanted to do similar European organisations but it takes quite some effort to find them. So I took the easy route and went for the CDC. Its organisational chart contains a wealth or smaller orgs among the the NCIRD and it has its own organisational chart. I did the same routine, adding the obvious scientists to Wikidata, looked for the authority identifiers for them, attributed papers.

The best bit? While adding people one at a time, you see how the Scholia evolves. Authors are reordered based on their number of papers, you find the ones that are co-authors and colleagues. The latest papers are shown first.. It is nice. However, this is management only, I cannot wait and see it evolve as staff finds its place in the Scholia as well.
Thanks,
     GerardM

False friends and ListeriaBot - finding a way out of an impasse

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.

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.

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.

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 George Polk award.

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 compared the results after some time and the human maintained list proved to be the poorly maintained list.

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.

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.

I have been told that I do not assume good faith. 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.

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.

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.
Thanks,
        GerardM

When crossing the street in the days of Corona, look left, right and left again

Many of us are at home, waiting to go out. We are all obsessed with the latest statistics and read what pundits have to say.  It is likely that you are cognizant of the statistics for your country, state or county.

I learned that Jonathan P. Tennant died in a traffic accident. When you care for statistics, you will wonder what are my chances of dying in a traffic accident at this time. Deduct it from your chances of dying of Corona and things look up.

Not so much for Protohedgehog, he met with an accident. It is sad, he was young, full of promise; just became a member of the Global Young Academy. If anything, it serves as a reminder for us to look left, right and left again to not become a bus factor.
Thanks,
     GerardM

Edwin G. Abel aka Ed Abel

Professor E.G. Abel came on my radar because he is a recipient of the Daniel X. Freedman Award. He has a Wikipedia article as "Ed Abel" and the information of the award has him as "Edwin G. Abel".

I looked into the Freedman award because of a criticism on the Wikipedia article of Professor Montegia. The superior article of Prof Montegia is criticised because it is an orphan. It now has a Scholia template and that links the 105 scholarly papers known in Wikidata. Its timeline does include the Freedman award linking the Professors Abel en Montegia.

I doubt it is considered enough to remove the orphan template. I have added a redirect for the Freedman award to the issuing organisation. Maintaining a Wikipedia list is not one of my ambitions.. It could be a Listeria list like this one..
Thanks,
      GerardM