Hierarchies of scientists from a personal @Wikidata/@Wikipedia point of view

 

As a hobby I add publications and scholars to Wikidata. I am particularly interested in hydrology, biodiversity and climate change. When I come across scientists, I look them up on Wikidata, I care most about scientists with an ORCiD identifier, I often add Google scholar and Twitter identifiers as well. ]

As there have been many, many papers and scholars for a long time, the impact I have is particularly in scientists new to Wikidata and attributing papers to them. This results in an improved representation that can be seen in their Scholia. When there is a Wikipedia article for a scientist, a template for the Scholia can be added; it will always show the most up to date information.

The way it works out is that I am a "browser", I read Twitter feeds by a scholar, find a publication they enthuse about and I may already be on a tangent adding the papers and scholars. In my job I do not have time to read and comprehend but I have time to mechanically add more papers. I read in the morning, make a pick for the day and I "search" using the Scholia search function with a DOI as the argument. When a paper does not exist I am presented with the option to add it to Wikidata. When its authors can be found because of their ORCiD identifier, they are linked from the start to their Wikidata item.

My personal hierarchy

• I find a paper, a scholar on Twitter
• They publish on a subject I am interested in
• When they are already known to Wikidata, they are linked to the publication I search for
• When search indicates that an ORCiD identifier exists, I search Wikidata and add a scholar or add an identifier.
• When Twitter indicates Twitter handles, I add them
• When I cannot guess the gender, I look at Google scholar for a picture, I add the identifier as well.
• When a scholar is picked for the day, I add the latest pictures first because they include more ORCiD identifiers for co-authors.

A Wikidata/Wikipedia hierarchy

• Most valuable are scholars with a Wikipedia article that includes a Scolia template
• Scholars with a Wikipedia article
• Scholars with a Wikidata item with many identifiers including an ORCiD identifier.
• Scholars with only an ORCiD identifier
• Scholars with no identifiers
• Scholars only known because of an "Author string"

When I come across an Australian scientists who was rewarded with an award, who has a Twitter account, an ORCiD and a Google Scholar identifier but no Wikidata item, it is someone I will add. So a warm welcome to Heather Neilly. She is of interest to me because of her work as an ecological consultant and in natural resource management for local government. Her latest work is on vegetation change in sheep-grazed chenopod shrublands in South Australia.

Thanks,

       GerardM

Sabina Nowak a Polish scientist, an expert on European wolves

Dr Nowak has a Wikipedia article in several languages. Her notability is obvious because wolves is a very hot topic in many European countries. When people have opinions about wolves, it is obvious that in a European context you cannot dismiss the research of Dr Nowak over the years. 

When the notability and the quality of a Wikipedia article is assessed, it is obvious that an encyclopedic article is not best served with a list of papers Dr Nowak contributed to; the Scholia template provides more in depth information. However, Scholia only functions when the papers are known and attributed.

In Wikidata, there were two items that needed to be merged. Three papers were linked, an additional nine could be attributed. Additional identifiers were added, of particular significance is Google Scholar as it knows many if not most of the papers of a scientist. 

Adding missing papers is easy; you search with a DOI for the paper and when Wikidata does not know it, it is suggested to add it using the quickstatements tool. The best bit is that when CrosRef knows the ORCiD identifier for an author, it will either identify the author or will add the ORCiD identifier as a qualifier. 

Adding the Scholia template to any Wikipedia article about published scholars makes sense; the data is a "work in progress". It changes as more papers and co-authors become known. It is also an invitation to our communities and scientists to improve both the Wikipedia article and the data represented in the Scholias for any scientist.

Thanks, GerardM 

Herbivory and fire. Automate citations to display them in @WDscholia

When what is there does not easily burn, a fire will be not that damaging. In a forest, a prairie particularly those with wild grazers and browsers, the damage by a wild fire is substantially less. Science describes this effect and science describes the effect of beavers who have a similar beneficial effect.

For the paper "Effects of large herbivores on fire regimes and wildfire mitigation" Wikidata has an item, it links to its eight authors but there are no citations. Like any quality article there are plenty of references on the website for the article but we do not know them yet in Wikidata. There is a bot that goes around and adds citations in its own sweet time but when volunteers like me take an interest, it would be great to tool up for attention for a single paper.

What it would look like is easy; it would show the papers that are known to be citations and enable a one click solution to add them as a citation. Then it would show the papers not known to Wikidata but with a DOI. They can be added one at a time. What is left is the stuff that is cited but takes more effort to annotate. 

The benefits are obvious; science connects what is said before to what is said in a paper and eventually it will be linked to those citing a paper. As more papers from more authors get this royal treatment, Scholia as a tool will become even more relevant for those who care about the references in related Wikipedia articles; its references are referenced.

It is easy to suggest that it should not be hard to implement; there is a bot and it only needs to function for only one paper in stead of serially. It then has to find its way as a tool in Scholia and that opens up a box of user interface related issues. Well worth it (I think) but it then we also need to get the message out that Scholia is very much an active as well as a passive tool.

Thanks, GerardM

You are a #scientist and, you want your papers to be read

People have to know that there is something new out there and Amy D. Willes gets it, she tweeted the news and illustrated it with gorgeous cover art. On Twitter I follow Jens Svenning, he retweeted the news from Amy and it is why there is now a Scholia for the paper.

When you want your paper to be read, you receive optimal results when your paper is used as a reference in Wikipedia. Current Wikipedia references have their references and when people want to review an article, it is only the later papers that provide new insights.

So what can you do for yourself and your papers:

• Check if your papers or you as a scientist are known
• a paper has a DOI
• you have an ORCiD, a Google Scholar et al identifier.. your Twitter id is appreciated
• You can check your profile using Scholia and you can add papers using Scholia
• It will identify co-authors with an ORCiD identifier when they are known on the publication at Crossref

Adding yourself or any other scientist is a start; when there is a Wikipedia article, it is great to add a {{Scholia}} as a reference particularly as it will get updated from new papers, cited papers, new papers or because of co-authors that become known.

Obviously a well developed Scholia is a stellar argument to support the notability when a new Wikipedia article for a scientists is considered.

Thanks,

       GerardM

PS you can also add a "main subject" to a paper for instance "woolly mammoth".. 

Making Wikicite a success by putting the Wikipedia editor first

Wikicite as a project has come to an end after a five year run. Much has been achieved (read the article). One great follow up idea is to harvest all the references of all the other Wikipedias and have all this data together so that we can analyse our quality even better.

All the data, all the Wikicite activities have been valued; people have been thanked, accomplishments announced and it is now left open how to move on. The best way to move forward is to bring a public to the data and add value. 

Every Wikipedia article has its references and we put Wikipedia editors and readers first when we show all the known references and its relations with older and newer publications. One button that provides the latest information will create buy in, makes it more interesting. It links to papers, to authors and requested updates are not part of a serial but of a targeted process.

A similar service we can provide for the authors of scholarly works. They will find in Wikidata what we know about them, identifiers of VIAF, ORCiD, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Twitter even Scopus. They can improve the information on their publications they can add identifiers, references to other publications, co-authors, subjects and see it improve the associated Scholia representations. What we can do for them is regularly harvest information and update Wikidata with the new or altered information.

When we truly build relationships, it is no longer essential that everything should be on Wikimedia servers. Why have a same project at the Internet Archive and at the Wikimedia Foundation? Why not share the work load. When we put our Wikipedia editors first, we provide them with the best information on literature, publications we have on offer. Most references are in the WaybackMachine anyway, we already rely on this so why not collaborate and share both the effort and the cost?

When we truly care about sharing the sum of all knowledge, it is in the eating that we find the proof, not in the dogma.

Thanks, GerardM

The pain that is in maintaining lists of African governmental politicians

At the French Wikipedia, there is a category with 16 Finance ministers of Morocco. A category is an unsorted list and the French category contains a few more entries than the English category. Both Wikipedias do not have a (sorted) list.

I maintain list of African heads of state and African governmental ministers, so this is just a next list to prepare. The workflow is as follows: I create an item for a position, on the talk page I add a template that contains the data and pointers to what is missing. Typically such information can be found on a Wikipedia list, this time I have to rely on templates on Wikipedia articles.. All my lists are "works in progress" and are on my watch list.

I have added copies of the Listeria lists to many Wikipedias. The texts are in English, the data is shown in the local language. It being in English is a reason to refuse these lists in several communities.

The Listeria functionality is replaced by Wikimedia Foundation maintained software. All the list definitions and expressions exist in one place. The data is shown in a language that can be selected. When a list changes, it is reflected on watch lists. You can watch for all data and possibly for data and labels in "your" language. A project can opt in to enable the use of these lists when they don't, functionality is available to compare a list with the centrally maintained list.

Thanks, GerardM 

The pain that is in maintaining the same list 300 times

As you may know, the board of the Wikimedia Foundation recently changed its composition. The President of the board resigned. This was easily reflected in English. Tonight there is a meeting of candidate board members for the Middle East and North Africa.

Obviously the information in Arabic needs to be correct and at this time it is not. There are many more languages supported by Wikimedia in the Middle East and North Africa and all of them could have information about the board and what it stands for. This inspired me to come up with the following user story..

An administrative person of the Wikimedia Foundation is tasked with maintaining  specific lists relevant to the movement. The data is maintained at Wikidata and lists that exist potentially in all Wikimedia languages, some 300, are updated with software maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation. Each WMF list is on a watch list; when changes occur in the list, quality is centrally maintained.

Thanks, GerardM 

Two "user stories" for Nigeria

I spoke with my Nigerian friend Olatunde Olalekan Isaac on Facebook about growing more interest for Wikimedia content in Nigeria. I will not bore you with a verbatim discussion we had. Bringing you two user stories is much more satisfying.

Nigerian kids looking for pictures of a fireman goto their Wikipedia and search for an "onye oku oku". The search engine knows from where the request comes and shows the pictures of Nigerian firemen first.

The pictures are from Commons, in the meta data of the picture it says where the photo was taken. Happy kids, happy teachers and happy Nigerian Wikimedians because this brings more attention for the projects they care for.

At first it is an experiment that brings more traffic in their language. They then launch a photo contest in Nigeria.

People find pictures in Nigerian languages and to increase the choice of pictures to choose from, a photo contest is launched of everyday Nigerian objects, traffic signs, shops of all kinds, professionals, "be bold and show us your Nigeria" is the mantra. People find more pictures about Nigeria and even after the contest people continue to increase the selection people use for an illustration.

The Wikimedia Foundation has another challenge, there are copycats all over the world and the public use of Commons increases by 200% in a few months time.

Thanks,  GerardM 

The promise of things to come that is in @Wikicite

Wikicite is for me the biggest disappointment of all the Wikimedia projects. A disappointment not because it is not worthwhile, not because it did not bring us insights about what happens in English Wikipedia but because all the papers, conferences and data did not result in a transformation into active user stories. Closest comes Scholia where it identifies Wikipedia articles where a scholarly paper is used as a reference. 

Wikicite conferences have come and gone. They brought the best and brightest minds together discussing all kinds of ideas, all kinds of research. Once the papers were presented, the assertions discussed and analysed, when the conference was done they went home. From what I can observe in Wikimedia land, not much has changed.

Wikimedia Foundation has a real good friend in the Internet Archive. It already does much of what Wikicite could do. It archives everything that is used as a reference. When a reference goes dark, it links the reference to the backup. In FatCat it has information on scholarly papers and many of the papers, in Open Library it has information on books and many of the books. Many bots originating from the IA run on many Wikimedia projects. 

When it is up to me, I would have Wikicite as a joint project of the Internet Archive and the Wikimedia Foundation. A joint project will be based on the existing reality that is in the Internet Archive. Wikicite and Wikimedia projects bring it additional data, a public and additional user stories. Funding from the Wikimedia Foundation enables the development that such a synergy brings.

Data for all the citation in English Wikipedia linked to scholarly papers was available. We know in Wikidata, in FatCat, in Orcid, in Scopus how to disambiguate authors. When all this data gets integrated, a user story mentioned in a previous blog post is not fancy and easily becomes best practice. Thanks to collaboration with the Internet Archive there is less duplication of effort and the sum of the shared knowledge we hold is so much bigger; we can provide an even better service to our public. 

Calling a spade a spade and the "friendly space policy"

In my previous blog post I established that facts supported by science trump personal opinions, even community consensus. It follows that pointing out a biased opinion can be hugely unpopular and considered offensive. The "friendly space policy" is applied on the spot and at best can be later appealed at the "trust and safety". This is after the fact, it takes a huge time effort and it is why I did not bother. One other reason is that I told the respected Wikipedian that what he said was biased and I did not make excuses for saying so after prodding by a trusted officer of the Wikimedia Foundation. I am sanctioned and can no longer use certain functions.

I run for a seat on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation and even though it is a popularity contest, I am not in it to be Mr Wonderful; I will not kiss babies. My platform is to improve our service particularly to the projects other than English Wikipedia. To be successful, I have established that this is doable and I have to undermine accepted opinions that prevent us from improving on our service.

I truly respect the Wikipedian who made the biased remarks but I will not apologise for pointing his bias out. 

When I am to establish my aims at board level, there must be acceptance that we do not serve everyone with the sum of all the knowledge we have when there is this persistent bias towards our English speaking public. The recent developments at the Croatian Wikipedia show that "community consensus" can be overridden when this is necessary to establish our accepted global Wikimedia policies. It follows that the board should be mindful of the evolving science about the "gender gap" and insist English Wikipedia to consider its recommendations (aka clean up its act). It follows that even the most respected English Wikipedian and in the light of the "friendly space policy" can be called out for such bias.

As to the organisation of the WMF; its director reports to the board and is to inform about the development for other languages and the effects on the traffic in other languages. 

Thanks, GerardM

What science has to say about the English Wikipedia gender gap

 A respected Wikipedian expressed the opinion that people have it wrong when they say that English Wikipedia is biased against women. In the same week a professor stated on Twitter that her students no longer edit Wikipedia because of the toxic reception they get. As an example she mentioned a quote from an award winning scientist that was removed because "that scientist lacks relevance".

In this same week the  American sociologist Francesca Tripodi published the paper: "Ms. Categorized: Gender, notability, and inequality on Wikipedia". The paper is a scholarly read with 55 references. Most of these references are previous scholarly works, some are references to Wikipedia resources like the notability page. The references have been included in Wikidata and this is visualised in the Scholia for the paper. Please read at least the Discussion and conclusions of the paper. 

This and previous research leaves no room for evasion: English Wikipedia is biased. A personal opinion of the respected Wikipedian may differ, the consensus of the community may differ but both are biased.

Thanks,

      GerardM

Science Is Shaped by Wikipedia: Evidence From a Randomized Control Trial

A scholarly paper has it that a paper cited in Wikipedia gets a bigger exposure in other scholarly papers. That is in itself quite huge, it speaks of the impact that Wikipedia has in scholarly circles.

When the cited papers trigger citations, it follows that the new papers represent much of the scientific development of the subject of the Wikipedia article. That makes it obvious that in order to keep Wikipedia articles up to date, it is relevant to know the papers that cite these scholarly articles.

To help editors, Scholia already provides assistance. There is a Scholia for each paper; this one is for the paper I referred to earlier and, there is a random Scholia for a subject identified in Wikidata. Just think what a Scholia specific for a Wikipedia article could be and do.

Maintaining information is a drag and there are many bots that are used to append and amend the information that we have based on what we have in a Wikipedia article. First, there is the Internet Archive bot that save guards information on websites by making a copy for the Wayback Machine. For many of the references we know a DOI and it is easy enough to ensure that we know the associated paper in Wikidata. It is easy enough to make a process out of it for a single paper.

What it takes is a different take on processes; not the traditional serial process with serial results but a  focused process that supports a user story. 

In the initial phase of a review of a Wikipedia article, the Wikipedian starts a process that updates all the citations to the existing Wikipedia references. Once the process is done, the citations are known, these papers have been fleshed out with open information and the Wikipedia will know the latest science for the subject reviewed.

Much of the functionality exists, when the user story is supported, it is not only Wikipedians and scholars but also our public that is invited to share in the sum of what we know.

Thanks, GerardM

@Wikimedia and its defined #predisposition towards its editors

The predisposition of the Wikimedia Foundation can be found in its mission statement: "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally". Contrast this with a previous version where: "every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge". The Wikimedia Foundation defines the movement with "Wikimedia is a global movement whose mission is to bring free educational content to the world". 

It is easy to understand how the Wikimedia Foundation priorities on its communities when developing its programs. The assumption has always been that once the data is available, a public will come. In the second part of its mission statement enabling this dissemination it is defined that the Wikimedia has a defined role for it to play in the global and effective dissemination of the educational content it holds.

When you monitor the effectiveness like I have, then you do not care for promises for the future, you want the data to show how a difference is made. An easy one is to compare content delivery in English against all other languages; English content is slightly less than 50% of traffic, this has been the same for many years. When a Commons project that worked for all languages no longer worked because of a failed text integration, it was seen as "we did not test for that". More importantly, the text integration was not removed. This shows that the second part of the WMF mission statement is not seen as critical.

I am a candidate for the board.  In many ways I am the wrong guy for the job. The wrong guy because I have a platform and I do question the lack of growth in the delivery of the content that we have. For me this is a classic situation where lack of data equals no problem. It is not a bias measured in percentage of Wikipedia articles for one group versus another group, the bias I demand attention for is the percentage of data delivered in a languages relative to the size of the population who relies on this language.

The wrong guy because this is not a popular issue. People are offended when you point out that their point of view implies a bias. People fear they lose out because their hobby horse is a niche project comparatively and not part of the mission statement. The right guy because you can check out my past in my blog that I kept for over 15 years, you will find that I have been practical and on mission for dissemination of our content. 

For me it does not matter if I win or lose; the mission itself is critical and I want the Wikimedia board and the Wikimedia director realise that the second part of the Foundation's mission statement is where it could have done so much better.

Thanks,

      GerardM

What to do on the Wikimedia board; imho first things first

It is a stated objective of the Wikimedia Foundation to have "knowledge equity". When you care to know the practicalities, just search Wikimedia in one of the 200 languages with the least Wikipedia content and compare it with a search in English. English provides you with vastly more of everything.

Nowadays, "knowledge equity" is accepted and strategic at the Wikimedia Foundation. This acceptance is a recent development; gone are the days when a most senior WMF executive stated that one Wikipedia, at most five, should be enough. 

Given that we now support some 300 languages, it is the translatewiki.net community has always been the cornerstone to the knowledge equity we provide in our projects. Without its high quality internationalisation and localisation efforts the knowledge equity we provide would not have been possible. It follows that any and all knowledge equity for a culture, a language has as its precondition that the tooling, the environment has been properly localised.

It becomes really strategic when the tooling is provided by outside parties. A key role in ensuring that our references remain available is performed by the Internet Archive. For me it has been on my wish list for a long time that the software of its WayBack Machine, Open Library and FatCat are localised at translatewiki.net. Any and all of our language communities that find the resources will benefit our projects and strengthen us in the shared aim of "sharing in the sum of all knowledge". 

When we are to achieve "knowledge equity", the first thing we should provide is a level playing field. With all tools critical for the maintenance of our projects properly internationalised and available for localisation as a movement we achieve the most basic objective; we enable all our communities to be their best.

Thanks,

       GerardM

Board member of the @Wikimedia Foundation .. for me it is about customer value

Recently many changes happened at the Wikimedia Foundation; its director and its chair of the board ended an illustrious term of office. New elections have been called for board members of the Wikimedia Foundation. This makes it the best of times to ask attention for the customer value our projects provide. 

We want more people to make use of our services and we want to provide more and improved services to them. 

The Wikimedia services are optimised for the English language. More than 50% of our traffic is for the other languages and this makes it easier to improve our service for the 299+ other languages. This has never been a priority there and this makes for many easy pickings.

Commons for instance provides 100% false positives when you look for "bever" with the environment set to Dutch. Old functionality worked really well and it should be easy enough to revert to the full functional version. Research will show if as a result people change their language more pictures are linked to Wikidata and Wikidata gains more labels as a result. When people do search with a string that provides no result, we can search Wiktionary and ask show suggestions for what we find. Oh and when people are from Singapore, why not be biased and show pictures from Singapore first?

One of the challenges for any Wikipedia is the maintenance of lists. Particularly for the smaller projects it is too much of a drain. I have dabbled with for instance lists of African politicians. Arguably information on the current national functionaries for any country should be available and up to date as much as American or European politicians. When a Wikipedia wants to have an up to date list, it should be possible to subscribe to a list. The functionality is to be supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. When for whatever a community does not want such functionality, they can still be pinged when there is some work for them to do.

Wikisourcerers transcribed original works in many languages. As a project Wikisource is great for the sourcerers but for readers ... For some languages websites were created where the finished works have a friendly interface for READERS.. Bringing all the work to a public, is what brings value to all the work the sourcerers put in..

We may not be a commercial organisation but the service we provide is relevant and valuable to our "customers". When you read my blog that has been running for sixteen years, you find that I have been consistent in bringing attention to what we could do to improve our service. Given that we could do so much more, I put myself forward as a candidate for board member of the Wikimedia Foundation. The least I hope to achieve is attention for the results of what we do.

Thanks, GerardM

@Wikimedia needs your support because what it does, what we do is not enough

 An article in the "Daily Dot" insists that Wikimedia has plenty of money.  This is based on the growth of Wikimedia budgets and yes, it has grown substantially over time. Particularly the English Wikipedia provides a lot of content and serves some 50% of the Wikimedia traffic. 

When people analyse its content, it becomes problematic. Even though its content is referenced, many of the references are old and could do with new insights that science brings on a regular basis. The content is male oriented and thanks to projects like "Women in Red" it has improved substantially but not enough. 

We know all mayors of Denver and we do not know National government ministers of African countries. Lists are to be maintained on EVERY Wikipedia, English consensus insists, and they are not properly maintained as a result. Not even on the English Wikipedia.

Money buys you things. When you donate to the WMF, you gain a sense of ownership. That is important; we may not need more money but we do need a sense of ownership in India, Columbia, Nigeria and Guinea. When the other 50% of Wikimedia traffic takes ownership away from those who had enough, we find topics with more real world relevance. Commons becomes usable in the other 299 languages and we seek out these 299 communities to make it work for them.

Given that we don't do enough for 300 languages, given that we can do much better, I will argue that Wikimedia needs more support, even money.

Thanks, GerardM

Listeria, motivation and the Sharif of Mecca

Awn ar-Rafiq was the Sharif of Mecca from 1882 to 1905. Doesn't he look splendid in his regalia?

The Sharif of Mecca was a high placed functionary of the Ottoman Empire for many years and as such there is a Listeria list for the Sharif of Mecca. The point of these lists is that the quality of the information we maintain about the Ottoman Empire is not of a high quality. The Ottoman Empire existed longer than the Roman Empire, covered a larger expanse  and it is not yet one hundred years ago when it came to an end.

I looked into lists of functionaries on several Wikipedias and they are not consistent. So I created Listeria lists and as people add things to Wikidata, these lists are updated.. that is the theory and I am happy that this functionality has been restored.

The best bit is when other people take an interest as well. A new functionary is added; ولي الدين رفعت باشا and he will get his place in the list .. Google translates it into "Wali al-Din Rifat Pasha" and hey we can bring things to the next level.

Lists like these should be stable and they do entice cooperation. It is why I am so grateful that Magnus spend some time reviving the functionality.

Thanks,

       GerardM

Ponderings on a book: Flammable Australia The Fire Regimes and Biodiversity of a Continent

Books are often used as a reference in a scientific publication. As I often add "citations" to individual papers, I find that books are a headache. Wikidata only "knows" about this book through two book reviews. When you google the book there are two versions of the book. Open Library "knows" about both versions but has no readable version. What I need is a reference to only one chapter of the book.

The first thing I did was changed the reviews into reviews, add the book and linked the reviews to the book. Open Library knows about two versions of the book. I linked both versions to the same author and linked the 2001 version to Wikidata. Finally I added the chapter in a haphazard way to the paper I am working on.

It is unlikely that I will ever read the book and it is very likely that others will frown on the way I added the book to Wikidata. However, for me "level 0 of data quality" applies; with data available particularly linked data, it is much easier to find fault and improve on what is there. I know that a bot will format the ISBN-10 entry I included.

The one reason why I add books is because books linked to OpenLibrary may be read by a wider public. Obviously not all books are available at this time, but the cumulative effect of adding all the books, all these links enrich the ability to read, to share in the sum of available knowledge.

Thanks, GerardM

The @Wikimedia's #endowment aim is to reduce risk.

When you assess risk, when the purpose of the Wikimedia's endowment is to ensure the future operation of Wikipedia and probably other projects like Commons as well, money is not the only risk to consider.

The current government of the USA operates in a way that poses no or little thread to the continued operation of the WMF. However, the USA is a two party system and the same can not be said when the Republican Party is to return to power. 

All the servers that run the Wikimedia projects are currently in the United States. With servers able to run the full stack of Wikimedia projects elsewhere, two objectives are served. 

• up to date data becomes closer to the readers close to the new servers
• the risk of an USA that turns on the Wikimedia Foundation is mitigated

The WMF does not need to use the endowment to make this happen. Given its current finances, it should be an operational decision.

Thanks,

        GerardM

Wikipedia is a "Work in Progress"

In many ways Wikipedia reflects the world as both are ever evolving. Once an article is finished for the moment, it in effect becomes a time capsule comprised of text, images and references. All these sleeping beauties wait for an update that comes once the realisation sets in that the article is behind the times. With 6,290,486 articles, it is obvious that there is a Bell curve of articles ranging from "up to date" to "out of date". 

So far the "Watch list" has been reactive. There are a few areas that can indicate that an article needs attention because it may be out of date. Wikipedia articles have references, when a reference is a "scholarly article", it is normal when an article will be cited by future articles. These publication can strengthen or weaken the assertions made in a Wikipedia article.

In Wikidata there is a bot that continuously updates "scholarly articles" with its citations. When one of these articles is used as a reference in Wikipedia, it merits attention. This can be reflected both on a Watch list and on the article itself.

Having the latest literature available will help settling disputes among editors as well.

Thanks,

      GerardM

How to find pictures of a თახვი (it means beaver) or a Wisent? Please help!!

Wikimedia Commons is the biggest repository of freely licensed media files. It serves a global multi lingual community editing Wikipedia and it has the ambition to serve students as well. When you live in Georgia and you don't speak English, you search for a "თახვი" and this picture is all that you find.

There is a tool for that. Hay's sdsearch does a good job when its interface is localised. Sadly, no such luck for Georgian. Wikimedia produced a tool as well; Special:MediaSearch does a good job. You have to know that the tool exists and when you do, you find that for Dutch it does not work at all. 

It is suggested that you can change the preferences for best result. I fail at getting the results that Special:MediaSearch used to provide. There is no documentation.. Please Help!!

Thanks, GerardM

Scholarly articles in @Wikidata and its link with #Fatcat

 "Dam-site selection by beavers in an eastern Oregon basin" is a scholarly paper. It has a DOI that is not functional, it is known to Researchgate and consequently we can find a PDF of the paper. 

This paper is cited by a paper I have an interest in. I am adding its references into Wikidata (this is its Scholia) and I added the "Dam-site selection" paper to make a complete reference.  The result is something like this.

The PDF of the paper is available for download and as is to be expected, the Way Back machine of the Internet Archive has a copy as well for the URL of the download page. And then there is Internet Archive's Fatcat. 

"Fatcat is a versioned, publicly-editable catalog of research publications: journal articles, conference proceedings, pre-prints, blog posts, and so forth. The goal is to improve the state of preservation and access to these works by providing a manifest of full-text content versions and locations."

Wikidata is used as a source of Fatcat and as I include an additional paper, it will at some stage be picked up by Fatcat. If there is one thing to wish for, it is a function where entering a Wikidata Qid will trigger Fatcat to update its data based on the Wikidata info. If I can have two more wishes, one would be an icon for Fatcat. The second would be a Fatcat identifier making it easy to link from Wikidata to Fatcat.

Thanks,

        GerardM