As our movement matures, people who were there at the beginning, age. They get other priorities, they get sick, operated upon and as a consequence have a windfall of time to do more work at Wikidata.
I did a similar job for a dear fellow Wikimedian.. It is now my turn, my chirurg is in this picture and as I add missing co-authors this picture becomes more complex. It will also become more complex when existing co-authors are enriched with new and linked papers.
With Wikipedia there is the promise that even though the information will evolve, all the work people have put in will be there in future and enable people to read/study the subjects each editor cared for.
The data of Wikidata as it is will be split in parts. For the best of reasons but once its structure is broken, the tools that bring structure to the data will be broken as well. The same tools that enable the enrichment of the data will be broken. Much of my Wikimedia legacy will be lost because there will no longer be a public enabled to learn about scholarly works in a Wiki way.
For a few years now this sword of Damocles has hung over Wikidata. As a consequence the potential of Wikidata is not being realised. The data could be so much richer when automated processes bring free knowledge together. References in Wikipedia indicating later papers and improve its quality.
As long as I can I will do my Wikidata thing; hope is eternal.
Thanks,
GerardM
No comments:
Post a Comment