#Wikidata - Three award winners of the #ASBA

The ASBA or the "American Society of Botanical Artists" started of in the USA only to become a truly international organisation. They are an important player in the revival of botanical art, they have many local chapters and they have a number of awards.

The three ladies to the right; are the winners of three awards. They now have their Wikidata entries.

I was introduced to people at the New York Botanical Garden and they indicated to me the relevance of illustrations. After that I got into contact with a lady from New Zealand who created a Google list of women scientific illustrators and artists. Her objective is to collect information for Wikipedia articles and many of them already do have an article.

The NYBG is planning future events and for its preparation they do like to include information about awards including awards about botanical illustrators. When the information in the spreadsheet is entered from the start in Wikidata, there is no need for Google lists; Wikidata can play its role in stead.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#divcon - The #Wikidata presentation

Diversity conference 2013 berlin from Gerard Meijssen

I had the privilege to explain how Wikidata can be leveraged. Wikidata is different in so many ways. There are potential benefits for any language, any special interest and any platform. The easiest win is by providing information about subjects that cannot be found in an other way. However, the biggest benefits will be realised when the data that we include is as good as we can make it.

Thanks,

       GerardN

#Wikidata #HOWTO - Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was the President of South Africa. Many statements have been made about him on Wikidata in the past. At the Diversity Conference Wikidata was a topic in several conversations. One question was how Wikidata could be leveraged in the many languages of South Africa. In that same conversation the question was asked how can we give people micro-tasks that have a big impact.

I asked the chairman of the South African chapter to add all the labels used on the item for Nelson Mandela in his native language of Tsonga. He did get some instruction but he was left very much to himself to do this. When he had a look at Jacob Zuma, he noticed that because of his earlier work several labels were already available in Tsonga.

What was really clear to him was that adding labels to statements and items are micro-tasks and, that kids can do them. Anyone can do them. Seeing the effects of the work done is really motivating.

As a thank you I wanted to present Nelson Mandela looking good in Tsonga. To do this I had to learn from Magnus how to show the Reasonator in other languages. My choice was to use Chinese as the fall back language. This is just to make obvious that there are still a few labels missing :)
Thanks,
        Gerard Meijssen

#divcon - An #anonymous #female #painter

At the Dutch #Wikimedia conference, Jane gave a presentation about female painters. This is the kind of presentation that would have done well on the diversity conference.

Female painters were a curiosity; they often painted with their fathers, husbands and brothers. Her presentation provides numbers for known female painters. They are few and far between.

To add insult to injury, as there are so few sources for these women, they are said to be not notable and articles were lost as a result.

So far Jane did most of her work in spreadsheets at home. Wikidata offers her the opportunity to include all the data she has so painstakingly collected. They are names, aliases, dates of birth and death.

The illustration is of an Italian painter that is unknown..
Thanks,
       GerardM

#divcon - the first update about #Wikidata queries

The WikiDataQuery has a back-end that is a bit more sophisticated. Every 10 minutes or so the data used for the queries is updated.

• The number of males in Wikidata is currently 798,999
• The number of females in Wikidata is currently 152,157
• There are 392,794 persons without their sex identified

Last but not least, the queries have a "permalink" function. You can find out what the current numbers are :)
Thanks,
     GerardM

#divcon - The current number of #males and #females in #Wikidata

With the WikiDataQuery it is easy to learn the number of males (798,920) and females (152,118) known in Wikidata. It is based on the last dump. Real time query is being worked on.

These are de-duplicated numbers of males and females that have none or more Wikipedia articles.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Ron Woodroof, an #American activist

This weekend I will speak at the #Wikimedia #diversity conference in Berlin. The conference aims to increase the pool of knowledge in the Wikimedia projects and to enable a heterogeneous, colourful, diverse community.

There will be a focus on the imbalance in the gender participation in our projects. There is also an imbalance in how subjects are covered

Ron Woodroof was an activist who is getting more attention these days because the movie "Dallas Buyers Club" is centred around him. He is notable enough for the Swedish to have an article written in 2012 about him. In the English version he was nothing but a redirect to the movie.

Love him or hate him. Mr Woodroof is notable. He is part of an anti-culture in the USA, he died of AIDS. It will be interesting to notice how many similar stories will be told at the conference.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Gapminder, the #Ignorance project

When the aim is to share in the sum of all knowledge, it seems obvious that ignorance is the ultimate enemy that is to be defeated. To defeat ignorance you have to get the facts straight.

Gapminder and Hans Rosling are well known for bringing an insight based on published facts, statistics and visualisation. The presentations are world class and the next insight they are seeking is the ignorance people have about our world.

It is not to gloat but to bring home the message that we do not know basic information about our world. With such an attitude you want to do better and bringing attention to ignorance implies that you want to ensure that people are better informed. Informing or sharing the sum of all knowledge is what the Wikimedia Foundation does best in its projects.

By covering 280+ languages most people who can read and have access to the Internet can be reached. It is "just" a matter of making this information available to all of them on a platform they use. Wikipedia is that platform and Wikidata is where the data should get a home.

There are two issues stopping us for now. Wikidata does not yet support the property type "value" and, we do not have the visualisation tools yet. Both can be helped, support for the property value is in the pipe line. Seeking cooperation with Gapminder seems an obvious thing to do.
Thanks,
      GerardM