Covid enquette in the Netherlands ..

 

Dutch politicians will have their day in an "enquette commissie" coming up with their version of what there is to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. The result will probably mirror the composition of the mainly right wing commission. It is not as if we do not know what there was to learn; a recent research paper commissioned and paid for by the Dutch government lays out the effects of vaccination on mortality in the Netherlands. It does even refer to a study on religion and vaccination coverage in the Netherlands.

Given the composition of the committee, they will have a hard time convincing people of their outcome. Nobody is really interested in my opinion, but I do believe in proper science. Given the qualification of the people writing the commissioned paper, I added the paper to Wikidata, author strings were replaced by author identifiers, known publications were linked to the authors, I linked the cited papers and ensured that the primary author is known to Wikidata as well. The result is that anyone can find this enriched information in its Scholia.

Given that some Dutch politicians express that they not understand the scholarly process, the best I can do is open up information that has a scholarly foundation, particularly in a field where I do trust politicians to come up with a report that reflects their political bias.

Thanks,

      GerardM

Dear #Vogelnieuws - more birds for the #Oostvaardersplassen

In an editorial the Dutch birding organisation is pleading for a more bird friendly Oostvaardersplassen. They specifically want room for the Eurasian Spoonbill and Eurasian Bittern. The reason why they are in decline are carp, mature carp. They eat anything including small fish and, they can live to be some eighty years old. There is no real predation on the carp.

There is only one predator that will have a significant impact when it finds its way into the Oostvaardersplassen; it is the Wels Catfish. A current proposal is to drain the Oostvaardersplassen regularly consequently most water animals will die and repeats will be "needed". When the Wels Catfish is introduced after a drainage, they will eat the maturing carp and ensure a more healthy age distribution in carp and make room for birds and other fish as well.

In this way we come to rely on ecological processes and realise a more complete (age) distribution of species. In the editorial they call for ecological connections so that animals can migrate for optimal results. Introducing such connections for fish as well would be of a huge benefit for the birds that predate on smaller fish. One of the fish that would find its way into the Oostvaardersplassen is the Three-Spined Stickleback. It serves birds like the European Spoonbill really well.

One other thing to consider; the Oostvaardersplassen was developed to support the goose, a bird that was rare at the start of the Oostvaardersplassen. When we make the ecosystem more complete, we will end up with a different environment, an environment that will be more diverse with more species finding their niche.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Oostvaardersplassen - unintended consequences

When there are too many animals and there is too little for them to eat, they die. This happens regularly in winter in the Oostvaardersplassen, a nature reserve in the Netherlands.

The Oostvaardersplassen were created to provide a place for geese to feed. It takes deer, cattle and horses to prevent the development of a wood. Geese like grass short and it is why these animals were released in the Oostvaardersplassen

In the past there have proposals to provide more room for the animals because in winter they die in huge numbers. Providing room is not possible by an unending cycle of adding new grounds to the Oostvaardersplassen but it is possibe to make a connection to the Veluwe and extend this to the nature alongside of the Dutch rivers connecting even further to Germany. This plan that was actively developed was at the last moment shot down by politicians.

Given that "animal lovers" are bringing hay feeding some of the animals, it resulted in such an upheaval under the animals that Staatsbosbeheer prefers to feed them themselves. In the past they pronounced what they would do when pressed. They will shoot the animals and bring the numbers down by half maybe even more. Nature will respond positively after such a catastrophe. It will invigorate nature and make the Oostvaardersplassen less of a meadow.

Natural predation like by a pack of wolfs would make a difference. Wolfs are finding their way into the Netherlands, they only have to find their way to the Oostvaardersplassen and call it home.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikidata - a "sand engine" for the UK?

The Netherlands are largely below sea level and given climate change, keeping our feet dry is not at all obvious. There are many ways to defend a coast line and a "sand engine" or "sand motor" is one.

According to EcoShape, there will be a sand motor protecting the Bacton Gas Terminal and the surrounding Norfolk coast.

This does have an impact on the existing Wikipedia articles about the sand motor. It is no longer about the Netherlands and as there are more coastal areas that need protection, more sand motors are to be expected. For Wikidata, all the sand motors can have their own item. It will become possible to query where they are, where they are planned and what areas are protected in this way. The original sand motor will have its own place in history but it will not be unique. That is good.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikidata - Rina Spigt en een prijs van de #VARA

Two years ago I blogged about the J.B. Broekszprize and the VARA. It mentioned a Mr Hof and the fact that it is assumed that this Mr Hof received the award in 1995.

Mrs Spigt was awarded the prize for a radio series about Mary Zeldenrust-Noordanus according to the Dutch Wikipedia article. She is the only one for whom it was not known in what year she received the award.

The best way of finding out? I asked her. Mr Spigt is on Facebook. It is an effective way of digging up some facts.

I always illustrate a blogpost so I googled for images and found this image of Mrs Spigt with her father. Another fact established. I did ask Mrs Spigt if she wanted additional information in Wikidata. A picture is welcome for instance. When you do ask, you may get confirmation about facts. Maybe not sourced in the Wikipedia way but nevertheless correct.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikimedia - Felix Andries Vening Meinesz and the sum of all #knowledge

Mr Vening Meinesz was an important Dutch scientist. There are a few pointers to his relevance; he was a member to several august bodies and he was awarded many awards, awards from several countries.

One of the medals is the "Alexander Agassiz Medal". When you look at the English Wikipedia article, you find no red links while many award winners do not have an article. Otto S. Pettersson for instance is/was known to Wikidata but he was not associated with the award. When you google for another awardee, it is most likely that the 1926 award winner was Jacob Bjerknes, not Wilhelm Bjerknes.. Even sources get it wrong..

In many ways, awards are rather boring. Getting all the information right is a lot of work and when it is to be written in Wikipedia articles, there are too many Wikipedias and awards for all the awards to get an article in all of them.

When awards are fed to Wikipedia articles from Wikidata like it is done for sources, it becomes a lot more manageable. Increasingly Wikidata knows about more awards for more people. What does it take to reach the necessary tipping point? Which Wikipedia will consider this first?
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikidata - a #young face for #science

These are members of the "Jonge Academie".  They are Dutch scientists and for this academy to remain young, membership expires after ten years. Similar academies exist in several other countries. Countries like Pakistan and Belgium.

With politicians riding roughshod over scientific facts, rejuvenation of science is important. The notion that scientists are old is all too easy and it is equally easy to dismiss young scientists for a lack of relevance. Check out these Dutch scientists, they are relevant and will be for a long time.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikipedia - Nbr of statements on #Wikidata

Edo de Roo produced some stats showing the number of statements on items that have a Wikipedia article in Dutch.

I like his approach; it shows how well Wikidata might serve a Wikipedia. It may infer how well subjects that relate to the Netherlands are supported on other Wikipedias as well. There is more about subjects related to the Netherlands than what you find only on the Dutch Wikipedia but that is a bit more complicated.

When you compare these numbers to Magnus's stats, it is not bad at all. Most items for all of of Wikidata have 1 statement (4,474,865 23.22%) and for the Dutch it is 6 statements (36078).

Obviously there is room for growth.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikidata - Michael Milo, a Dutch #psychiatrist

Together with several others Michael Milo authored a book about mental health. Adding humans to Wikidata is trivially easy, Mr Milo is relevant as an author of the book so that explains the initial notability.

Given that mental health is not well represented on any Wikipedia, it helps when Wikidata has at least some information. Asking Mr Milo was easy; he can be found on social media, So the source of the information on his profile came in the form of personal communication.

A picture paints a thousand words and Mr Milo promised to upload a photo to Commons. Once we have similar information about all the authors of the book, it becomes easier to write about them on Wikipedia. All the authors are notable in their own right. It just takes someone to write or improve their articles.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - Wolfgang Stroebe, not a Dutch psychologist

Mr Stroebe is an emeritus professor, a psychologist who worked for German, American and Dutch universities. From 1992 he worked at the university of Utrecht but that does not make him Dutch.

People could be mistaken for him being Dutch because the description on Wikidata says so: "Dutch social psychologist". Disambiguating Mr Stroebe with Reasonator shows clearly the qualitative difference between automated and manual descriptions.

The difference between the two is an old argument. People may like them but factually manual descriptions are inferior. It takes little effort to improve automated descriptions on a big scale while nobody really looks at descriptions of individual people like Mr Stroebe. Manual descriptions are translated and who dares to suggest that with translations the quality of the descriptions improves? The opposite is easy to argue. With translations, issues become even harder to remedy.

Never mind.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikidata - Wilma Boevink and the #stigma of #psychiatry

A subject like psychiatry is all too often ignored, neglected and not a topic people spend equal effort on. When people rely on Wikipedia as a primary source for information it is vital that they find concepts like recovery. It is what gives them hope. It is what tells them that even when they suffer from psychiatric ailments there is hope. They can learn to manage their situation, they can become more integrated, achieve the goals they strive for.

Mrs Boevink is a leading light in the Netherlands. She has been pivotal in a movement that empowers people to pick up their lives and make the most of it. She is a published author, published often and published with many others. A person as notable deserves an article in Wikipedia but for now, Wikidata will do.

When people talk about quality, it is easily abstract. Mrs Boevink was instrumental in the development of the HEE method. It has been proven as an effective intervention of aiding people in their process of recovery. This "intervention" has no link yet in Wikidata and, I have no clue how to indicate that it has been certified as such.

By including information like this, it is easy to learn about recovery, about HEE, about Mrs Boevink and, it enables people to inform themselves. Insurance companies make it really hard to fund the people best positioned to provide HEE. They manipulate information by informing the public just so. Such manipulations become hard when Wikipedia provides its NPOV about this topic.

Both Wikipedia and Wikidata are works in progress. They do improve their quality and it does not take a genius to understand how Wikipedias in a language are manipulated. It takes some sober reflection to understand that an existing lack of information enables manipulation as easily. Subjects that are associated with discrimination, stigmatisation are exactly where people are vulnerable and where basic, encyclopaedic information is really needed.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - The Anne Vondeling Prize

Mr Vondeling was a Dutch politician. A Dutch journalism award was named after him and, this award is still active. Currently there are three articles about this award; one in English, one in German and one in Dutch. Arguably there could be one in Frisian, Limburgian, Sealandish..

The problem with list articles is that they need maintenance. Having all the data in Wikidata helps. Given that many of the winners are "red links" in all languages, new items had to be created in Wikidata.

All the lists include a reference to the newspaper these people were writing for. For some of them multiple employers are known and for others I did not add the newspaper.

With a list like this, it is possible to include an award like this. It could have been any award. Maintenance is largely left to Wikidata and that is one headache less.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata, its fucking amazing quality

Finding this illustration captures in many ways Wikidata. When we are to convince about quality we first have to be totally fucking amazing.

Quality is not an absolute. Quality is in being the best of the pack, in being better that what went before. Some say quality is in making no errors but for me that is a dead end. Quality is in acknowledging errors and dealing with them.

The first thing Wikidata did was bring some needed quality to Wikipedia. It brought all the interwiki in one place and it made for much better interlanguage links and it brought us time to improve on the mess that it was. The other Wikimedia projects and with two projects to go, Commons and Wiktionary it is fucking amazing what a difference it made.

Once Wikidata existed, many people feverishly started to include statements. Its progress can be followed in the statistics set up by Magnus. In a way it is similar to the wild west. Every Tom, Dick and Harry moved in and what has been accomplished is totally fucking amazing. It happened in the wiki way and some watch it in shock because there is no controlling it. Some of what has been done is good, bad and some is totally fucking amazing.

What Wikidata offers is to take much of the drudgery out of Wikipedia. Bassel for instance received the Index Award. The latest prize winners are from the batch of 2013. When this data was from Wikidata, it would be easier to update all fifteen Wikipedias when new data becomes available. It would improve quality and, would it not be fucking amazing to make that happen?

The chair of the Dutch Wikimedia chapter remarked at its annual conference: "So much is about Wikidata". Several of the presentations were about new ways collaborations with GLAM's, the potential they offer is huge. The one person with the biggest impact on Wikidata was mentioned often. It is fucking amazing to hear people from GLAM's say that Magnus's work enables them to contribute to Wikimedia.

All this is happening before your eyes. You have to see it to believe it.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - What is the #Buikslotermeer

In the history of the Netherlands, land was steadily disappearing. The peat that was the land was replaced by water and this process increased in speed as lakes increased in size. One solution was to make a polder out of a lake. It worked well and it resulted among many others in the polder of the Buikslotermeer.

As the city of Amsterdam grew in size, a new part was called after the old polder.

Wikidata needs disambiguation between the two. One of the reasons is that a picture like this one, is about the polder and not at all about the neighbourhood of Amsterdam.

The polder will have statements about things like when the dikes broke.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikidata - the Forough Faroukhzad Award

When I wrote about the Radcliffe fellow Mrs Mehrangiz Kar, I mentioned that recognition came to her in the form of many awards. One of them was the Forough Faroukhzad Award. This award was only known as a string of text. I asked an Iranian friend if he could identify a few more people who received this award. He identified a few more for me and consequently, this award became incrementally more relevant

When you concentrate on the people of the Radcliffe college or alternatively the winners of the Forough Faroukhzad award, you make them better connected. It gets you to other universities or other awards. It may show you where those who teach were educated or it may show you nothing at all because the data is just not there.

A Dutch scientist published in a journal that dementia has a one in three link to heart and circulatory issues. It is highly likely that such knowledge may spur people to take better care of their health. The scientist does not have an article or an item. The organisation that reports on it funded the research. It has a high impact on research on this issue in the world and it is hardly known outside the Netherlands by people who are not working in this field..

The Hartstichting also issues awards and it makes it obvious why the persons involved are important. I can read Dutch, not Iranian. We need friends from all over the world making the connections. Giving us a view that brings a new perspective.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikimedia - #portal to all #knowledge

The Dutch Royal #Library donated, yet again, a wonderful collection of material to #Commons. This time 3100 images were uploaded using the GLAM-wiki uploadtool for the first time.

When you read the announcement, it is really interesting to find what is known in Wikidata and by inference in Wikipedia. One fun fact is that the old image for Mr Schoemaker has his name in a way that makes more sense in Dutch.; schoenmaker means, shoemaker or cobbler.

When you visit Wikidata for the subjects mentioned in the mail, you find not that much information but often a rich source of external sources. Some of it is really informative and well worth a visit. For Wikipedia articles, we provide badges for excellent material. It highlights quality where we find it. Maybe something like this can be done for external sources as well.

Having attention for the external sources we link to makes Wikidata more of a portal to all knowledge. It would extend from what Wikidata already is: the portal to all available knowlege in the Wikimedia Foundation.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - #Vara and the J.B. Broekszprize

Awards are funny. They are presented with a lot of fanfare. They show the relevance of a subject; the reason why the award is presented and the person who the person is presented to. However, it takes effort and money to maintain an award and often the needed stamina simply disappears.

The J.B. Broekszprize was awarded by the VARA at least until 1996. The award was given to people and organisations who "humanised society". It is obvious that this effort was recognised at the time and, to understand the relevance of people and organisations it is great to know about awards like this.

At Wikidata we can and do recognise awards. People are added just because they received an award. Sometimes, it seems obvious that a person like Rob Hof is the 1995 winner of the award. But it needed some research to make sure that he was. Not even the Beeld en Geluid Wiki knew about Mr Hof..

Awards point to the legacy of people and organisations. They add relevance to both and they help in understanding an era that has come and gone.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - #Amnesty International and the Dr. J.P. van Praag-award

Amnesty is one of the organisations I consider essential in this world. It is known for its work on human rights and it will tell any country where it fails in its commitments or in its actions. It is a participatory organisation and it is up to anyone to choose their levels of commitment.

Organisations are awarded for their work and I have added several of them spurred on by a friend who added the Dr J.P van Praag award to Amnesty. Typically I only add awards to people. It is easier and there are fewer false positives.

Reading the Dutch article, the question arose if Amnesty was indeed the beneficiary of this award. The text says in Dutch.. "Amnesty International (afdeling Nederland) voor haar werk voor gewetensgevangenen.". It says that it is the Dutch chapter who was awarded the award.

Given that other Amnesty chapters have items in Wikidata, it was easy to add one for the Dutch chapter and make it the recipient for the award. It follows that people tagged as member of Amnesty are actually member of the local chapter ... :)

NB I would not be surprised when more awards have been given to Amnesty, much of this may be found in articles in languages I do not read.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - Drs. P

Drs P or Heinz Hermann Polzer was a flamboyant Dutch author, artist. His texts, his songs are hilarious and he was well loved by many. Drs P came to my school and it was certainly one of the concerts I loved most in my life.

Today I learned that Drs P died. In order to reduce the number of degrees to Kevin Bacon, I spend some effort in his honour and added many of his well deserved awards.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - Dutch people who died in 2015

The bot that updates the list of Dutch people who died in 2015 will update the list when details are added. This recent diff shows how relevant this is. For many people additional details were added like the place of death,

Given attention to such details is relevant if only because of the several tools that link places in this way to visualisations. :)
Thanks,
     GerardM