A national project for Nigeria using Wikimedia projects

Nigeria will be going to the polls. There are over 520 languages in Nigeria and for some of them there is a Wikipedia. It is expected that there will be a lot of fake news. Wikipedia is known for its curated information so with a successful multilingual Wikimedia project there is the potential to undo or prevent a lot of damage.

When all the relevant information is to be offered in many languages big and small, there is a need for a scaffolding for the information. on all the parties, all the candidates and all the other entities that may be of relevance.

Wikidata can provide this scaffolding. For the existing members of parliament there is likely an existing item. All the candidates are included in Wikidata and identified as a candidate for the 2027 elections. Assuming that there is a project page for all the language Wikipedias relevant for Nigeria, there will be a Listeria list with all the candidates, the candidates with and without a local article are identified as such. 

Another list could include all the fake news recognised by the project and the parties, organisations, parties involved.

Technically, there are a few things that will make live easier. 

• a template that includes the query for Listeria lists - one , , the Wikidata identifier the query is for.
• all participating projects enable the Listeriabot for its processing
• a trigger that will update a Listeria list wherever it exist 

Thanks,

    PS happy 25th

          GerardM

Maintaining information on African politicians

There are many Wikipedias in many languages with an African public. They all have their own public and we want to share the sum of all knowledge with them all of them. Maintaining complete information on all the major African politicians on all these Wikipedias in text based articles is not realistic.

On many projects there are links for African politicians and when the Listeria bot is active. It will update the links whenever there is an update and it will perform this update on any Wikipedia that shares these links. For someone like Mr Bola Ahmed Tinubu it is likely that there will be an article and it will be show in the list. For someone like Mr Osagie Ehanire this is less likely and it will show a link to Wikidata.

In a personal project there are many national politicians for African countries.. The idea is that when something changes, it is reflected in the Listeria list on all the participating Wikipedias.. Recently I have done some work on Nigerian politicians, later office holders and some new Listeria lists. The new lists have to be added on other Wikipedias for them to share the latest data. 

New national elections will be held in Nigeria in November .. There will be many new people who will be a candidate and compete with incumbent politicians. They all belong to parties, they studied, some may already be known to Wikidata. They may make claims about their education, their background and yes, all these claims can be verified and find a place at Wikidata. For both claims that can and cannot be substantiated there is room if only to support a public that is to make a choice.

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 quality of all the Nigerian governors at @Wikidata

There are lists for all the governors of all the current Nigerian states. They exist on many Wikipedias. The information was known to be incomplete and based on lists on the English Wikipedia, I added information on Wikidata and as a result these lists may update with better data.

Obviously, when you copy data across to another platform, errors will occur. Sometimes it is me, sometimes it is in the data. I have only indicated when a governor was in office and predecessors and successors. 

The data is provided in a way that makes it easy to query; no information on elections (many governors were not elected) but proper start and end dates. The dates are as provided on the Wikipedia lists, articles for a governor are often more precise. People from Nigeria often are known by different names, I did add labels where I needed them for my disambiguation. 

When you want to know how many of these fine gentlemen are still alive, it will take some effort to kill of those who are still walking around according to Wikidata. It is relevant to know if a governor was elected or not. To do that properly you want to include election data elsewhere; there is no one on one relation between a position, elected officials and them being in office.

There is plenty to improve on the data. When people do, Listeria lists will update. Maybe someone will consider updating the English Wikipedia lists.

Thanks,

        GerardM

Abstract Wikipedia, telling a story from available data

For me Reasonator is the best tool for Wikidata. It shows the data for a Wikidata item in an informative way. In my approach I am "deficit focused"; I add information for subjects that are not well represented. Additional information such as dates and successors make the information for Nigerian state governors more complete and it shows in Reasonator and Listeria lists.

Abstract Wikipedia, the new Wikimedia project is possible because of all the data in Wikidata. People who know the structure of a language will build constructs that present information in natural language. This is awesome because it will help us share widely in the sum of all available knowledge.

The objective of the Wikipedia projects has always been to share in the sum of all available knowledge. As more languages support the constructs needed for "Abstract Wikipedia", what we have in Wikidata will mushroom and evolve. It is because the data gets a purpose and, the data will be made to fit this purpose. 

The best part, Wikipedians want to tell stories and it only takes one person to add a bit of information to make a difference in the constructs for every language. My expectation is that as constructs become available for the languages of Nigeria, it will no longer be me who adds information on Nigerian politicians. It will be people from Nigeria. For them it will be Abstract Wikipedia that will show the data in an informative way.

Thanks,

      GerardM

#AfricaGap - #Nigeria, politics as a family business

A Wikipedia friend asked on Facebook for people to neutralise an all too advertisery article on a Nigerian Senator Ademola Adeleke. I have updated his Wikidata profile based on the information in the article.

The father of Mr Adeleke, Raji Ayoola Adeleke and his brother Isiaka both preceded him as a senator.

When you google Mr Adeleke, the first thing you find is his Wikipedia article, then you cannot miss that the University of Jacksonville denied that Mr Adeleke finished his education. Consequently it is a stretch to call him Dr Adeleke.

When Wikipedia and by inference Wikidata register the education of humans, it follows that such easy scams will be more prominently displayed and known. When an article makes plain that Mr Adeleke was born with a silver spoon, it will make it easy to question his ability to truly represent adequately.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#AfricaGap - Doing a bit more when time permits

In a previous blog post I indicated that I would not include ministers. Well, I changed my mind because of feedback that I received. The list of African politicians on the English Wikipedia can be found here. There is now a list on the Yoruba Wikipedia that I update regularly with new enties. I am also considering adding information on the Swahili Wikipedia.

The list is far from complete and there are several challenges. The first one is that what I copy across is in English. When someone volunteers, it is easy to change fixed text. The second one, the Listeria bot is to include new Wikipedias and update there as well.

Listeria is run by Magnus and the functionality he provides is important. It would be better when Listeria lists would be standard functionality. When it starts with the functionality as provided by Listeria it would already be good because it would acknowledge the need for this functionality. Improvements are welcome but are secondary.

When I have time I add additional lists, add new "positions" and I do monitor changes like the people involved, their nationality and the dates they started and ended their position. I may tweet occasionally using #AfricaGap.

At this time no percent of humans known to Wikidata is from Africa..
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikimedia and politicians from #Nigeria

The Wikimedia blog mentioned the fight against corruption by Johnson Oludeinde. Johnson states that information needs to be shared widely and consequently it is relevant to have information about all Nigerian politicians.

There are many of them, there are the chiefs, the governors and the senators to name but three categories. The senators that have a Wikipedia article are now known as a Nigerian senator in Wikidata but also as a Nigerian politician.

At this time we know about some 700 Nigerian politicians in Wikidata. This information can be expressed in all languages including all languages from Nigeria. Given that Wikipedia still has no article about Chief Willie Obiano for instance, it is safe to say that most Nigerian politicians past and present do not have a Wikipedia article either.

Adding information in Wikidata is easy. It makes it easy to make information widely available particularly when its search results are added to the Wikipedia search.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - #Chiefs and #Nigerians

Mr Willie Obiano is the current Governor of Anambra State. At this time, there is no article for one of the more influential men from Nigeria.

It is easy to add information about him to Wikidata as abundant information about him is available on the Internet. When you read about Mr Obiano, he is referred to as Chief Willie Obiano. It follows that in addition to being a governor he is influential for being a chief.

You may also find that Chiefs in Nigeria are organised and as such Mr Obiano is a "chief of chiefs". How to recognise Mr Obiano as a chief is not clear to me. He was elected a chief and he was elected to be the chief of chiefs..

I would love when people step up the plate and add this information that is important to understand Nigeria.
Thanks,
     GerardM

Two #muslims died in France.. Hundreds died in #Nigeria, many more are terrorised world wide

Two muslims, one of them a police officer and one of them an employee of Charlie Hebdo died in an act of terrorism in France. After this major incident by a few deranged men the almost universal mistake is made that these perpetrators represent Islam. They do not.

In Nigeria hundreds of people have been killed by extremists that call themselves Boko Haram. Rumours have it that there may have been thousands of people who died. Apparently this is not a major incident. How can it be when you judge it by the amount of attention it gets. These Boko Haram pretend to represent Islam. They do not.

In the mean time in Amsterdam, men and women going home from work were abused, threatened, even terrorised. Abused, threatened and terrorised by people who pretend to represent western civilisation. I prefer to pretend that they do not. You can read all about this and similar incidents on Facebook and in the history books.

People persist in the mistake that terrorists represent Islam. They persist while they have been invited to learn more about what Islam is really about. It is ever so easy to learn Islam. So many muslims live in every country that it is impossible not to find a local face, a local voice that speaks for an Islam that is starkly different from the travesty called Islam by terrorists.

When you consider Wikipedia its information is not nearly enough to learn the true diversity that is in Islam, its past and its present. It is at times like this that this lack of information is damaging us all.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - Ameyo Adadevoh a physician from #Nigeria

When a Mr Sawyer arrived in Lagos and showed symptoms of ebola, Mrs Adedevoh took control of the situation and thanks to her efforts ebola was largely contained. In the end it did not save her; as a physician in the frontline of the fight against ebola she became a victim herself.

Mrs Adadevoh is another hero of our times. When you google about ebola and Nigeria, there are two things that are of interest; sadly there are the opinion pieces that see a conspiracy in the coming of Mr Sawyer to Nigeria but more positive is the information about the efforts to contain ebola in Nigeria and what it is that you can do to become infected; personal hygiene is key.

There is a call to ensure that hospital staff are immunised. It is quite obvious that no country can really afford to lose key people like Mrs Adadevoh. It is equally obvious that all doctors and nurses who have to deal with ebola patients need to be protected. Without them containing and treating ebola is impossible.
Thanks,
    GerardM

#Wikidata - Those who died in 2014

Magnus's "No date" game registers dates of birth and death. It shows that we need information for 1,258,038 of the 2,073,886 humans Wikidata knows. It is a challenge however, if Magnus proves anything it is that for a community such challenges can be met.

For the people who died in 2014, 5001 have been registered so far, it is a bit different. When people die, their articles need some attention if only to register their passing. Many of the people had their day of sporting glory a long time ago. Others like the Emir of Kano remained relevant until their end and their passing may influence many more articles.

Quality is often seen as how quickly new information finds its way in.  It is wonderful that Wikidata has the potential to flag the passing of all those known to have died in 2014 to the projects who have an article about them.
Thanks,
      GerardM