Scaffolding in Wikidata - the Christiaan Hendrik Persoon Medal

Professor Brenda D. Wingfield is another scientist who won an award Wikidata knew nothing about. This time the Christiaan Hendrik Persoon Medal. The Wikidata basics for an award are its name, the conferring organisation and a website with details. A bonus is when there is a link to a person, an organisation the award is named after..

The Persoon Medal is a South African award, its conferring org is new to Wikidata as well. In an article about Prof B.D. Wingfield, all the other recipients are named as well; there are only six in a time span of 53 years so it was not hard to add them all.

The objective is to make connections. For both the award and Prof Wingfield, connections shows best in a Scholia. One of the more frequent co-authors is a Michael J. Wingfield.. He is a co-recipient of the Persoon Medal, a co-member of the Member of the Academy of Science of South Africa and, a duplicate of Mike Wingfield and yes, he is the spouse of Prof B.D. Wingfield as well. He is at this time Q73879566 in the Scholia waiting for papers to be attributed to the earlier item.

Another frequent co-author, Bernard Slippers, is known from a different context. He is both a member of the South African Young Academy of Science and the Global Young Academy. Given some personal connections it was easy to ask if by chance Prof Wingfield is his doctoral advisor (he is the primary, they both are).

The point of scaffolding is that it provides the structures that enable finding the data, preferably in a context. Given that most data is static, the static representation that is Listeria is really powerful. When you group them like I did for African science or Young Academies, you get the satisfaction of understanding what work is done/has been done on a subject. The icing on the cake is when you enable collaboration. I am grateful for Robert Lepenies to pick up the lead and inform other young academies for what Wikidata may mean for them. I am grateful for Daniel Mietchen for improving on the queries I use; they now show the number of publications known for each scientists and a link to the tool that enables attribution to that scientists.

My role is a simple one. I add data. Data that connects, gives relevance but most importantly data that may be picked up in queries, lists by others. The scaffolds are made by others, relevance only happens when others pick it up. My point: there has to be something to pick up.
Thanks and happy new year,
          GerardM

#AfricaGap - Sean Jacobs at #Wikimania

To be blunt, what Mr Jacobs is talking about is one or more step removed of the Wikimedia reality. His story is important and indicates that a specific type of source exists and is available for study. Mr Jacobs informs on the importance of Twitter for the Zulu language.

Mr Jacobs is an academic and the reality of Zulu Wikipedia is that only a few days ago we celebrated article number 1000 for the Zulu Wikipedia. What the Zulu Wikipedia needs is high school students writing in Zulu. Writing about what is important to them, what is important to their curriculum and to their world.

Just consider what one high school could do. Now consider what ten high schools could do. Compare that with one academic or what all the Zulu students currently in university could do.

Yes, history has been written so far and it does report in a biased way. When the Zulu language is to gain a foothold in the Wikimedia world, we need many people being involved in writing first the most basic information. Once there is a basis, the sources Mr Jacobs mentions become relevant in a Zulu Wikipedia.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#AfricaGap - Lucien Xavier Michel-Andrianarahinjaka a politician from Madagascar

Lucien Xavier Michel-Andrianarahinjaka is a politician from Madagascar with two Wikidata items that have now been merged. People at the Zulu Wikipedia expressed an interest in information on all African politicians and as a consequence they want to have all information available in Zulu.

Reasonator is a tool that makes this easy. As you can see in the screen shot, there is a lot to do; the label for "male" for instance is not even known yet. When someone who knows Zulu sees the information in this way, it is extremely easy to add a label in Zulu.

When you consider names of people, typically the spelling of a name is the same when seen in the same script. When this is true for Zulu or Xhosa or .. it is easy enough to have a bot add the missing labels in Zulu.

When labels are available, it becomes practical to have info boxes particularly when the info in these info-boxes is updated from Wikidata. In this way it becomes possible to provide information in Zulu, information that will be hard to find in Zulu elsewhere on the Internet.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#AfricaGap - Requested lists from the Zulu #Wikipedia

After the introduction of Listeria lists for African politicians on the Zulu Wikipedia, the question was raised how complete lists could be made available for the localisation of names and the positions held by these politicians.

A good question. The answer is problematic. These Listeria list are the best we have available. Typically they are incomplete and it takes effort to make them complete. I completed the list of Foreign Ministers of Madagascar based on information from the English Wikipedia. To achieve this I added eight people to Wikidata and I merged one.

The cool thing is that a similar Listeria lists will be updated daily with new and updated information. The same list could be used on 280+ Wikipedias and as you can see, there are many, many positions held by national politicians in Africa. For all of them you want more specific information and obviously, that is even more work that coule benefit 280+ Wikipedias.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikipedia discovers #OpenLibrary

On Facebook, Dumisani Ndubane posted his discovery of Open Library:

I just discovered that The Internet Archive has a book loan system, which gives me access up to 5 books for 14 days. So I have a library on my laptop!!! This is awesomest!!!

And it is. Anybody can borrow books from the Open Library (is is part of the Internet Archive). What Dumisani did not know at the time is that there are books in other languages to be found as well.

Dumisani found out by accident; he googled for an ebook called "Heart of darkness" by Joseph Conrad. What Dumisani did not know at the time is that the Open Library includes books in many languages. His next challenge: find the books in Xitsonga, and tell his fellow Wikipedians about it.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - May 7th #Elections in South Africa part II

The elections have come and gone. When the results are in, it will be possible to make a list of the current members of the South African National Assembly.

At this time Wikidata knows about 405 of them. When you look at it with AutoList, you will find 408. This is because for three people it is not known that they are human..

One of the major languages of South Africa is English. There may be a lack of interest in politics in South Africa but the quality of Wikipedia suffers when it apparently has no interest in South Africa.

If you think this is bad, try countries like Ivory Coast, Libya, Uganda. When you want an other perspective, check Wikipedia for the mayors of any moderately big US city in the 19th century.
Thanks,
      GerardM

NB Wikipedia knows about 170 members of the South African National Assembly

#Wikidata - May 7th #Elections in South Africa

South Africa will elect members to its National Assembly. Some of its members have a Wikipedia article but most do not. They are however "known" because of red links in a list and as red links in a template.

Adding them to Wikidata is easy and, by adding a distinct statement: "position held" "member of the National Assembly" everything is in place to select them using AutoList. Obvious statements to make are "is a" "human", "nationality" "South Africa" and "occupation" "politician".

The information shown for members of the National Assemblee looks like this in the Reasonator. As these members of the National Assemblee do not have an article, WD-Search enables access to this information. For all these new items there are only four statements requiring eight labels.

When the results of the elections are in, many of the incumbents will be re-elected. When the list of winners includes that fact, it will be easy to complement the list of members of the National Assembly with the latest crop of representatives of the South African people.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikipedia - the search for ఈలా గాంధీ in Telugu

Mrs Ela Gandhi or ఈలా గాంధీ in Telugu does not have an article yet in the Telugu Wikipedia. This does not mean that she is not of interest to the people who seek information about her.

Now that the Telugu Wikipedia has added this one line in its common.js, it is at the bottom, people will be able to find her when they search for her. At the bottom you find the search results from Wikidata.

I think Mrs Gandhi already looks smashing in the Reasonator in Telugu :) What is missing is a label for one of political parties of South Africa.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Reasonator - #dates and their #context

The timeline functionality shows when there are three or more statements that have been dated. The most obvious dates are the life events; birth, death, marriage and children.  For many people other dates are as significant; Mr. Gandhi for instance was born in India, studied in London, returned to India, took a job in SouthAfrica and returned to India.

For authors the dates of publications of books are relevant. For military men the battles they fought, for politicians the positions they held, for people competing in sports the competitions they participated in. There are the people who won prizes or received awards in any field.

There are so many things that are dated and when they are presented together on a timeline in a context, they provide a different kind of understanding.

Thanks,

     GerardM

Nelson Mandela died II

this is NOT the Nobel prize

Nelson Mandela is one of the most admired politicians of our time. This picture has him with the trophy for the World Cup Football, a reward he did not win :). The number of awards, accolades, prizes, honorary degrees, citizenships he did win is staggering. So big that there is even an article listing them all.

You find these things when you work on the "concept cloud" for Mr Mandela. One of the many prestigious prices he received is the Jawaharlal Nehru Award. This award was presented to him by the government of India. All of the people who were awarded the prize are now linked to this award. Given the relevance of the people who won the award, it felt weird to add a new Wikidata item for one of them.

One other item that is there to be found is "Qamata". He is a deity of the Xhosa and, I have no clue what statements to add for him. I do not know what is sensible and does justice to the subject.

Thanks to the concept cloud, you can learn what Mr Mandela is associated with. Improving the quality of that information is my way of showing respect to a great man.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Nelson Mandela died

The news that Mr Mandela died is world news. Extra news bulletins inform about Mr Mandela, his relevance is explained to those who do not know. Wikipedia articles are read by many people.

It is what you do. If you are like me, you want to do something as well. At Wikidata it was already known that he died. So I have been thinking what else there is to do.

I am going to spend half an hour working on the data that is in Mr Mandela's concept cloud. I will be adding labels in Dutch for the items that do not have a Dutch label. I may explore some items and see if I can add some statements.

When you are like me, you want to do something, it is a way to grieve. Maybe you will follow my example and dedicate some work in his memory.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#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

#Wikidata and what it can do for #Wikipedia

In an opinion piece Mark Graham fears for the many different opinions that exist in the many different Wikipedia articles on a same subject. However, many Wikipedias will do really well when they have high quality info-boxes available to them provided by Wikidata.

The article on Mali on the Zulu Wikipedia contains the info box I used as an illustration and the text: "iMali izwe eAfrika". It is a stub and I am REALLY pleased with the activity in the Zulu Wikipedia. They are working hard copying info-boxes and creating stubs but I would much prefer it when all that is needed is translate the labels and maybe the values as well and have tons of stubs in next to no time. Once well maintained data becomes available, the value of even minimal articles like this will go up a lot. 

When people start to write the articles that go with the data, it will have to fit the data. There will be fights over the data but I am sure that in the final analysis the facts will provide their own Neutral Point Of View. This will not deny the differences in approach in the articles themselves but it will provide a common baseline based on facts.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Zulu is one of the 50 biggest languages

The Zulu language is spoken by many people so much so that it is one of the 50 most spoken languages in the world. You would assume that a Wikipedia in the Zulu language should be a thriving affair. Sadly, this is not the case. A request has been made for the Zulu Wikipedia to be closed.

The argument for closure is compelling: since the start in 2003 only 273 articles have been written and most activity is by bots, vandals and from people cleaning up the mess. A week ago I found someone willing to localise the Babel extension in Zulu but I am afraid that is as much as I can expect.

Good news is that the South African chapter has been registered. They are our local people on the ground. Some of them may speak Zulu and take pity on what is at the moment a failed project. Any subject needs articles any article needs improvement and yes, the localisation of the most used MediaWiki messages would be very welcome.
Thanks,
     GerardM

A new #Wikipedia for #Africa

A new Wikipedia in the Northern Sotho language has been created. Northern Sotho is spoken in South Africa and, the South African chapter has shown its interest in the creation of this new project.

The project has just been created, the content is still to be transferred from the Incubator. A mail has been send to have the traffic for this new project included in the statistics. Everything is new and we wish this project well.

With the current focus on the Northern Sotho language, it will be cool when people volunteer to be its language support team. Many open source projects including MediaWiki will be able to support this language properly when we know for sure that the CLDR information for Northern Sotho is correct and complete.

Given the interest of the South-African chapter, it will be so cool when they are motivated to ensure that the languages of South Africa are all well documented in the standards.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#wikimediaZA is the latest #Wikimedia chapter

Chapters are enablers and, the news of a South African chapter is really welcome. South Africa is a large country with many native cultures. Realising the Wikimedia aim is going to be an epic journey.

South Africa is a multi cultured country that is developing its infrastructure quickly, it is a magnet for people from other African countries and as a consequence it is rich in opportunities. There are many Wikipedias for languages native to South Africa. Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans even English qualifies.

As a large part of the population is young, there are plenty opportunities to reach out and build both an audience and an editor community.

This will work once people understand that it is their Wikipedia to write and it will get its public when these Wikipedias are relevant in the content they provide.
Thanks,
      GerardM