#WeMissTurkey - six times #Listeria for best results

Reading about the history of the Ottoman Empire is a different experience on every Wikipedia. Typically most of the "humans" involved do not have an article and the spelling of the names differs. In English one title is pasha, in Catalan it is paixà and in Turkish and Bosnian it is paša. In all these languages it is part of the name of many dignitaries.

There are often multiple items for the same person thanks to these differences in spelling. Disambiguating the information together comparing the articles. The English, Catalan, Turkish, Bosnian, Greek and Arabic Wikipedia have their reasons to have an interest in the Ottoman Empire. For this reason I copied the Listeria list from my English user page to the ca.wp, tr.wp, bs.wp, el.wp and ar.wp.

When labels in a particular language are changed or when data is added, the Listeria list will update on a daily basis. So as we work on Ottoman information, the best effect will now show six times on my user page.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#WeMissTurkey - #Bosnia and its Otoman governors

We miss Turkey as readers and contributors of our project. In the larger picture, when we write about the history of the world, we have to pay attention to the Ottoman Empire. Its history ended only 96 years ago and its influence is underestimated.

Take Bosnia; many people from the eyalet of Bosnia have been really influential and many people were beylerbey of the Bosnia eyalet. Adding all these people can be done from a list on the Bosnian Wikipedia. The list is in Bosnian and paša is pasha in translation and that makes it a lot of work.. In Catalan, the same word is paixà and Catalan is a language that covers the history of Africa rather well. Many people known in Bosnian are known in Catalan and not in English.

The dignitaries of the Ottoman Empire often stayed for a short period before they moved on to another place. Getting the curriculum vitae for the top will help understand history. In true Wiki fashion we have a start and it will improve when we collaborate.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#WeMissTurkey - the geography and organisation of the #Ottoman Empire

This map shows the development of the Ottoman Empire over time. Its accuracy may be disputed but it is among the best Wikimedia has to offer at this time.

This animated gif is really good at what it does. With all the basic parts available, it becomes possible to expand on these maps. The Ottoman empire was divided in "eyalets" and these were divided in "sanjaks". The size and the composition of these eyalets changed over time. An animation of these changes helps understand developments in for instance the Balkan.

At this time sanjaks are added to Wikidata and, this proves to be not that straight forward. Most of them do not have an article in any language. The spelling of the same sanjak differs in places and for some eyalets a modern interpretation is sought in order to provide some "legitimacy" of later developments; in one instance even the mentioning of the composite sanjaks is deliberately missing.

The governance of the Ottoman Empire was obviously along the line of these eyalats and sanjaks. For the eyalets there were "beylerbeys" and for the sanjaks "sanjak-beys". These offices were largely non-hereditary and during one time the composition of them was for quite some time by people originating from the Balkan.

When you consider the administrative organisation of the Ottoman Empire, there is a list of all the Sultans and their Grand Viziers. For the successions of other important functionaries there is still a lot that can be done.

When you are willing to help; please. Adding labels in other languages particularly Turkish will make a real difference. Adding missing humans in Wikidata and link them into a succession of functionaries will help a lot. It enables the provision of lists and they may be used in any language. When you are able to hack maps.. That would be really important; it is how all this information may come together.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Finding #diversity in the #Ottoman Empire

In #Wikidata everybody is more than welcome to work on the subjects that they consider relevant. There is so much to do that everybody can be the king of his hill. As you gain more experience, it becomes obvious that a previous approach may not really be that good. The information about the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire could do with improvement.

Indicating that the sultan was the sultan is elementary, adding relevant qualifiers makes it informative. One other bit of information that is really important is identifying the mother of each sultan. All these women are known as the "valide sultan" and they were among the most influential people in the Ottoman empire.

Their influence was obviously theirs because in Islam going to paradise relies heavily on having parents and particularly a mother that is happy with their offspring. It follows that learning about the women in the Ottoman empire will shed light on many connections. As a sultan had several wives and concubines in his harem there was no lack of offspring. The future for most of the boys was bleak; many died at the time when one of the brothers ascended to the throne. Many of the girls were married off and strengthened the position of their husband and became really influential as mothers themselves.

These women were well educated. Their position is in a marked contrast with how some perceive Islam should treat women. It is well worth to highlight this aspect of the Ottoman treatment of women.

Thanks,

      GerardM

Ottoman #Turkish for #Wikidata

Labels in Wikidata provide an item with a name in a language. Historically many subjects have had different names during their lifetime. Often these names were in different languages and sometimes in different scripts as well. Using labels, statements and qualifiers it is possible to register all these names. Jakarta existed before the Dutch raised it to the ground to build Batavia. When the Dutch left Indonesia, Batavia was named Jakarta again. The original Jakarta was named in Javanese and the new Jakarta is named in Indonesian.

Original sources are in its original language and, when an original text is processed, it helps when it is made easy to link text automatically to Wikidata items. When we have a source, we already know a lot about it. It was written at a specific time by a specific person in a specific environment and this knowledge helps the matching of texts to concept known in Wikidata.

With labels recognised as Wikidata items labels in other languages can be used to translate a text. They can also be used as a key to enrich the experience by including maps, illustrations and Wikipedia articles in the language of the user.

The language committee of the Wikimedia Foundation changed its policy for Wikidata; all languages recognised in the ISO-639-3 will be granted the status of eligibility when asked. This will make it easier to include the Javanese for Jakarta or the Ottoman Turkish for Istanbul.

Thanks,

      GerardM

#divcon - Ali Ekrem Bolayır an official from the #Ottoman Empire and #Turkey

Arguably the Ottoman Empire is as relevant as the Roman Empire. The only argument why the Roman Empire gets more attention is, because it has been the basis for many ideas in the Western cultures.

Wikidata does cover more subjects and consequently it is better at making a step at representing the "sum of all knowledge". One of the people known to Wikidata is Mr Bolayır. It is certainly a challenge to type his name; I know how to copy paste it...

The Turkish language changed from the Arabic script to the Latin script in the 20th century. It does characters that are not in general use in the Western languages and consequently people do write names like Mr Bolayır differently; typically it becomes Bolayir.

Without this transliteration, people will not find Mr Bolayir when they search for him. Without his name in the Arabic script, it will be hard to link him from original sources. For all these reasons it is important to include the transliterated names people use when they search for subjects like Mr Bolayir.
Thanks,
      Gerard

Looking for a better version to restore and make it generally available

This is the last Ottoman sultan and his grand vizier praying before they flee their country. They take their time to pray. Love it or hate it, this is a historic picture.

When you have a high resolution version of this picture, we want it badly. Your picture will be restored as much as possible. Sadly, this picture has too low a resolution.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Ethnicity in #Wikidata

In the Ottoman Empire, the Grand Vizier was the most powerful person but for the Sultan. As long as the "blood tax" or Devşirme was levied, they were not Turkish. 

Blood tax was the practice by which the Ottoman Empire took boys from their Christian families, who were then converted to Islam with the primary objective of selecting and training the ablest children for leadership positions, either as military leaders or as high administrators to serve the Empire.

These kids gained a lot of power and as a group they maintained that power base. Many of them married into the family of the Sultan.

In this context it is relevant to know the ethnicity because it must have been comforting to their family that they did well. It will have served as a stabilising force in the Empire.

It feels really awkward to specify the ethnicity of people. People are equal, right? So much so that the property Ethnic group is considered controversial in Wikidata because it is so easy to abuse. 

• Mr Obama is half black and half white. Does that not qualify him more as an American than as an Afro-American? 
• Mr Morsi would not qualify himself as an Arab but as an Egyptian and a Muslim first.

Thanks,
       GerardM

Lutfi Pasha, a Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire

To become a Grand Vizier in the Ottoman Empire was the culmination of a long and distinguished career. Many of them combined this rank with being involved in the many wars the Ottoman Empire fought.

Before today, there were no statements for Lufti Pasha in Wikidata. The Wikipedia article indicated that he had written several books on religion and history. This made it likely that there would be a VIAF identifier.

• VIAF and its associated resources and Wikipedia disagree on the date of his death.
• ISNI has several names for Lufti Pasha but they seem to be transliterations in several languages
• More resources are indicated

What will be interesting is if one of the many bots will pick up on the new data in Wikidata and how they will enrich it even more.
Thanks,
     GerardM

Information for the English Wikipedia.

The Dulkarid dynasty is in the English Wikipedia best known for the women who married to Ottoman emperors. There are  however articles on the Turkish Wikipedia about most of these beys.

With red links on the English Wikipedia and information in Wikidata, it makes sense to link the red links to Wikidata. Because you would believe that all these Dulkarid beys do not have an article, this is however not the case. Dulkadiroğlu Ali Bey has an article under another name.

The information you find in the list in the image is now available in Wikidata. When it is possible to present this succession in a nice way, it could be linked from articles on these people or from the page on this dynasty.
Thanks,
     GerardM

Turkish Lira is supported in #Unicode

When #Turkey selected a new symbol for its currency, the Lira, it had to make sure that people can actually use it. Given that almost all modern computing is done with Unicode fonts, it was important to have the symbol included as soon as possible in Unicode.

The Turkish Lira will be supported in the Unicode 6.2 release that was just announced for the third quarter of 2012. The next step is to have the symbol included in fonts. A font that includes the new symbol can already be found on the website of the Turkish central bank.

In a previous Unicode release the Indian Rupee was introduced. The question is very much to what extend and at what pace people will have updated fonts that includes such symbols. The Wikipedia article on the Indian Rupee uses an image.

It is possible to create a font that includes characters like these currency symbols and make use of the WebFonts extension. In many ways it is more elegant than using graphics.
Thanks,
      GerardM