Reviving my bot for #Wikidata II

It did not work as designed. In the end there were several mysteries. To solve it, I deleted the user.config.py and it was re-created by the software.  That made a difference. In the end I also got the order of the parameter and the property right.

python pwb.py harvest_template.py  -family:wikipedia -lang:en  "-cat:Presidents of Uruguay" "-template:Infobox Officeholder" -namespace=0 party p102

What my bot did not get right is the attribution. It is said to have been imported from the Northern Sami Wikipedia ...
Thanks,
       GerardM

PS thanks again to so many helpful people :)

Presidents of #Uruguay

At #Wikidata there are "items" for all the presidents of Uruguay. However, when you want to add simple information like "start date", "preceded by", "end date" and "succeeded by" you find that it is "complicated".

This may mean that the information in Wikipedia is wrong. When you retrieve information by inferring the data from the text, the lists, the infoboxes you will get the best information as available at that time.

The problems found so far are from reading the texts are:

• there was a civil war with two opposing Uruguayan presidents and governments
• for a long time there was no presidential representative democratic republic
• when both the president and the vice president are out of the country, there is an interim president

Obviously there is a solution possible for all that. What that solution should be, requires some thought. The thinking of such a solution however is important because it needs to reflect the "Neutral Point Of View" that is dear to the hearts and mind of Wikimedians. Also relevant is the consideration that similar problems exists for other countries past and present.

Issues like these do not mean that we should not mass import data. It means that we need to actively curate the data. Lessons learned should be shared with where there is contrary information.

Thanks,

       GerardM

#Wikidata needs more data to be useful

In case you did not know it, Mr José Mujica is the current president of Uruguay. When you read his Wikipedia articles you will know it. Only recently this "statement" was added to the Wikidata item about Mr Mujica.

When you check out the infobox on the English Wikipedia, there are many more statements to be made about Mr Murjica. Statements that any competent bot operator can either get from Wikipedia or from DBpedia. Mr Mujica is not the first Uruguayan president, many presidents preceded him. And for all of them there is a date that they started as president, there are predecessors, successors and end dates. Most of them are not in there.

For Wikipedia to be useful, it needs data. A lot more data IS available and is waiting to be added. Magnus Manske has information on 300.000 people waiting to be added. It is not included because some people want the information added by bots to be sourced.  As you know, Wikipedia is not a source...

When you consider how many people have an entry in Wikidata, you will realise that 300.000 people is a nice effort but also a drop in the ocean. When you consider that many of these people have links to external sources like VIAF en GND, you will realise that much of this "unsourced" information can be compared with information elsewhere.

Wikidata is not yet at the tipping point where it is actually useful. Until it is, artificial restrains to adding credible statements will only move this point even further in the future.
Thanks,
        GerardM