Sabina Nowak a Polish scientist, an expert on European wolves

Dr Nowak has a Wikipedia article in several languages. Her notability is obvious because wolves is a very hot topic in many European countries. When people have opinions about wolves, it is obvious that in a European context you cannot dismiss the research of Dr Nowak over the years. 

When the notability and the quality of a Wikipedia article is assessed, it is obvious that an encyclopedic article is not best served with a list of papers Dr Nowak contributed to; the Scholia template provides more in depth information. However, Scholia only functions when the papers are known and attributed.

In Wikidata, there were two items that needed to be merged. Three papers were linked, an additional nine could be attributed. Additional identifiers were added, of particular significance is Google Scholar as it knows many if not most of the papers of a scientist. 

Adding missing papers is easy; you search with a DOI for the paper and when Wikidata does not know it, it is suggested to add it using the quickstatements tool. The best bit is that when CrosRef knows the ORCiD identifier for an author, it will either identify the author or will add the ORCiD identifier as a qualifier. 

Adding the Scholia template to any Wikipedia article about published scholars makes sense; the data is a "work in progress". It changes as more papers and co-authors become known. It is also an invitation to our communities and scientists to improve both the Wikipedia article and the data represented in the Scholias for any scientist.

Thanks, GerardM 

#AfricaGap - #Wikidata; its quality as Wikidata matures

Currently there are 45 countries that I monitor for their national politicians. When I add a specific national "position", I do several things; I add existing politicians that are known in a particular category and I include a definition of what that category contains.

I give hardly any attention to details; my objective here is simple I want to see how this (underdeveloped) data evolves. There is a huge gap in what we know about Africa and as it is, we hardly inform about Africa, we need Africans to help us gain the most basic facts straight for ourselves.

As Wikidata matures, we gain subsets of data that is of varying quality. The most mature living data are our interwiki links. It is live data and it serves a purpose. Changes require attention to detail it has an immediate effect in the discoverability of information. When data comes alive, when it serves a purpose, it has people who will invest their time to get the data right. They will give attention to detail because that serves their purpose.

For arcane subjects like the Ottoman Empire, even Africa, there are few people who find a purpose in the data. Arguably there is so little data that almost everything added is a 100% gain in quality (a person exists, he is a member of parliament of ***, I do not understand African names so it could be male or female I do not know). Sometimes there are whole lists of people like these people from the Bosnian Eyalet, it is easy enough to complete such a list. But will it serve a purpose? How to give it a purpose?

There is no uniform quality to Wikidata. There are whole areas where we are 100% of the mark as we do not have the data nor the ability to link to data elsewhere. There are other areas like in biomedical literature where our quality is such that it is actually useful. As this becomes known thanks to its evangelists, more attention is given by a wider public and more attention to detail is given in the process.

Arguably the quality of subsets of our data depends on its usefulness. When it is useful, people will come and give the attention to detail as it serves their purpose.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - concentrating on #Fulbright ?

A friend told me to concentrate on substantial awards;  the Fulbright scholarship for instance. To me concentrating on 325,000+ alumni is crazy. There are too many and obviously, some of them will have turned out not to be so notable after all. I do not think Wikidata is a stamp or pokemon collection either

When you search for Fulbright in Reasonator. There is still plenty to do. There is a "Fulbright scholarship" and a "Fulbright Program" they are about the same thing so their content should be merged.. And then there is this "Fulbright Prize"; it seems to have an article only on the Hebrew Wikipedia. There are also several items with no statements.

There is no reason for me to concentrating on all the Fulbright scholars. Given that it applies to so many people, slowly but surely more people will be tagged as such. Not only the people who can be found in categories or lists but also where it is only mentioned in an article.

A scholarship implies studying at a university. When you add a scholarship and there is no information about education. This is another aspect that needs taking care of. At some point it should become obvious, it is better to concentrate on something else.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikimedia - the #adoption and #development of #functionality

If there is one chasm between developers and the "community" it is how functionality is perceived. A well known graph explains much of the pain. Software once developed, goes live. When it does for software like MediaWiki everybody in the community will be confronted with the new functionality at the same time. Adoption according to the graph is very much absent.

Some software can be implemented without much opposition. Great examples were the implementation of functionality that improves performance or the implementation of Wikidata to replace the old interwiki links. It is rather obvious because the average Community Joe does not really notice either. When they hear that things improved they are mostly happy for a job well done.

When Community Joe hears about new functionality is relevant. Development is discussed in its own environment but for most people new software is news at the time of deployment. For developers production is end of the line; time to move on. In a typical process from moving from design to a working product, things change. It will not work completely as anticipated even when the best user interface experts were involved. People expect magic and they get what humans can make.

When the community is involved in architecture, there is an even bigger chasm. Many community members are well qualified to argue their case. There are many of them and typically they get disappointed.

After the recent upheavals, it is time to move on. I have participated in the "Inspire campaign" with two ideas. I do not expect much but by expressing these ideas in a place where they are likely to be seen they have a better chance.

What is your idea? What does it take for you to be "inspired"?
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikipedia - #Recovery and #mental health

Recovery is not a method. According to Anthony it is a vision. Anthony describes the origin of recovery and it has not much to do with the 12 step program of Alcoholics Anonymous like the Wikipedia article says.

Even when you know all these things, starting to make changes is a daunting prospect. The article does not invite you learn more about recovery, it lacks focus and trivia like a possible etymology detracts from the subject. It becomes too long to read.

However, changing a Wikipedia article is frightening. Even when information is manifestly wrong, there is all the baggage required before you can edit an article. When I wanted to "fix" an incorrect link, I wanted to preserve the fact that the link was not a red link. I removed the #redirect and it was "wrong". I wrote a minimal stub, I even included a source and it was "wrong". The article is destined for deletion so the problem is likely to remain. Apparently nobody cares, I informed about the issue on talk pages; it took me already too much ..

I remember the days when it was welcomed to be brave.

The coverage of mental health is sub standard. My question is how to improve this. The question why it needs improvement is easy and obvious. The prevalence of mental health is such that high quality information is extremely relevant. When people are to recover, they have to rely largely on their own resources, their own ability, their own sense of self.

Working on Wikipedia articles is not my cup of tea. Working towards an editathon on the subject is. It will still have the same amount of stress but it will not be my stress. It will be real Wikipedians and people knowledgeable on the subject who will together make a difference.
Thanks,
       GerardM

The substance of #Wikipedia

Ting Chen said it well in a recent post on the mailing list: "Don't bother with things that are too complicated, it is the content that counts".

I could not agree more. Writing a Wikipedia article is not something I do. It is not that I am not able to, for me there is too much that is in the way. There is the arcane user interface that I hope will be soon replaced and then there are the vagaries that are the Wikipedia policies and separate from them, their interpretation.

"Nowadays Wikipedia articles (across all major languages) are highly biased in style and in content to academic thesis. How references are used and put, the criteria for references as valid, are almost one-by-one copied by the standards from academic thesis. Content without references are by itself considered as delete candidates. Both of these strongly put up constraints on who can put new content in Wikipedia and what content is considered as viable."

To make matters worse as a result many articles are hard to read. They assume an academic understanding. The prose is often meant to appease the deletionists and are not meant for reading. A half finished article gets deleted, not improved. What made Wikipedia a reality was the ability to contribute, to be bold, to find a cooperative community.

People wrangle with the question what is happening with the community.. If you ask me it is because where we once were bold, we now find caretakers and people insisting on their "academic" ways. For me it is why we do not attract new people, it is why you will not find me edit Wikipedia much.
Thanks,
        GerardM

Missing labels in #Wikidata; a call for #data driven #user #participation

As more Wikidata items gain statements, people may benefit from the new information provided. That is, when there is a label for the properties and related items. When there is no label you will see a property or item identifier.

It is extremely annoying and, it is why I use Wikidata in English and not in Dutch.

When every reference to a missing label is registered for a period of 30 days, it becomes easy to suggest to our community what needs to be done to improve the usefulness of the data provided. As more of the high impact labels are translated, users will get more pertinent information.

The beauty of this suggestion is that it involves only the Wikidata development team. This makes it easy to implement. All these new labels will enlarge the number of items to search from.

An experiment like this, is like putting a toe in the water; data is accumulated to point to where our community involvement does the most good. Once there is some clarity that data driven user participation makes an impact, there are many more opportunities to explore..

Let us start with this easy opportunity.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Wikisourcery

Fairly often when you complain about issues Wikimedia, there is somebody who notices, who cares. This is the sourcery of the crowds, the magic of our communities. Compare the picture above with the picture below..

What a difference a day makes ..

Thanks,

        GerardM

Sisters are doing it for themselves

#Wikipedia has sister projects. They are mighty fine sisters too. They have their own purpose, their own communities and their own public. It is easy to argue that Wikipedia on its own will never provide people with the sum of all knowledge as Wikipedia restricts itself to encyclopaedic content.

As the siblings of Wikipedia are not getting the attention they deserve, there is now a "Sister Projects Committee" that will seek a remedy.

On the talk page many issues, opportunities are mentioned. One of them is close to my heart; it is to coordinate Wiktionary and OmegaWiki. OmegaWiki was always ready to be adopted by the Wikimedia Foundation, this never happened. Now that Wikidata is being prepared for development, it will be interesting to learn if the new project will be capable to surpass OmegaWiki in its support for multiple languages. When it does, it will be interesting to see if Wikidata is able and willing to go where OmegaWiki wants to go and share the journey.

As there are more sister projects, all with their own opportunities, it will help when they get more of the attention Wikipedians take for granted.
Thanks,
     GerardM

Use #Wikipedia as a source of reference

The Chronicle Review has a nice article about the paradigm shift that resulted from the growth of Wikipedia as a source of encyclopaedic information. Where you once went to a book store or a library to look up a fact, you now find it on the Internet in your Wikipedia.

There is one more paradigm shift possible, it is when authors on the Internet easily reference to Wikipedia when they refer to a subject that is not universally understood. What is a paradigm shift for instance..

It would be a paradigm shift because Wikipedia would be used as a credible source of Neutral point of View information external to the Wikimedia projects. This has huge benefits all way round;

• it provides a shared frame of reference on basic information
• it expands the number of readers of the Wikipedias
• it increases the "google rating" for the webpages that do refer
• the Wikipedias gain a community of people who want to ensure the quality of Wikipedia articles

 

Take for instance an organisation like Greenpeace; it is an international organisation and it has a web presence in many languages. They have many communities interested and involved in nature, in sustainability and many associated subjects. When the explanation of terminology is found in Wikipedia, the issues around a subject can be found in Wikipedia and the specific Greenpeace point of view can be made in its websites.

Organisations like Greenpeace have a rich community of people who know their subjects and as relevant its literatature. This will bolster the quality of the representation of their position in the Wikipedias and questionable sources will become more apparent with increased scrutiny.

Technically the syntax can be something like [[nl:onderwerp ]] or [[ru:предмет]]
Thanks,
      GerardM

Taking care of the "little" things

The English #Wikipedia has many features that help define its community, its village pump, its own bureaucrats, its barn stars. The Myanmar Wikipedia decided at the Bangkok unconference to have such novelties.

There is now a vote that will decide if Zawthet will be the first Myanmar bureaucrat. It is quite important for a community to be able to organise itself. This will strengthen its community.

Picture original at Flickr

The equivalent of a "Village well" in the Myanmar culture is very much the teashop. So it was decided to have a teashop where people can discuss, inform about all things Wiki. So now there is a teashop and it will be very much for the Wikipedia to overcome its technical issues and enjoy their tea.



The notion of barnstars was discussed as well and, it was decided that it would be good to give a lotus in stead for those who deserve praise. Localising a great practice makes sense because it has to feel good for the local community.

As barnstars are awarded by a person, I would like to award a lotus to the people who came to the Bangkok unconference, to the people who make up what is now called the "Myanmar Wikipedia Working Group" for their wish to make their project do well and for the many great ideas that are surely going to make a difference.
Thanks,

       GerardM