The #Catalan #Wikipedia provides great information

Adding information to #Wikidata means that you want to use the existing items with interwiki information. When you find red links in the English Wikipedia, it is easy to think that there is no information in Wikipedia. It really pays to check the interwiki links of the article that contains all the red links.

The Catalan Wikipedia I find is really good at providing information on the Islamic rulers that are part of Spanish and North African history.It means that when I add information I need to take their existing articles in consideration.

I got the impression that the Zayyadin dynasty were "caliphs". So I created an "Zayyadin caliph" item. My hope is that someone will change it to "emirs" when this is wrong.
Thanks,
      GerardM

About succession and countries

When you are adding labels to #Wikidata the infoboxes are the main inspiration and source of information. To the right you find a detail of the infobox of the Almohad caliphate. It shows really interesting information.

When you look at the size of the Almoravid dynasty, you will agree that the Almohads have absorbed other countries as well. In a similar way, the succeeding countries are unlikely to have killed of the Almohads all at the same time. It also becomes obvious that there is little relation to the countries that exist in the territories of these past domains

There are multiple ways to bring some clarity in all this. One is to show overlaying maps and the other is to use qualifiers with the data. The succession is likely to have coincided with events, events like battles. These events have dates and coordinates. These events link back to the countries that are in conflict.

To get such data in a consistent manner in Wikidata will take a lot of effort. I am curious if there are sources that already found their way to express it effectively. I am a fan of importing data but I am equally convinced that there is a lot where judgement and involvement is the only option.
Thanks,
      GerardM

The Hammadids of #Algeria

#Wikidata can be #fun. This time it was possible by combining data from several Wikipedias to make a complete list of both the succession of the "sultans" and to complete the genealogy of these people.

Completing such things are not always that straightforward, in this case I found that three rulers were cousins so they had the same grandfather. When one of them is called Nasir ibn Alnas, you can deduce that his father was called Alnas ibn Hammad. As there is no Wikipedia article for several of the Hammadids, I added these missing links in Wikidata.

The Hammadid dynasty occupied their territory and at some stage this territory was absorbed by the Almohad caliphate. Something that does not become clear in the English Wikipedia. The growth and decline of many of these African territories can be nicely seen in this animated map. What would be nice if maps like these are linked for the rulers to Wikidata. It would provide the key to data in many languages.
Thanks,
      GerardM

The tragedy in a #DBpedia announcement

There was an announcement of achieved goals in the Google Summer of Code for a DBpedia project.

Wikidata integration inside DBpedia we are happy to announce that an initial RDF DBpedia Dumps for Wikidata Data is now available.

Enough reason to read again what this integration is about. The sad thing is in the Additional goals section; "Data quality assurance and tests to improve data quality for academia and enterprises (not for wikipedia infoboxes) would be nice".

The improved data quality is not intended to improve the quality of the data in the Wikipedia infoboxes. This is really sad because as the cooperation with the Deutsche National Bibliothek and the German Wikipedia proves, improvement is beneficial to both parties.

My understanding of why the Wikipedia infoboxes are out of scope is that there has to be a willingness to accept outside 'interference" and we have not learned to cooperate, not even among Wikipedia communities. Wikidata however is the new community and, it has a much higher standard to comply with. The data has to be superior to the data in any Wikipedia because it aims for its data to be used on any Wikipedia.

The best thing to do is side step this issue and make sure that all the questionable data in Wikidata is flagged so that we can start to find out what is best after all.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Reviving my bot for #Wikidata III

The objective of running a bot is to achieve an objective. It used to be adding interwiki links, now it is adding data to Wikidata.

It is a good idea to start small; a small group of records and only one value. If only to be able to fix things by hand without too much trouble. One bug found, fixed and up to the next challenge.

The presidents of Argentina probably are also likely members of a party so they were next. No record changed, so I checked Juan Perón to find that he was a member of the Justicialist party.

I found another bug. This bug is now being fixed as well; people are really helpful. Probably they want more data in Wikidata as well.
Thanks,
      GerardM

PS I have also done some work on the "kings of Nekor"

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 :)

Reviving my bot for #Wikidata

Wikidata needs more data and, to eat that dog food I am in the process of reviving my bot, RobotGMwikt. I used it a lot in the past to create interwikilinks for Wiktionary. This is a function Wikidata could serve for Wiktionary as well as a start..

Things have changed; I have a new laptop and the Pywikipedia framework is now developed using GIT. There is documentation but it deserves an update. It seemed for instance that there are four things to install but actually there are three. I do not know why there is something about a "clone".

The good news is that at the pywikipedia IRC channel there are people quite happy to help. You have to start for instance in the folder with the "core" software and, this is where the user-config.py has to be as well. And, make sure that you have all the quotes at the right places. How did you copy and past again from a terminal session ... I am grateful for their patience.

I ended up with the following command:

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

It did exactly nothing and I have no clue why. I saw all the president of Uruguay being processed and I know it is in the template and, p102 is the party... 

Please help because Wikidata needs more data.

Thanks,

        GerardM

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

Paper cuts for #Wikidata

Quite a while ago Ubuntu did a paper cuts initiative the idea is to come up with those things that would make the user experience so much better. Those things that make people happy.

I love the idea and, I will think hard of the things for a Wikidata paper cuts. I wonder if external tools like geneawiki and reasonator will be in scope.. They are really motivating when working on Wikidata.

What would you like to see improved in the Wikidata functionality ???

I am very likely to blog more about the "paper cuts".
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikidata: Infoboxes task force

At #Wikidata you can only add those properties that are accepted by the Wikidata community. This means that much data that exists in many infoboxes does not make it into Wikidata .. yet. This is what the "Infoboxes task force" is there for to facilitate.

When you look at their page, you find how they are organised; they are organised around the P107, the main type (GND). As has been reported before, that property is about to be deleted and consequently this approach is obsolete.

So another approach is needed. Given that there is no longer the fixed structure that has burdened progress so far, something more flexible is possible. At the same time we need something that has been given a lot of though and is workable. Waiting however for the thinking to end is not really an option given how fast Wikidata is growing bigger.

DBpedia has done nothing but try to make sense out of the infoboxes of the many Wikipedias. If anything I would like the Infoboxes task force to accept the work done at DBpedia and consider the properties that they came up with.
Thanks,
        GerardM

#Wikidata needs more data to be useful II

The proposal to require bots to provide sources has been closed. I am really appreciative that it has been rejected.

The stage is set for bots to add much more data. Data from sources that are deemed reliable. There is a lot of data out there and as it finds its way into Wikidata, it finds its way into many Wikipedias like the Occitan Wikipedia.

Even with bots adding the bulk of the data to Wikidata, there is so much more data in Wikipedia that they just cannot parse. Check out the article about the Kingdom of Nekor and particularly the part of the rulers. It is a mess, I can hardly make sense out of it. But it is relevant as part of the history of Morocco.

When data has been entered, it can be sourced later and it can be compared to other repositories of data. The German Wikipedia community has a project with the Deutsche National Bibliothek where they collaborate on dates of birth and dates of death. This is the kind of cooperation where we need our community to concentrate on. This is how we make an even bigger impact.

Anyway, the proposal has been defeated and Wikidata can now move on and increase its relevance.
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

#DBpedia and #Wikidata revisited

Many people add "statements" to Wikidata. One obvious resource is Wikipedia because they are already intimately linked through the interwikilinks. Another fine reason is because with statements in Wikidata the same infobox can be served in many more Wikipedias.

Sadly it is to a large extend a waste of time. DBpedia has already extracted a huge amount of data. When the data flows into Wikidata in effect it will flow back into Wikipedia. There are two possible objections:

• maybe some people prefer to do it by hand
• DBpedia is license under the CC-by-sa and Wikidata uses CC-0

The people who prefer to everything yet again I prefer to go elsewhere. What folly; our aim is to provide information not to keep them occupied.

The license issue is in my opinion a non issue as well. All it takes to make a DBpedia under a new license is run the process of extraction again with the intention to license it under the CC-0. If you think this is a bit too much, I agree so lets agree to make the data available for use in Wikidata. Motivation: DBpedia wants to give back to Wikipedia and, this is the way to do it.

When statements are added from DBpedia with the specific Wikipedia as the source, the people who want to be occupied can have a field day comparing and curating the data. If they want to look really smart, they can add the sources in Wikidata known in Wikipedia.

Thanks,

       GerardM

The new #Vietnamese #Wikivoyage

Recently a new Wiki was created for the Vietnamese Wikivoyage. At that time the language committee is informed that its process is done because the relevant Bugzilla bug is resolved

Once a project is created, there are always these small details that still have to be sorted out. The most important thing is that the new project can be found in the many places where it should be added. The most obvious one is at Wikivoyage.org another is the statistics page for Wikivoyage. Finally the Vietnamese articles have to become known in Wikidata.

Now that the interwiki links of Wikivoyage are maintained at Wikidata, it is not clear to me when the links are picked up by a bot. I do not have the skills to change the template for the main page of Wikivoyage. The one thing I have done is inform the relevant person to add the Vietnamese Wikivoyage to the statistics page; that is something that takes its time.

At some stage all these things get resolved. It would help if it is part of the process to create a new Wiki.
Thanks,
     GerardM

Follow up of a #Wikipedia editathon

Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner is notable enough if nowadays a bit obscure to be worthy of her own Wikipedia article. You may have seen the picture in a blog post of Wikimedia UK.

I was intrigued if the article was already known in Wikidata. To my amazement the only article about her was in the Dutch Wikipedia. I added the English article and from the text I added information that is pertinent about Mrs Bradlaugh Bonner. The reasonator makes a nicely formatted view of the available information for you.

As Mrs Bradlaugh Bonner is an author, I was sure that there will be a record in one of the standard resources like VIAF. There is and from there a wealth of other information is available.

One thing I learned in the process is that according to Wikidata, "atheism" is a label used together with "religion".

What I am interested in is if a bot will pick up on the data that I gleaned from the Wikipedia articles and bring us something we do not know yet.
Thanks,
        GerardM

The #Wikipedia toolbar refers to #Wikidata

Quietly an option has been added to the Toolbar; it is the "Data item". It refers to the data item for a Wikipedia or Wikivoyage article in Wikidata.

When you add content to Wikidata, this functionality is really valuable. With one click you find the corresponding Wikidata item even when there is only one article on the subject. It is particularly helpful when there is no label in the language you selected in Wikidata to be the default."

The bug 47911 is largely redundant as a result. It was created because at that time this option was not available. What is left but not that relevant is the inconsistent behaviour of the "Edit links" at the bottom of all the interlanguage links.

Any way, the "Data item" deserves recognition as a "Featured Wikidata effort".
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

#Wikidata gadgets - mouse over

I am tickled pink when writing on my blog has an effect. Yesterday I wrote about the "mouse over" gadget. Check out this bugzilla bug. It is now very much likely that it will become part of standard Wikidata functionality.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikidata gadgets

Wikidata has gadgets, several add functionality that make sense to have. One of them shows the description of a label or a property.

It improves the user experience a lot so much so that it might as well be turned on by default.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Be careful what you ask for ...

In a previous blogpost and on #Wikidata I asked for the deletion of P107, the infamous "main type (GND)". As you can read in the closing statement, P107 will be deleted.

For persons it will likely be replaced by "instance of" "person". It will be more complicated for the other GND types. Many of the data items will not easily fit in any way and those entries will probably be deleted.

In all this it is really important to understand that this does not reflect at all on the work done at the Deutsche National Bibliothek. We will still refer as many items as we can to their database. If anything I hope the cooperation with the DNB will continue to improve.

The one thing I am anxious about in all this is how long it will take to fix tools like the reasonator and the geneawiki who rely on the existence of the "main type GND".
Thanks,
      GerardM

A challenge: 20.248 #Wikipedia articles with script errors

When you add references to #Wikidata of relevant images, by magic they will appear on the Occitan Wikipedia. I did that by adding a picture to the Wikidata entry for Ahmad Tajuddin, the 27th Sultan of Brunei.

It was a random selection of a person mentioned on a list with 20.248 articles with script errors. The number is big but it is probably only one template that is generating all those errors. The edit page says:

{{Infobox|tematica=|carta=}}{{Intro}}

I checked out a small number of other articles on this list and they all include this same template.

Some say that Wikidata is about big numbers and I am impressed that all these articles probably refer to Wikidata. The one thing I am curious about is how long it will take for the list to clear once the script has been fixed.

First things first; who is going to fix the script.
Thanks,
      GerardM

How about featured #Wikidata effort

Both #Wikipedia and #Commons feature their best efforts. As a consequence there are people working really hard to raise the game of articles and images.  The requirements for a successful featured picture or article are quite steep. There are even workshops that teach people how to fulfil all the requirements. It does have an effect if only to raise awareness of the need for quality.

Wikidata is a young project. Some people say it is a project where meta-guys and girls work on large data sets connecting to other resources and blah blah blah. There is that and I find it hard to follow all the blah blah blah because what they do is not explained in words that I understand. It is not shown in a way that I can see and understand.

At the same time there is a lot of interesting and relevant work done. When this can be explained and visualised it will make it more appealing to work on Wikidata. The trick will be to come up with criteria for a "Featured Wikidata effort".

• new functionality in Wikidata itself that enlarges what you can express in Wikidata
• new or improved functionality to visualise related data
• new data entered into Wikidata manually of related information
• new or improved functionality in a Wikimedia project that makes use of Wikidata data
• new or improved functionality that improves the multi lingual use of data
• new or improved functionality to use Wikidata to curate information
• an effort in a WM project that will positively impact Wikidata

These are the things I am looking for in Wikidata. When something ticks one of these boxes I am likely to blog about it. I would love to have more reasons to blog but it would be much better when even more eyes learn about the wonderful effort that is taking place in the Wiki data community.

Thanks,

       GerardM

What to do when #Wikipedia does not provide the information II

King Abd al-Rahman of #Morocco was a nephew of the king that preceded him. His father of mother were probably brothers of king Slimane. As long as I did not know exactly how they are related, the genealogy tool made by Magnus will not show all the rulers of the Alaouite dynasty.

So I did all the usual things to find out:

• I googled
• I went to the library
• I blogged about it
• I asked on Facebook in a SIG with many people from Morocco

All this did not work.. So I asked a friend at the Tropenmuseum. He asked Mohamed Saadouni who told me that "Moulay Abderrahman is the son of Moulay Hicham, a brother of Moulay Slimane". He even provided me with a reference.



When you are adding statements to Wikidata, it helps when you can can get satisfaction out of the visualisation of the facts. Moulay Hicham exists at this time only in Wikidata, t would be good when be showed as a "red link" as there is no article in any Wikipedia about him. i

When you add data on subjects that have their basis in Africa, you will find that the information in Wikipedia is spotty and that it is very much seen from Western eyes. I am for instance not convinced that Morocco was a sultanate. He is called Moulay Hicham and Wikipedia makes "moulay" equal to "Prince". The current "King" is actually a "Malik".. I do not know enough so I remain puzzled.
Thanks,
      GerardM

The #Occitan #Wikipedia and #Wikidata

The Modèl:Infobox or the Infobox template on the Occitan Wikipedia relies heavily on Wikidata. The information shown depends heavily on the statements made for a subject.

I checked out a random person, Bernat de Ventadorn from the list of articles that make use of this template and, there was no picture. I checked out an article in another language and found one that had a picture in its infobox. I added the picture in Wikidata. With a refresh of the screen the pictures now shows for everyone to see.

It is fun to contribute to a Wikipedia without understanding a word :)

I since found out that the date of birth and the date of death are not part of what the current template is interested in.. Adding this information now is an investment for the moment when the software is improved.
Thanks,
      GerardM

I #spy with my little eye

When people go to events, they take pictures. They post them to Facebook for the whole world to see. This picture was taken by Ziko and everyone in the picture can be identified by the people who know them.

There is effective software that makes an educated guess based on previous identifications. I wonder how effective it would be on historic pictures.  At Commons we have many pictures without the names of the people in the portrait.

These three young ladies are known to be the daughters of the Sultan of Jogjakarta. It is likely that there are other pictures of his court with these young ladies. When they are identified in one picture, it may be possible to identify them in this picture as well.

A lot of money has been invested in such spying software by many organisations. It would be cool if the resulting technology was put to use for something uncontroversial.
Thanks,
      GerardM

It is all about #presentation

The edit screen of #Wikipedia' is similar to the standard screen of #Wikidata: it is ugly and it does not present the data well. Look for instance at the two screen shots. The same data about the "office held" by Mohammed V of Morocco is available in both screen shots.

The screen shot above is the standard screen of Wikidata for Mohamed V. The screen shot below is the same data formatted by "reasonator".

There are issues with the reasonator. When you compare the data you will miss the second term in office as Sultan of Morocco. There are other bits of information that are formatted in a weird way. But that is not really important. What is important is that proof of concept tools like the reasonator and the geneawiki motivate me to enrich an item with statements.

PS I really got into the reasonator when I learned how to add a picture.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Let us have page view #Statistics for #Wikidata

The statistics of Wikidata are fantastic. It grows like wildfire. Sadly I can not find a clue as to how relevant it is.

One traditional clue is by comparing the growth in page views. This is how often a page is requested for viewing. I am probably one of the few who enjoys browsing the information that is provided and add the statements that take my fancy.

I am convinced that Wikidata needs a large community of people making a statement. Traditionally growing page views statistics have been really stimulating. With all the available technology it should not be that hard to provide statistics for Wikidata as well.

When page view statistics are available, the success of any and all measures intended to make Wikidata popular can be measured. It is quite likely that other statistics will prove to be just as relevant in finding out what needs doing to make Wikidata popular and relevant. But that is another story.
Thanks,
      GerardM

The #Chinese #Wikipedia is not only #Simplified

#Wikimania 2013 has come and gone. China and the Chinese Wikimedia projects have had their day under the sun. The statistics show the Chinese Wikipedia is doing exceedingly well; it is growing 62% annually at the moment.

What we know as the Chinese language is defined by what is written because there are multiple languages that use the same script. To make it even more complicated this written language exists in two scripts: the traditional and the simplified script.

The Chinese Wikipedia can be read in both the simplified and the traditional script. The default script is the simplified script and for those who want it, there is an option for readers to choose for the traditional script.

I wonder what Google finds when its bots crawl the Chinese Wikipedia. They will obviously find the simplified content, but do they find the same content in the traditional script? When Google cannot find the content in the traditional script, people will not find information in Wikipedia when they google for information.

It is probably easy to find the answer to this question when you know Chinese. Please let me know :)
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Multilingual #Wikipedia

Providing information in many languages will be a challenge. The idea is to define language rules that will make sentences out of available information. Obviously, the languages that are well known and well researched are most likely to get the best results.. They are languages like English, German, French, Japanese.

But before all this language technology can be applied, it is important to get the facts. Fact is that all the subjects of all the Wikipedias can be found on Wikidata. Many statements have already been made about these subjects. It is good fun to spend time adding statements.

With the "reasonator" as seen above you find a nice presentation of what these statements indicate about a person. Providing a nice presentation that is available in participating languages is probably the first development challenge. Getting "all" the facts is probably the first community challenge.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Similarities between #Commons and #Wikidata

There are many similarities between #Commons in its early days and Wikidata. At first there were the big dreams, the wonderful opportunities on the horizon. Slowly but surely many of these opportunities are realised.

The first major goal for Commons was for it to be used for displaying images in all the Wikipedias. Once this became possible it took quite some time to move most of the images from the Wikipedias to Commons.

The first major goal for Wikidata was to replace the old interwiki-links. This has been accomplished and many new opportunities are undertaken by a community that is both old and new. The next big thing will be to move as many assertions as possible to Wikidata. For instance assertions like the date of birth and the date of death of a person.

Many resources like the GND of the Deutsche National Bibliothek contain many such assertions and, the German Wikipedia community actively compares the GND them with the assertions in the German Wikipedia. The challenge will be not only to move these facts to Wikidata but also to continue this great undertaking with Wikidata as its basis.

When assertions are increasingly served from Wikidata, corrections will flow to wherever they are used. When the labels of the statements are usable in multiple languages, these assertions can be served in a multilingual Wikipedia.
Thanks,
       GerardM

A #multilingual #Wikipedia supported by #Wikidata

A proposal has been made for a multilingual Wikipedia. To make it work it will use available information in Wikidata.

Above you find genealogical information of Nintoku, a Japanese emperor. As you can read in the screen shot 1990 people are included and you may notice many of these people do not have a label in English.

As there are labels in at least one language, it is possible to transliterate it into other scripts and or other languages. There are standards for transliterations and consequently it is technically possible to create the missing labels.
Thanks,
        GerardM

What #Commons can learn from #Shutterstock

When you are in need for an #illustration you can find it at Shutterstock. When you are willing to contribute illustration to a project like Wikipedia or Wikivoyage, you can do that at Commons.

At Shutterstock they have over 25 million images and at Commons there are almost 18 million images. With such big numbers finding the perfect image is a serious problem. Shutterstock is optimised for finding images; it pays their rent.

Arguably, Commons has a much better coverage of subjects both in time and in geography. Try Kiribati for instance..

The reason why Shutterstock is worth billions of dollars is because people download images and use them for their purpose. As far as I am aware the Wikimedia Foundation does not know how often an image is downloaded from Commons.

There are so many reasons why Commons could be much more relevant. Relevance comes with use and people will use Commons when they can find their perfect picture.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Moroco is a modern country

When you look at history from the present, it is normal to look for continuity. The history books are written today and they inform about history from a modern perspective. 

When you read an article like "List of rulers of Morocco" the list includes the historical precursors to the modern state. These precursors include to some extend the same territory but the make up of the people can be really different. 

The Idrisid, the Almoravid, the Almohad, the Maranid and the Wattasid dynasties were Berber. Many of them were Shia muslims. Contrast that with the later Arab dynasties and a country that is predominantly Sunni.

It is relevant because it does not make sense to state that an Idrisid ruler is a "Morocon head of state". The question is very much how did the Idrisids or any of the other dynasties call their country because that is what they were ruling.

Another thing to consider is what happens when a country is conquered. It does not make sense to suggest that there is some kind of succession. The reality is that both the dynasty and the country become irrelevant as they are absorbed by the conquering nation.

What is obvious to me is that many of the solutions as used in Wikipedia are based on template logic. With Wikidata we have the opportunity to come up with better solutions. What they will be is not immediately obvious.

Thanks,

       GerardM

Using qualifiers in #Wikidata

I have been adding statements to many Wikidata items. Lately I have been adding information about several dynasties. So far I have added statements like "preceded by" and "succeeded by" and expected that people would appreciate in what way people were preceded or succeeded. I did not indicate when this happened.

Doing it this way did not really satisfy me. I found a great example of how this could be done and I copied it. In my opinion what you can see above is a big improvement.

However..

When you indicate that a person is the "head of state" of a country, it makes sense to have the same information available on the country as well. Purists may object to the fact that this information will be stored twice. I have no idea how to solve that.
Thanks,
      GerardM

What to do when #Wikipedia does not provide the information

King Abd al-Rahman of #Morocco was a nephew of the king that preceded him. His father of mother were probably brothers of king Slimane. As long as I do not know exactly how they are related, the genealogy tool made by Magnus will not show all the rulers of the Alaouite dynasty.

Wikipedia does not have this information.

• I googled
• I went to the library
• I asked on Facebook in a SIG with many people from Morocco

So far I do not have my answer. I am really curious what the best way is for finding answers to a question like this one.

Thanks,

        GerardM

The case against the use of the #GND classification

#Wikidata uses the GND classification and twice it has been proposed to get rid of its use. So far the issue has been unresolved.

To understand the GND classification, you have to appreciate its origin. This classification has been created and is maintained by the Deutsche National Bibliothek. The consequence is that we cannot modify this classification to suit our needs and still call it the "GND classification.

When a library creates a classification for its own purposes, it is perfectly all right to classify "typhus" as a "Term". From a library point of view it is and publications may refer to it. When you look at it from the use of something like Wikipedia, it is likely to be categorised as something like a bacterial disease.

In this context, we can assume that all bacterial diseases are caused by a bacterium. This bacteria has a name. The disease will be known in one or more medical classifications. It being a disease, it will have all kinds of other attributes and none of them are easily associated with the classification as a "term".

The one thing we should retain of the GND classification in Wikidata is the identifier of a Wikidata item as used by the GND classification. This will allow us to compare information with the Deutsche National Bibliothek.

Obviously, once it has been decided to ditch the GND classification in Wikidata, we need to carefully migrate to a classification that is more appropriate.
Thanks,
         GerardM

The battle of Verdun in #Wikidata

In a previous blog post I wrote about dates and my wish for entering and displaying dates in the Islamic calendar. As a result there were several interesting reactions.

For some people it was news that Wikidata supports dates. The question put to me was: "This Q130847 has geo coordinates but no date". As this refers to the battle of Verdun, I replied by adding the start and end date to the Wikidata item for the battle of Verdun.

One bit of good news is that MediaWiki does support the Islamic calendar, as a consequence the issue of using the calendar got a new dimension. I was also asked if other calendars like the Balinese calendar could be supported. In principle MediaWiki should support any calendar however, I would prefer to start with the support of calendars that MediaWiki supports in Wikidata.

The bug for support for the Islamic calendar in Wikidata was given the I18N label in Bugzilla. I hope that our language team will take an interest in supporting calendars in Wikidata

As it is fairly obvious that the battle of Verdun is a battle, I added "Instance of" "battle". When you look where battle links in Wikidata you will find many more battles that are linked to the concept of battle. I added a few more battles that I just happened to know.

When you look at the info-box for the battle of Verdun, you find many bits of information that we should be able to support in Wikidata. It would be cool when we can.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Ramadan 1434

Not that long ago #Wikidata gained the functionality of adding dates as an assertion to an item. It is really nice because it is now possible to indicate when a person was born or died.

At this moment we are in the last week of the month of Ramadan, in the year 1434. When you check a calendar forthis month, you may notice that Ramadan is partly in the month of July and August 2013.

When you are adding assertions to Wikidata relating to Islam or Arabic history, you will find that many sources use the Islamic calendar and not the Gregorian dates. As a consequence you have to convert them to Gregorian before you can enter them into Wikidata.

To solve this Wikidata could accept Islamic dates. It just takes some programming. With a little bit of help from Google you can find PHP code like I did. It will probably provide basic functionality. I cannot tell.

The question is, is there someone who is willing to write the code in Wikidata so that it will provide support for Islamic dates? I am sure there will be all kind of issues to resolve.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Use #Wikidata in the #UI of #Wikipedia

Some people do not like the Visual Editor. They think it is not mature enough. It has been explained to them how important it is for the developers to get continuous feedback. The perfect VE will not come fully mature out of the head of Zeus like Pallas Athena did. It is more likely that it will take continuous incremental improvements from being a product with great promise to a great product.

One of the arguments used against the VE is that it will not be possible to include a button or something for all the templates that are in use on a Wikipedia.

This is true at this time. However, it is possible to narrow this number down substantially. This is done by looking at the context of an article. To the right you find the current genealogical map of the Ottoman dynasty. For all these people many things are known in Wikidata and for many of these people one or more templates are already in use.

When we know that a specific article is about a certain type of topic, we can exclude most templates because they are not relevant. Conversely when we know that a specific template is in use on a Wikipedia, we can suggest the use of this template in another Wikipedia.

My point is not so much that this can be done but more that with the Visual Editor new opportunities become available. Such opportunities are not what people are used to but they deserve consideration. They will enable more people to improve their Wikipedia particularly in all the "other" languages.
Thanks,
       GerardM