#Facebook - Nataliya Kobrynska

For whatever reason a fellow Wikimedian elected to give attention to Mrs Kobrynska. He posted about her on Facebook and when I have the time I may add some statements in Wikidata. It was easy enough to improve the quality of the data and I read in the article that she was the daughter of a parliamentarian a Mr Ivan Ozarkevych.

I could not add him as her father because there was no label for him in English. I mentioned on Facebook that I could not find him and, a label and the relation was added. The father had an article on the Polish Wikipedia, it referred to him as a member of the Galician parliament and it was easy and obvious to add the fact that he was a parliamentarian and a politician. Not only for him but also for his fellow parliamentarians.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikidata - Debunking #controversy in #science

I really wonder what an organisation would do that hands out "one of the scientific world's most respected environmental prizes" does when one of its luminaries becomes controversial.

The Volvo Environmenta Prize was awarded to Mr Ray Hilborn in 2006. Mr Hilborn and his science has become controversial because of the conflict of interest he has with the fishing industry. Greenpeace has documented this quite publicly.

Together with Mr Hilborn, Mr Pauly and Mr Walters were awarded the Volvo Prize. They are all known for their work on fisheries. The obvious question is now whether the work of Mr Paul and Mr Walters are tainted in the same way. This is one reason why controversies like this are so important.

When a specific line of work in science has been debunked, it becomes important to undo the damage and reevaluate the work in a field. One of the more obvious ways to make this point is for the Beijer Institute to address this issue in one way or another. When the science of Mr Hilborn is unsound, it follows that his work does not point to a sustainable future and that he does not deserve the Volvo Environment Prize.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikipedia #citations - LibraryBase

The general idea is that if Wikipedia articles are to be believed, citations ensure the quality of the statements made. The quality of the sources is therefore important. When a specific publication has a problem, a problem like reproducibility or a known conflict of interest of the author or the organisation he stands for, it follows that the publication as a source becomes problematic.

The problem with sources in Wikipedia is that like all the rest they are buried in the articles. As sources are typically known in the text through templates, it becomes possible to harvest all this and put it in a database. When things get into a database it becomes possible to analyse the data and find the authors that are problematic, refer back to the articles and remedy the inherent conflict in the article.

Take Mr Ray Hilborn for instance. He is under attack for his conflict of interest by Greenpeace. Consequently his POV needs to be collaborated by independent sources and all his science is suspect. It is wonderful to harvest all the data about sources from all the Wikipedias but there is no point to it when it does not lead to something useful.

There is a lot of money going around to confuse issues and serve specific interests. When sources are available to us all, it becomes possible to mark publications for the quality that they have. When sources are not reproducible, it follows that you can not build arguments on top of those. It then becomes possible to consider basic stuff and no longer confuse a Neutral Point of View with what is patently false.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikidata - Kerala MLA constituencies

Kerala is one of the states of India and like all the others has its own legislative assembly. Like in Great Britain politicians are elected from constituencies. There are many as you can see on the map.

When there are elections, things change. New people become a representative, some remain a representative and others no longer have relevance in that way. At Wikidata, the current list of people who are "Member of the Kerala Legislative Assembly" is a bit of a mess. There are many items without a name in English, there are people who are only known in English and probably there are a lot of doubles. 

There are even representatives who are known to have an article on the English Wikipedia but do not (yet) have an item. This is all because of this big push to write articles on Indian representatives.

As more work is done for this big push to get the data complete, the data will become more informative. What we hope to achieve is:

• associate MLA's with constituencies
• have labels in both English and Malayalam for all of them
• merge all the possible duplicates

Obviously there is more that might be done. We could add the dates when people became a MLA. This will allow us to create queries that shows who was a MLA at what time. When all this is done for Kerala, there are 28 other Indian states and there are many other countries that could do with a little bit of TLC.

Thanks,

      GerardM

#Wikimedia - [[citation needed]]

Our articles in any #Wikipedia can be trusted when an effort has gone into providing sources. Sources or citations are very much needed because help us distinguish fact from fiction. Finding sources exposes an origin and it helps us debunk fiction. The result of this continued effort is content that can be trusted as a sincere attempt to achieve a neutral point of view.

There are very practical problems. Sources are not always easy to find and they do not exist in every language. Sources are often behind a "pay wall” making access to the body of knowledge is very much restricted. Sources, particularly sources on the web do not exist forever. The consequence is that sources are problematic and, not everybody is equally able to help us with sources for the content we have.

When we are to improve the current, unsatisfactory situation we have to address multiple problems.

• Once sources are lost we rely on the internet archive for an historic view. It has policies that allow for the removal of content and this is often the content that is controversial and removal is often intended to rewrite history. What to do?
• Access to restricted sources is provided to the privileged few who have access to libraries. The WMF has a program that enables some of our editors access to a few pay-walled sources.
• When this proves insufficient, it is great to know that  Sci-hub among others provides “illegal” access to any and all sources.

Open access to sources is very much what we as a community care for. One of our own died in the struggle for this access so I do not think we should be deferential to an industry that is despicable. We should teach people how to find sources and ignore licensing as much as possible.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikipedia / #Commons - Brigadeer General Loree K. Sutton

Mrs Sutton is psychiatrist who is a specialist on PTSD. When you read her CV, it is impressive. She no longer works for the US Army, she works for the City of New York.

When you read the article on Wikipedia, you find her picture. It is marked as Public Domain and it is not on Commons. Given that Wikidata is working towards the point where copyright and license information one can only hope that images like this can be easily shared based on the license.

When Commons started, it was intended as a repository that prevented the same file to be uploaded to all the Wikipedias. As such it served its purpose remarkably well. With Wikidata it becomes trivial to share images like the one of Mrs Sutton.

I fear that for some this reads as frightening. It undermines the one thing they love. It actually does not need remove the need for Commons as a platform. Quite the opposite; it will bring new tools to finally leverage all the data on images. It may bring this image of Mrs Sutton to Wikidata for starters.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - its sex ratio II

In April 2014 I blogged about the sex ration at Wikidata. At the time there were 1,332,383 "humans", 760,616 were male and 154,455 were female. Now in April 2016, the numbers are different: there are 3,135,792 humans, 2,442,444 are male and 466,748 are female.

The percentages were: 57% males, 12% females and 31% unknowns. This time they are 78% male, 15% female and 7% unknown.

Based on these Wikidata numbers, the gap between men and women has substantially increased. On the other hand, the number of humans that were not identified as male or female has substantially decreased.

This does not mean at all that the movement to chip at the gender gap is a bust. Far from it. Numbers only expose realities. What can easily be achieved in Wikidata is more focus on the females in any group. The subject I focus on is mental health and I concentrate on female psychiatrists or psychologists. I add statements for them and add where possible the data from categories to Wikidata. In this way they become better connected, more information becomes available. In this way the subject I care for gains quality and relevance and it is women who benefit most.

Numbers provide an indicator, when numbers are this big they should not have our focus. At best they move glacially. More relevant is to know if they as a group, gain more readers over time. These numbers reflect an increase in quality of articles and data. That is an approach that has potential.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - #YLE, the #Goldman environmental Prize and the #ArticlePlaceHolder

#YLE is a Finnish public broadcaster that announced that it will use Wikidata to label its articles and news items. This is really cool because it means that they have an interest to supply missing labels in Finnish and as a consequence we actually benefit from them.

So let us consider what we can do to make both their and our life more pleasant.

When something happens that is "notable", for instance the latest announcement of the Goldman environmental Prize awardees, we can add the winners. One of the winners is from Cambodia, It can trigger a request for Mr Leng Ouch's article to be written in Cambodian. We can update lists of award winners of the award. We can link to articles in the Finnish press for each and all of them.

Once more newsagents use Wikidata, new use of labels indicates breaking news or renewed interest. This may help journalists worldwide to stay on top of what is current. This may all happen but the most important benefit is that it ensures that Wikidata remains up to date.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikimedia - Jimmy Wales is not a constitutional monarch

Thank you Durova

Having known Jimmy / Jimbo Wales for a long time, I appreciate him for the many things he does. Particularly the many things we do not really hear about. Jimbo either has the ultimate conflict of interest, or is best positioned to do well for the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects.

At the start Jimmy was the founder and financier of Wikipedia and as it became a bigger success, he could no longer afford his hobby. He was apprehensive to let go and slowly but surely handed over more power to what is the board of the Wikimedia Foundation.

His role changed and he became more of an ambassador at large. Jimmy is not a constitutional monarch with an entourage that prevents him from being "political" or personal. I have personally experienced on several occasions where Jimbo was instrumental in bringing people together. It is why I am more than happy to express my happiness that he is who he is and does what he does.

The only question I have for his detractors is: if not Jimmy who else can perform the role that is uniquely his?
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikidata - the Panama Papers

The Panama Papers brings to light how the rich and famous hide their wealth. Arguably this is typically a criminal activity because it prevents them to be liable for their possessions according to the law of the country they live in. Liability comes in many ways; it is recognition what it is you own, what you are taxed and also what conflicts of interests exist. In an interview for Amnesty International, Mr Snowden says it well; "Privacy is for the powerless. Transparency is for the powerful."

The Panama Papers brings much needed transparency and there is one big difference with the unwanted intrusions on their privacy they suffer. They are in the limelight because of their lack of transparency in their actions and the resulting negative effect on society. It would be good when organisations that spy publish any and all of these transgressions. A change of focus like this would ensure a much more equitable society and it is easy to argue that it will make us all more secure.

The English Wikipedia has a list of people who are implicated by these Panama Papers. The information has been included in Wikidata. It is therefore easy to have the information in any Wikipedia. The ListeriaBot will perform updates on a regular basis. The only manual maintenance is including the necessary labels.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - labelling and the ArticlePlaceholder

The ArticlePlaceholder is a Wikimedia extension. It has huge potential to rapidly increase the available information in any and all Wikipedias because Wikidata has more data than any Wikipedia has articles. The big initial issue: How to translate the labels into the language of a Wikipedia.

There are many approaches and the initial one is to concentrate on "red links" first. With "red links" linked to Wikidata items, the ArticlePlaceholder may express the data as information for that Wikipedia. That is one big incentive to write the missing article :). Missing labels associated with properties may be added to localise all the information available on an item

It then becomes interesting; What to do next? There are the categories, the lists associated with articles. It would work, it would rapidly expand the number of items linked through ArticlePlaceholders. It would also rather quickly expand the number of items that seek a translation of their label. These can be found and sorted in order of prevalence.

Another approach would be to add labels as many labels as possible in Wikidata. When this results in terms that can be found, ArticlePlaceholders may be created when they are requested. When we keep track of the requests for ArticlePlaceholders, we can even prioritise the writing of missing articles.

Adding labels can be done in multiple ways; we can use dictionaries, we can transliterate. We can even use bots to do all this automagically for us. The biggest difference will be made when we seek and find collaboration. For most languages there are schools where students need to write papers. Particularly in the smaller projects this may make a huge difference. As they research their topic, they can localise all the missing labels starting from a "Concept cloud" for a subject.

Once this work gets underway, small Wikipedias will rapidly increase the number of subjects that are being served. The big question is not if it will be worthwhile but how it will affect Wikipedia article writing.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikipedia - Naomi Ellemers and sources

Mrs Ellemers is a professor in social psychology. Her work has been recognised by many awards and the English Wikipedia does report about this correctly. The European Association of Experimental Social Psychology recognised her twice; once with the Kurt Lewin medal and once with the Jos Jaspars Medal.

Recognising people for their achievements is relevant because it indicates how peers appreciate one of their own. It is also a way to establish notability. Like so many topics for credibility sources are important. They are however susceptible to "bit rot". The EAESP changed its website and all the Wikipedia links are dead.

Wikidata knows about these awards as well and, each has a link to the URL for "official website". On it you find all recipients of the award. Mrs Ellemers is good; the new sources provide the needed confirmation.

Awards for a person can be a list generated by Wikidata. Associated sources can be as well. With Wikidata as the source for lists and sources, Wikipedians are free to provide the textual content about a subject and Wikidata would be the place to store sources and lists. In this way information will be maintained in one place and quality for all articles will improve.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikimedia - #India and #Wikisource

Subhashish Panigrahi wrote about the challenges facing Wikipedia and the languages of India. It is a good article and it is well worth a read.

It presents eight challenges, the one of most interest is that people often feel that their language is not present on the web. The question is how to raise relevance on the web.

When you consider relevant projects in the Indian language, the one that stands out most is Wikisource. It is an easy point of entry to writing in a language; it trains people to use their language in their script. What is to be written is in a scan so language proficiency is not even assumed.

As a member of the language committee I am on record that if there is a credible growth path for a Wikisource particularly when a notable organisation will support the project for at least a year, I want us to allow a new Wikisource as soon as possible.

At the same time we need to consider how to make the effort in Wikisource more visible. I want someone with some "marketing" savvy to consider how to bring our finished projects to potential readers. There are plenty of people in India and elsewhere. Investing just a little will have encourage our projects a lot and it may increase our community a lot.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikimedia - how to deal with #diversity

#Wikipedia has been analysed sufficiently that we know that in so many ways it is not diverse enough. Too few women, too few people of colour, too few people of other cultures and countries.

Such analysis are typically made for English Wikipedia only. The same analysis can be made for any other Wikipedia. Emily is an inspiration but the effect she has is mostly limited to English Wikipedia so we need more people to get involved and make a notable difference in the things that divide us.

Great science is repeatable and research on Wikipedia is done best on the data in Wikidata. Queries about the number of entries relevant to diversity are easily done. Restricting information to a particular Wikipedia is not a problem either. The benefit of using Wikidata is that you can determine what a Wikipedia does not know about but what we as a community find notable.

Research should serve a purpose. When notable people do not have an article, it should be easy and obvious how to determine this as a result. This list of female psychiatrists shows who does or does not have an article in the English Wikipedia. Write an article about one of them and next time you run the query there is one person less without an article. This query can be easily amended in any way you like.

Research serves its purpose when it identifies issues and provides pointers how to deal with it.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikidata - #women in #psychiatry II

Paula Caplan - foto by Lesley Bohm

As diversity is important and as psychiatry has my focus, it is obvious what to do. I concentrate on Wikidata and among others I made several improvements to the item of Mrs Caplan. One thing was missing so I asked for a photo to be published under a free license.

Mrs Caplan was underwhelmed with Wikidata, yes I showed her "Reasonator" but the information is incomplete. She send me this photo and her resume and she informed me that the Wikipedia article about her is incorrect in places.

So the challenge is to improve her article, do justice to who she is and the relevance of her work in psychiatry. Evaluate it and seek a neutral point of view of what her science tells us in other articles as well.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikimedia - Learning from #Google #search

When the Wikimedia Foundation is to learn one thing from Google to improve its search, you can find the basics in the above image. When you consider it carefully, it is all about compartmentalising. What Google offers are distinct categories of results and, these categories exist in our projects as well.

• The first tab would provide our current search results. No investment needed.
• The second tab is images.. A massive amount of work is needed to make it useful but hey, we have it on Commons. So why not offer it. As people start to use it, we can tweak it, improve it 
• The third tab is videos.. 
• Maps is something we could do. We should do it in cooperation with OpenStreetMap and go from there
• News.. why not, it will be a shot in the arm for Wikinews
• We could have results for Wikidata.. It will be usable certainly when it is done in a Reaonator kind of way..

We do not need much funding to provide search in this way. We will do a better job at fulfilling our mission. What do you think?

Thanks,

       GerardM

#Wikidata - #women in #psychiatry

Women who make their mark in psychiatry are underreported. Currently Wikidata knows currently about 366 female psychiatrists. Many of them have been off the trodden path, many of them have expressed opinions that are very much in contrast with what is generally accepted at true.

I learned about one person, Mrs Paula Caplan because her books and publications were not accepted on a forum that is supposed to support people. Mrs Caplan is a decorated psychiatrist, a professor it is just that a corporate sponsor did not like what she had to say. One of the awards she received, the Christine Ladd-Franklin award she shared with another professor; Mrs Lisa Cosgrove. When you read her resume, it is not strange to find that she does not have a Wikipedia article. Her work addresses the problems and ethical dilemmas that arise in the mental health field (especially in psychiatry) when there are financial ties between the pharmaceutical industry and researchers or professional organizations.

One way to chip at the gender gap in our Wikimedia world is by adding info about all the remarkable women of psychiatry in Wikipedia or Wikidata. When you read about all the missing people, it becomes obvious how much work there is to do justice to them and to their work.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - Joe Filceolaire RIP

As Wikidata matures, so do its contributors. Death is part of life and it is with sadness that we learned that Filceolaire passed away. He was a very active and well liked man.
Thanks,
      Gerard

#Wikipedia - anti-psychiatry and Mrs Elizabeth Packard

The term "anti-psychiatry" is seen as derogatory. By being labeled as such, many arguments are dismissed. For this reason it is reasonable that the case of Mrs Packard is adorned with the template of "anti-psychiatry" after all she founded the Anti-Insane Asylum Society and wrote several books to make her case.

Mrs Packard was committed to an asylum because a husband could have his wife committed without either a public hearing or her consent. She disagreed with him about religion and the couple also disagreed on child rearing, family finances, and the issue of slavery. In 1863, in part due to pressure from her children who wished her released, the doctors declared that she was incurable and discharged her.

Mrs Packard wrote several books about and founded the "Anti-Insane Asylum Society". In 1867, the State of Illinois passed a "Bill for the Protection of Personal Liberty" which guaranteed all people accused of insanity, including wives, had the right to a public hearing. She also saw similar laws passed in three other states.

When this is what anti-psychiatry is about, I do question the use of  "anti-psychiatry" as something negative.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikimedia Foundation - its importance is overrated

The Wikimedia Foundation has a board. It consists of people that are selected in several ways. Some are elected by the community and some are selected by affiliate organisations; the chapters.

An election is due for board members that will be elected by the chapters. Typically chapters have members and it is they who may influence their chapter to vote.

Taking part in an election is typically done in private. It is up to a chapter representative to seek/listen to suggestions of its members.

Given how little influence the "community" has in this, it is stupid to waste resources and translate what the candidates for the board of the WMF have to say. The representatives of a chapter have been entrusted with the job and they may do as they see fit.

Lets be realistic and not waste resources.
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

#Wikidata - to share the sum of all data

The BBC featured an article about all the battles of the world in space and time. The cool thing is that the people from Nodegoat used data from Wikidata and DBpedia and consequently the article is not about Wikidata but about what you can do with its data.

Nodegoat enables people to bring data together and visualise it in a way so that people can comprehend it. The BBC article describes the "Geography of Violence map"; it includes data about all known battles ever that include place and time information. Most of the data is from DBpedia and some of it is from Wikidata.

There are two issues to consider;

• Nodegoat available for everyone 
• curating data from DBpedia and Wikidata

When Nodegoat is available at Wikimedia Labs, it will enable people to come up with new ideas, presenting data that is otherwise obscure. They will find that much data is missing or wrong and at Wikidata they can improve the data as they see fit. Lab1100 is considering what license for Nodegoat and when we would make Nodegoat available at Labs, it would give them a firm push towards a free license.

DBpedia is a real strong project; it has gleaned a lot of data from Wikipedia and its quality is high. When there is an error in the data you can only change it in Wikipedia and wait for DBpedia to update. With Wikidata you can update the data itself. The data that is included was largely retrieved with similar routines used by DBpedia so it actually makes sense to collaborate with DBpedia and have them update Wikidata as well.

When the sum of all data is available to all and when many tools are available to leverage the data, more people will have incentives to improve the underlying data. Sharing the sum of all data and providing tools that make a difference is the best way to fulfill our mission.

Thanks,

        GerardM

#Wikidata - Statements per item

One of the most exciting statistics for Wikidata is the one where you see the number of statements per item. As Wikidata matures, more statements are added. The scale is from 0 to 9 and finally10 or more statements. The latest available dump has 10 or more at over 10%. The number that has been reported in the past is about the number of items that make up 50%. Today they have 0, 1, 2 or 3 statements.

Slowly but surely we are getting to the point where ten or more statements is too big much as it no longer satisfies our need to know. It is a good thing that wiser heads will determine when that will be :)

PS At Wikidata we are doing great :)
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - Dorothea Dix

Mrs Dix is remembered on the "Great Americans Series". It is a series of stamps and it includes many women. They are definitive stamps meaning that they were part of the regular issue of a country's stamps, available for sale by the post office for an extended period of time and designed to serve the everyday postal needs of the country.

Arguably Mrs Dix is honoured in this way and recognising this in Wikidata is not obvious.

Mrs Dix is not called a psychiatrist. However her insight into the suffering of the "insane" and her work did contribute more to mental health than the many who used that title and only saw people and were of no real benefit to them.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikimedia - time to recover

The crisis at the Wikimedia Foundation has reached a new phase. The crash happened and the car has to go to the body shop for repairs. It is a time of upheaval; what to do next / the interim and how do we mend fences.

It is a crazy time with crazy suggestions. Many of them brutally crash with what we and others expect of us. What to think of paying editors. What to think of it when we have not really sought to expand our editors particular in "other" languages. What to think of adding a "parliament" as if we should trust the people who are chosen. Our parliaments are full of politicians and they only preserve the status quo and special interests.

It is time to recover and at this stage we are all damaged goods. Crucial is to stem the exodus of employees. We need them and honestly, I would love to have many people back. We know them, trust them and if one thing is important it is continuity of everything that was good.

It is time to recover. There is plenty of craziness and this is not the time for big changes. It is first time to triage, to heal. As we right what went wrong, we gain a clue of what room there is for change. We gain a clue of what needs changing.

This is the time to recover, the time for change will come. Insisting on change now will tear at a body that is already weakened. It will alienate more, it will frustrate more. It is time to grieve for what went wrong who we lost, have a rest and then pick up the pieces and see what we are left with.
Thanks,
        GerardM

#Wikidata - the little things

I love what we do at the Wikimedia Foundation desperately. It makes me sick how things are going. Literally.

The little things make me go on. The people I love, the routine of going to work. When it is about our community, I despair. It is a train wreck going to happen and everybody seems to be going to the first compartment to see the result best.

Wiki-wise it is the little things that keep me going. Adding Anna Wintour to the Anna Wintour costume centre for instance. That I did because Jane cares ..

By caring, adding these little things, I have my illusion that what we do for each other matters. It may improve quality but I do it because it make me feel a bit better.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikimedia - #innovation

Things are improving when people start publicly thinking on how to move forward, how to do things differently. Our foundation is at a cross roads, how to move on and what will we be like. Yuri Astrakhan wonders if smaller, self forming teams might be an idea to be more nimble with new ideas and projects.

There is this notion that 80% of a project often gets done in 20% of the time. Finishing a project, doing the last 20% is the hard part. When an idea is shown to have merit, is allowed to grow a team around it, when it gains momentum and appreciation within the movement and gets approval to be finished there is a new model that motivates people to be creative.

Creative people are more effective, they get more done. Yes, there are problems with this model. How do you ensure the necessary maintenance, how do you ensure that the big attention projects that have been given priority (in whatever way) in the past keep on track. How do you keep people focused within a running project when something new and sexy comes along.

Managing new ideas has its own challenges; what do you do with your own ideas for instance... I am grateful to Yuri for thinking about ways out of the morass. We need to move on and when the same old old is toxic, it is important to dream, to think, to innovate, to be realistic and move on.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikimedia - the #blame game

The Wikimedia Foundation is in an unfortunate position. The most depressing part of it is that we all suffer. We are at a stage where the problem seems like a tangled knot, and it may seem that the solution Alexander though of is the likely way forward.

There are many issues, many have been mentioned in places. The main thing however is that the Wikimedia Foundation is us. It is what we stand for. We own the problem and together we are to blame.

I sincerely believe that intentionally everyone wants what they think is good for us all. The problem is very much that we do not agree on what that is. What we have in front of us is the result of past decisions that turned out to have nasty side effects.

One particular decision that bites us is the chosen answer to "What kind of organisation must the Wikimedia Foundation be?". The choice was to be a technical organisation and many people have been hired with that in mind. It changed the culture and it clashed with much of what the WMF stands for. The unintended result is much heartache and a lot of dysfunction.

Another thing that hurts a lot is that people do not really consider what others say. The outward face of Wikipedia became a talking shop with vested interests. It may give us a direction but the unintended consequence is that people hardly listen particularly when other issues are raised. There are so many examples to give, it is painful to do so.

Truly disturbing is that members of the board acknowledge that they collectively are dysfunctional. As all their communication has to be considered for possible implications, the result is communication that is not timely and bland. This is just one consequence of talking heads that over-analyse what has been said and insist on an understanding that is not necessarily what is intended.

We are at a crossroads. A lot of damage has been inflicted, many people are outraged, distraught, depressed. The solution that we end up with will not be optimal. It is stupid to expect this, to demand this. It is stupid because we do not agree on what an optimal solution will be. What we need is a workable solution. The way we are involved, the ambitions we have will not be realized without cooperation with everyone involved.

It is time to put  many favourite hobby horses to pasture. It is time to listen and consider priorities. The most important priority is that we stop talking and start to have a conversation.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikimedia - Patricio, what next?

#Wikipedia - Mrs Linehan professor in psychology & the DSM

Mrs Linehan is a professor in psychology at the University of Washington. She is a celebrated scientist; the list of awards on her biography is long and not complete. The point is, she knows what she is talking about and the Wikipedia article on her has one interesting detail.

Linehan was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In March 1961 she was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut where she was an inpatient. Linehan was subjected to electroconvulsive therapy, seclusion, as well as Thorazine and Librium as treatment.^[2] She has said that she feels that she actually had borderline personality disorder.^[3] In a 2011 interview with the The New York Times, Linehan said that she "does not remember" taking anypsychiatric medication after leaving the Institute of Living when she was 18 years old.^[4]

The point is that she was diagnosed with schizophrenia but that she actually had borderline personality disorder. There are several parts to it. Either Mrs Linehan was misdiagnosed, she does not know what she is talking about OR she had a schizorphrenic episode and has borderline personality disorder. This however is impossible according to the DSM, the prevailing methodology in the USA, because the DSM is categorical in its approach. It is either or and not both.

Except when it is both and Mrs Linehan is not alone in this observation. As long as the DSM is used as a standard vocabulary so that scientists can ensure that research is about the same subject, there is no problem. It is a wonderful tool that helps scientists do their work. It is different when it is mistaken for the gospel truth when this level of detail is accepted as truth. Mrs Linehan is just one example showing the error in this.

The DSM has been shown to be in need of change before and it is likely that it will again. As long as it is only a tool for scientists, that is not a problem. It became a problem when insurance companies made it their own and, made inferences that do not hold water. It is just an accident that Mrs Linehan's case is so prominently documented. Typically it is not documented at all because it is an inconvenient truth.
Thanks.
     GerardM

#Wikimedia #search - it #sucks

The Knight Foundation gave a grant to the Wikimedia Foundation to improve search spectacularly. It is well deserved because never mind how much it has already improved, it sucks. Search sucks anyway, care to find all the winners of the Knight Innovation award?

The point of search is that by just crawling the Internet you do not necessarily find what you are looking for and additionally you may not find it in your language. There are many things that are relatively easy to improve but it starts with one premise. We accept that better search is of a paramount importance.

The Knight Foundation gave a grant to improve search. The problem is one of politics. Talking heads in the community insist that they (on behalf of the community?) have to be consulted on such big things. The problem is that this is not necessarily the case. In the final analysis it is the board who decides on such priorities.

Some say that the WMF takes aim at Google when it improves its search. It is used as an argument in this big free for all. It should not matter. The question is a different one, it is more fundamental. What is the WMF about and how does it best achieve results additionally what does it need to continue to serve its users best.

Our aim is to share in the sum of all knowledge and we do not even achieve this for all our available knowledge. It has been mentioned on this blog before, results from Wikidata are not available in a local project. This has a noticeable effect in any and all languages. Many notable American professors have an article in Wikipedia but not in English. A scenario like this is true in any language.

You can find them in Google but why not in our projects? Is improving this functionality aiming at Google or does it make sense? Why not recognise this as a fact and do something about it? Why not recognise that 'paard' has many meanings and disambiguate between them when you search for an illustration. Why accept that Commons is maybe good enough in English only?

I positively hate the power struggles that are going on. They distract from what is what we are about and it is serving the sum of all knowledge. I hope that the damage that is being inflicted on us will not make us all losers.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikipedia - Peter Breggin, the power of an argument, a source

Mr Breggin is in / has been a rather controversial person in psychiatry. The point he makes is that the use of medicine is vastly overrated. He has been at pain to make this point, he has been court and brought to court over this opinion.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness took him to court because of a remark on Oprah:

"mental health clients should judge their clinicians in terms of their empathy and support; if they failed to show interest in them and tried to prescribe drugs during the first session, he advised such clients to seek assistance elsewhere."

This may be or may have been controversial, but it is certainly not controversial in the Netherlands. The notion that a psychiatrist should be empathic and supportive is essential for quality care that is to be given. The points Mr Breggin makes about psychiatric drugs are seen as mostly valid and, there is enough scientific evidence to support the notion that oversubscription is happening widely and, it has been sufficiently proven that NAMI was/is largely funded by pharmaceutical companies.

The point is that many sources exist that 'prove' a point. At what point can a point be accepted as valid or more precisely when is a point no longer acceptable in Wikipedia? We do agree that drapetomania has been a fabrication right?
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - #diversity connecting relevant people

Mrs Nanette Gartrell is a great example when you want to explain about diversity. She is female, a psychiatrist and according to an old version of the DSM she is crazy ... nowadays, it is mostly accepted for people to be gay.

While enriching the information for Mrs Gartrell, much of the related information is not known in Wikidata. Mrs Garttrell won several awards, it makes sense to know the organisations that conferred them and other award winners are nice to have as well.

Mrs Garttell is especially relevant because of the research that she did. She researched the quality of the upbringing of children in a lesbian family. By and large they are happy families and kids grow up well. It is the kind of message that is important to hear.

As someone like Mrs Gartrell gets well linked in the fabric of Wikidata, chances are that she will be included in all kinds of queries. As she does, more people will learn of the current state of science and provide people with arguments to ponder.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikidata - all notable #Psychiatrists - a query for big data

When you look at all the psychiatrists known to Wikidata, there are currently some 2992 psychiatrists known. When you think about psychiatry, the relevance is in the number of people who have to deal with it.

The tool used is one that does not get that much attention. It takes its time to complete but it gets whatever it is the query says. The tool does its job admirably for several years now. The one redeeming advantage is that it does what 'official query' does not offer. It can be used never mind the size of the results.

Some say that it is unrealistic to ask for this quality of service from 'official query' because "it has not been designed with this in mind". The friendliest thing to say is that this is a mistake. Official Query was supposed to replace WDQ and when it cannot by design, the design if wrong. A better argument would be that Wikidata is one of the biggest public facing resources on the Internet and people are actually using it; at this time it cannot cope. It takes money and lots of money to serve the whole world. Possibly. This approach however is an acceptable argument. It allows for seeking one or more solutions.

One existing solution is the "Toolkit", when you can have your own datastore, you can throw as much hardware at it to get results. You can give the WMF targeted money to have more hardware for you and I or implement existing software that may do the trick. We could explore if federated technology as it exists for Wikipedia could make a difference. What cannot be done is hiding behind an arbitrary choice that was insufficient from the start because official query is to replace what we already have and not take away from it.
Thanks,
      GerardM

One world is where #Wikimedia is weak

#Wikimania, the annual conference of the Wikimedia Foundation, brings people from all over the world together. It instills some needed cohesion in a community that is from around the world. It brings together hackers, editors, language buffs.

In its infinite wisdom the WMF has decided that Wikimania is to be bi-annual. The notion is that "local" conferences may be held every other year. To be honest, what I fail to understand what this will bring. It is obvious that global cooperation will suffer. The only thing I see is that it may reduce some costs.

One third of only 82 respondents pointed to the unique value of Wikimania. Given the size of the population interviewed I doubt the reliability of the findings. I am not one to readily dismiss what the WMF has to say but in this the WMF fails its mission.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikipedia - Eric Kandel the relevance of his "occupation"

Mr Kandel won the Nobel prize among many other awards. His reputation is safe and it is why he is a good example to talk about what he is about and as importantly what he is not.

Wikipedia has it that he is a "neuropsychiatrist". Neuropsychiatry is a "branch of medicine that deals with mental disorders attributable to diseases of the nervous system". Given what Mr Kandel is known for, it makes sense to call him a "neurospsychologist" because neuropsychology "studies the structure and function of the brain as they relate to specific psychological processes and behaviors."

Mr Kandel may have studied psychoanalysis but the work he is celebrated for did not deal with people, so he did not deal with mental disorders; the Wikipedia text is quite clear about this. By considering Mr Kandel as a neuropsychiatrist, it is implied that his work has a practical application to mental health while at most his work helps explain how memory works.

The work of Mr Kandel is important but it is a fallacy to call it psychiatry when it so obviously is not. It is a fallacy because it takes away from what psychiatry is about.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikipedia - Shows updates from #Wikidata

Seeing updates go live on a Wikipedia when updates happen on Wikidata; wow! Mr Starobinski is from Switzerland so it is not really surprising when German language and French language awards are awarded.

At first a Q1730045 showed up; it is the "Karl-Jaspers-Preis" it did not have a label so I added one in French and now it shows in black. I noticed dates, so I added them all. <grin> if there is one thing the script could do is sort them by date :) This is a wonderful experience!
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Drapetomania is in other forms alive and well

A #scientist by the name of Samuel A. Cartwright wrote a paper defining a mental disorder called drapetomania. The suggested treatment was that "they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which was intended for them to occupy. They have only to be kept in that state, and treated like children to prevent and cure them from running away". The mental disorder described slaves that run away. Drapetomania is no longer believed to be a mental disorder.

In the twenty first century, professor Jonathan Metzl wrote a book called The Protest Psychosis, it describes how schizophrenia was used to define people who had notions about their civil rights. The book describes an era where the DSM-2 was the latest and greatest to define mental health.

It is all too easy to welcome the publication of Mr Metzl as an important work as has been done by leading psychological institutions. Both Mr Cartwright and the DSM-2 have already been shown to be obsolete.

What the aftermath of the DSM-2 and Mr Cartwright prove is that papers on psychiatry cannot be relied on because current approaches to psychiatry are equally problematic. A recent publication (in Dutch) provides many arguments. One of the more relevant arguments is that many of the current studies are not reproducible and what they describe are based on theoretical constructs that are not universally agreed upon.

The book argues that publications about subjects that are fashionable have a better chance of being published over publications that expose methodological weaknesses (Delespaul, Milo, Schalken, Boevink & Os, 2015 p31,32).

Given that there is enough literature to support this point of view, what does it mean for a Wikipedia where sources are a holy grail that is to be ingested without all too much salt? What sources can be relied on and why and how do we recognise official pot quackery?
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikipedia: R. Kerry Rowe - #Sources may stink

For whatever reason I stumbled upon the Miroslow Romamowski medal. It is a Canadian medal named after a Polish scientist. When I add people to a medal, I make sure that the medal is at least an award and typically I add the person the award was named after. Searching for Mr Romanowski, a Portuguese article on the award proved to exist as well and it was merged.

The Wikipedia article is well maintained; this is assured by the date when the official website was last retrieved; "Retrieved 22 November 2015" and this source shows that the award has not been conferred after 2012. Mr R. Kerry Rowe however has been awarded the medal in 2015 and this can be sourced to this.

For Mr Rowe there is a German article, It indicates that he won the Legett award, its source is a dead link but hey, there is enough information to find the society that conferred it, and finally a functional source for the award.

This award is in and of itself not that relevant. When you combine the links to articles as can be found in the "Concept cloud" and Reasonator for Mr Rowe, it becomes interesting, Combined they show the known relations for an article, an item. It would be cool when the two could be merged. When a link in a Wikipedia article is known as a Wikidata statement, it would become interesting to make the statement that Mr Rowe gave the Rankine Lecture.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikipedia - Dorothy E. Smith - #links and #sources

Mrs Smith is recognised as an important scholar. One of her books is considered a classic, she developed two theories, received several awards and there is a Wikipedia article about her in three languages.

Mrs Smith received the Jessie Bernard Award in 1993 and it is why I learned about her. The Wikipedia article mentions two brothers, one is linked the other is not. She was born in Northallerton, There is a link to John Porter but the only relation to Mr Porter is that Mrs Smith won the John Porter Award. The award was given for a book by a red-linked organisation an organisation that bestowed their 'outstanding contribution award' to her as well in 1990.

This outstanding contribution award was given in 2015 to a Monica Boyd. She can be found on the Internet as well, it is easy enough to expand the amount of information around a relevant person like Mrs Smith. Almost every line in her article contains facts that could be mapped in Wikidata. With some effort sources can be added. The only problem is that adding sources for everything is painful; it is just too much work. This is a reality for Wikipedia as well, When Wikipedia and Wikidata align, when its links / statements match, it must be obvious that the likelihood of facts being correct is high, if only because multiple people had a look at most of the facts.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikipedia - The Jessie Bernard Award

At the #Wikimedia Foundation a lot of words are used on the subject of #diversity. So much so that diversity is short for gender diversity. My point is not that having proper attention for women and women causes is not a good thing, it is the exclusion of everything else.

On the subject of gender diversity, an award was named in recognition of Mrs Bernard: the Jessie Bernard award. "It is presented for significant cumulative work done throughout a professional career, and is open to women or men and is not restricted to sociologists."

The Wikipedia article on the award has a substantial number of red links of the unsung heroes of gender diversity. Obviously everyone is invited to fill this in. The quote indicates that being a housewife is a special case of being crazy. If so, what does "mentally ill" mean and how well does Wikipedia cover that subject?
Thanks,
      GerardM