#WeMissTurkey - six times #Listeria for best results

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

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

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

#WeMissGerardM - Got banned from #Wikidata

A friend of mine got into problems on #Wikidata.

The story:
She had proposed a property that was talked into something else that would not work for her or me. There was no obvious consensus particularly because of a lack of agreement how the property would function. Someone in power stated consensus and created the property and my friend proposed for its deletion.

What followed was awful because it shows how we interact. When someone says:  "This is a disruptive and bad-faith nomination" in my book this is aggressive and a personal attack. When someone else follows up with a request for a ban because of something that happens elsewhere it becomes a mob howling for blood. The arguments used were personal, had no relation to what happened at Wikidata and I objected strongly.

What else:
I objected to the language used, to the fact that you do not attack someone this personally. The language used is in my opinion not critical but overly aggressive even brutal. I object to how we behave, the language used, the personal attacks. It is not the first time that I objected to the way how we treat each other. Given that a friend was victimised this time I did not back down. Now I am banned from editing Wikidata for a week even though the admin who banned me agrees that I did not do anything that is a "banning offence". What I did was not let others "get away with murder" and not agree that the common good gets damaged by me in this way.

What next:
I do not know. I will miss working on the Ottoman Empire, I will miss working on awards, I will miss working on the BHL. But I will miss my friend most and I am sad that we Wikidatans treat each other in such an adversarial way.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#WeMissTurkey - #Bosnia and its Otoman governors

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

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

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

Dear #Vogelnieuws - more birds for the #Oostvaardersplassen

In an editorial the Dutch birding organisation is pleading for a more bird friendly Oostvaardersplassen. They specifically want room for the Eurasian Spoonbill and Eurasian Bittern. The reason why they are in decline are carp, mature carp. They eat anything including small fish and, they can live to be some eighty years old. There is no real predation on the carp.

There is only one predator that will have a significant impact when it finds its way into the Oostvaardersplassen; it is the Wels Catfish. A current proposal is to drain the Oostvaardersplassen regularly consequently most water animals will die and repeats will be "needed". When the Wels Catfish is introduced after a drainage, they will eat the maturing carp and ensure a more healthy age distribution in carp and make room for birds and other fish as well.

In this way we come to rely on ecological processes and realise a more complete (age) distribution of species. In the editorial they call for ecological connections so that animals can migrate for optimal results. Introducing such connections for fish as well would be of a huge benefit for the birds that predate on smaller fish. One of the fish that would find its way into the Oostvaardersplassen is the Three-Spined Stickleback. It serves birds like the European Spoonbill really well.

One other thing to consider; the Oostvaardersplassen was developed to support the goose, a bird that was rare at the start of the Oostvaardersplassen. When we make the ecosystem more complete, we will end up with a different environment, an environment that will be more diverse with more species finding their niche.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#WeMissTurkey - Beylerbeys of the Bosnian Elayet .. in Bosnian

The Ottoman Empire was huge. It existed for 623 years and its armies threatened Vienna at one time. When you want to understand the existence of countries and the politics of the modern time, it helps to have a sense of the past.

The Wikimedia coverage of the Ottoman Empire is patchy. We do not have all information readily available about its geography and administrations over time.

For me, adding information is easiest when the source is the English Wikipedia but other Wikipedias are often more complete. The Ottoman Empire was for a long time divided in Eyalets and they were governed by Beylerbeys. The list of Beylerbeys for the Bosnian Elayet is linked to many articles on the Bosnian Wikipedia. Articles about people that did not include even the most basic information in Wikidata. Adding missing information was easy but labels differ from English; they show in red in Reasonator.

When all red links are linked to Wikidata, it would be easy and obvious what English labels to add. It requires just one thing; acknowledgement that list in different language Wikipedias provide the same information.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#WeMissTurkey - Lutfi Pasha, a Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire

In October 2013 I wrote about Lutfi Pasha. I wondered if he as an author of several books would have an VIAF registration (he does) and if the information from Wikidata would end up at the VIAF registration (it does). It shows in the "personal information" that the German National Library and ISNI still call him Turkish where Wikidata knows him to be from the Ottoman Empire. At this time VIAF links to sixteen Wikipedias for more information. :)

As a young boy Lutfi Pasha was taken from his parents and under the Devshirme system brought to the palace where he was converted to Islam and given a thorough education. Lutfi Pasha had a distinguished career; he even married the sister of the later Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. His downfall? he beat his wife and was banished.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#WeMissTurkey - The Shihab and Ma'an families

The Shihab family succeeded the Ma'an family because of a marriage. That and because the male line of succession came to an end. There is no complete name for Mrs Shihab-Ma'an but it is what is needed to link two families and to link the succession of power.

When you consider history, it is often told through the conflicts and the succession of office holders (Fashr-al_Din II and three of his sons were execured).. It is not only what shaped history, the relations through marriage prevented many conflicts and allowed for cultural development in times of peace.

Mrs Shihab-Ma'an was married to Haydar Shihab and her son Mulhim became the next Emir. My big question: does anyone have a name for her? She must be notable by linking two families.
Thanks,
        GerardM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#Wikipedia - throwing the baby out with the bath water

Dear Asaf; there are no pet peeves. There is only my wish for us to be the best we can.

When YouTube is to use Wikipedia to give a background to its offerings, there will be a lot where Wikipedia falls short. We do not offer information on May Ying Welsh for instance. We do not know about the Pardes Humanitarian Prize and, do we report on the current Dalit protests in Maharashtra?

It is not a peeve when I notice how many errors can be found in Wikipedia, particularly in lists, and people do not concentrate on the differences of what Wikipedia knows and what is known elsewhere. This is particularly sad because time invested curating these differences is well spend and it is imho the most effective defence against fake news and fake facts.

When my question is "will YouTube use more than just English", you know as well as I do that English Wikipedia is less than 50% of what our audience read. When the other half does not deserve consideration, it is more than a peeve. It is in these other languages where the danger of fake news is even worse.

Basic facts on any NPOV article are the same in any language.  When they differ, they are where you can expect misinformation. With curated basis information available, it is possible to use natural language technology to provide at least some basic information. You have expressed that this is not something for the Wikimedia Foundation to be interested in (Cebuano remember?).

Asaf; you may hold the keys to what I post on the Wikimedia mailing list and you may privately consider me problematic. However, it is your excess in public ridicule and lack of arguments that is a disservice to what we aim to achieve; it is why we face of. In this you represent an attitude that will not see us provide the best we can offer in a changing landscape where we now have an opportunity to become relevant in debunking the worst of what YouTube has to offer.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Oostvaardersplassen - unintended consequences

When there are too many animals and there is too little for them to eat, they die. This happens regularly in winter in the Oostvaardersplassen, a nature reserve in the Netherlands.

The Oostvaardersplassen were created to provide a place for geese to feed. It takes deer, cattle and horses to prevent the development of a wood. Geese like grass short and it is why these animals were released in the Oostvaardersplassen

In the past there have proposals to provide more room for the animals because in winter they die in huge numbers. Providing room is not possible by an unending cycle of adding new grounds to the Oostvaardersplassen but it is possibe to make a connection to the Veluwe and extend this to the nature alongside of the Dutch rivers connecting even further to Germany. This plan that was actively developed was at the last moment shot down by politicians.

Given that "animal lovers" are bringing hay feeding some of the animals, it resulted in such an upheaval under the animals that Staatsbosbeheer prefers to feed them themselves. In the past they pronounced what they would do when pressed. They will shoot the animals and bring the numbers down by half maybe even more. Nature will respond positively after such a catastrophe. It will invigorate nature and make the Oostvaardersplassen less of a meadow.

Natural predation like by a pack of wolfs would make a difference. Wolfs are finding their way into the Netherlands, they only have to find their way to the Oostvaardersplassen and call it home.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikidata - Vikram Patel and missing awards

Mr Patel received many awards; for one of them you see illustrated what the award looks like. This award was missing in the Wikipedia article. Another award, the Chalmers Medal by the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, was mentioned but there is no information about other award winners.

Other awards for this society had their own item but no enrichment had taken place. They are now at least linked and award winners with a Wikipedia article are now also linked.

Linking people through awards, through their employers, their education provides an entry point to a subject like "Tropical Medicine and Hygiene". When this is a subject that matters to you, Mr Patel is the first one listed to have received the Chalmers award; this award started in 1923 so you can add all of them to Wikidata or write Wikipedia articles to these notable people.

When you consider notability, would it not be an argument to use against the Wikipedia deletionists when there is plenty of information at Wikidata?
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikipedia - Why the deletion of a George Polk Award winner?

There used to be an article for May Ying Welsh. She received the George Polk Award in 2011, wrote a script for a film she directed Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark, a film that was well received.

The article is gone. But it is not because there was no notability. May Ying Welsh remains notable at Wikidata because she won the Polk award, wrote and directed a movie.. Structural need is why many people are added.

I could ask to see what the article looked like. But what is the point? My point is that Wikipedia fails itself and its audience because of a self imposed lack of information. A message that is not allowed to be raised on the Wikimedia mailing list.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikimedia - The George Polk Award winners; how to catch them all

It is this time of year again; the George Polk Awards have been announced. Last year I spend a lot of time adding information to and cleaning the data at Wikidata. There are over 500 award winners known so Reasonator does not catch them all.  Listeria shows more data but multiple entries are an issue.

There are multiple reasons to complete a list like this. In this way celebrated journalists like Michael Winerip  or Michael Schwirtz finally get their presence in the Wikimedia world. It is a way to celebrate journalism, important enough in this time of fake news and, it is a demonstration how data at Wikidata can extend the quality of Wikipedia's information.

Given the amount of award winners, it takes too much time to do all the work in one go. It is now largely a matter of adding the red and "black" linked award winners. At this time it is the 2014 award winners who are being added.

The problem is that time spend on one award takes away time from other projects, equally deserving. Projects like completing information on US governors or British governors. How to register information like epidemics because their impact is not fully appreciated. How to make plain that a source has a negative impact when it is actually retracted..

Anyway, congratulation to the George Polk Award winners for 2017; that their career may blossom with this recognition.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikidata - William Gorges, first colonial governor of the Province of Maine

Mr Gorges was born in Britain, he died in Britain. He was tasked to oversee investments for two years by a nephew and as a result he was the first colonial governor of the province of Maine. Consequently he is said to be a citizen of the USA, (he died in February 1658)..

The problem with nationality and citizenship is that we tend to adopt people as belonging to something that did not exist at the time and consequently it is a falsehood. It is the same with all these generals, governors of the confederacy; they did not identify with the United States of America, they had their own state they swore allegiance to, so why call them citizen of the USA? How dare we?

It is the same for people from Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland. They may have opposed the Brits but from a nationality point of view, their behaviour was judged by the British laws.

Associating people with states / nations that may not even have existed at the time are false facts, pure and simple.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikimedia and #Cochrane - sharing resources and sharing results

Jane Falconer, a medical librarian, wrote a real interesting blog post. She writes about the importance of reliable information to front line health professionals and stresses the importance of systematic reviews that are conducted according to recognised and tested methodologies.

The big problem: what to include in the systematic review, and what to exclude in projects like are PRISMA and Cochrane. This is the same problem we face when we seek sources for Wikipedia articles and, the Wikimedia solution to provide sources is the "The Wikipedia Library Card Platform".

Cochrane and the Wikimedia Foundation are partners and one scenario I can see is one where this partnership is intensified. When Cochrane shares its results with Wikidata, they can have all the data of Wikidata anyway the quality and the relevance of the Wikidata data improves. When Cochrane volunteers may share the Library Card Platform, it would bring a major contribution to the volunteers at Cochrane. The relevance of the data at Wikidata will improve substantially. This in turn will help us verify the content of medical information and the quality of the sources in all our Wikipedias.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikidata - Just another award; the 2018 Newberry Library Award

I read it on Twitter; Mrs Carla Hayden received the 2018 Newberry Library Award. There are many awards that do not keep track of all the awardees. Personally I found only one other award winner. I asked on Twitter for more information and a friend found several more.

This is one of the awards that I want to keep track of. So I added a Listeria page on my user page. Every time the underlying data changes, Listeria will pick it up.

In the mean time, Mrs Hayden, congratulations.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikipedia - entering the rabbit hole

When you start reading Wikipedia, when you continue with a next article and the next, you become part of a click stream identifying what people read and how they get there. It is hugely interesting and dumps for this click stream are available for the English, Russian, German, Spanish, and Japanese Wikipedias.

Just consider; all articles on the same subject have a Wikidata identifier. This makes it possible to aggregate these click streams. When a particular link between articles is popular in multiple Wikipedias, there is a good chance that adding a missing article will be popular as well.

It is always a question if suggestions like this will be taken up, if they indeed prove to be read more than just an average new article in a domain. That is however the subject of follow up research. In the mean time it provides an argument to collect the click streams for any and all Wikipedias. Providing educated guesses of what will be popular stimulates people to write what will be read.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikimedia - #Personal - there is no silver bullet

For everything that ails any of the #Wikimedia projects, there is no silver bullet. To complicate things, there is no agreement what it is that ails these projects mostly because there is hardly any collaboration.

I am not a Wikipedian. I love Wikipedia but I do not identify with it. I have been involved in many projects including Wikipedia and my global account is testament to that. My involvements have been substantial and central in my motivation is: how can we share the sum of all knowledge, how will we reach the biggest audience and have the biggest effect.

I have been called "monomaniacal with my silver bullet du jour". Over time several topics have occupied me and this has resulted in an evolving understanding of what I perceive as issues with what we do and how we do it. When you are interested in how my opinions evolved, read my blog, it runs from 2005.

The English Wikipedia is Wikimedia's success. Its biggest problem; over 50% of its target audience does not speak English. At that, organisational attention in any project attention is mostly for English. There are several solutions possible that help us "share the sum of the knowledge that is available" more widely.

• localisation of the user interface makes our software better usable and more user friendly
• the user interface of Wikidata makes it easy and obvious to add labels in *your* languages
• the data of Wikidata is used to generate texts that are cached, not saved, when there is no Wikipedia article on the subject
• Advertise the information we have; things like finished books in Wikisource

I do promote translatewiki.net for the localisation of the MediaWiki software and I would love to see the Internet Archive and the OCLC to use translatewiki.net and have their services localised in all the languages that Wikipedia supports.

Reasonator is still the best interface on the Wikidata data. Data becomes informative and it makes it easy to add labels in *your* language. In essence this is again all about "sharing in the sum of all available knowledge". Hidden gems are the "Concept cloud" and the QRcode available on every Reasonator page. Reasonator is just one of the many tools by Magnus that makes Wikidata usable.

My main motto is "what is the purpose". When I was particularly involved in Wiktionary, I collaborated with many people in many Wiktionaries and this is where I learned to appreciate the lack of coordination that exists between projects. Thanks to wonderful people like Sabine Cretella, I developed the ideas and in the end a data model for a project that became the basis for OmegaWiki. This data model was inspected and approved by among others Alan K. Melby. Thanks to Jimbo I got into contact with Barend Mons and became involved in bio-medical data and science. The development of OmegaWiki happened parallel to the main work in Wikiproteins.

At this time Wikidata and the opportunities it presents has my interest. Contrary to some, I am not an apologist for everything Wikidata and contrary to what some say, I do not blame the development team but the group pressures that so often result in unhappy compromises and decisions. It is for instance an acknowledged fact that Wikidata descriptions are problematic and that automated descriptions are superior.. "Never mind; it is what we do" is the prevailing sentiment.. (as always).

There is no silver bullet and consequently a result is only achieved after a lot of work. I want functionality that mimics an Algerian project I blogged about way back in 2013. To achieve this I am adding dates to the governorships of all USA states. It allows for queries like this. A next stage will be when a map of the USA is shown with all its states and a slider to move in time. It is then easy to show the governors at that time..

I am not sorry that I keep on returning to issues mentioned it the past, what some people miss is the amount of continuous effort that goes into achieving them.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikipedia - Cebuano; be inspired

In an answer to the Wikimedia blogpost "Inspire New Readers campaign: Raise awareness of Wikipedia where you live" I replied: 

Make sure there is a lot to read. It is counter intuitive but the Cebuano Wikipedia approach with a twist could make a huge difference. The difference; caching generated content and not saving it. Do not mistake the absence of information in hand written articles as preferable over providing no information.

I was asked to expand on it.

My comment was not intended to dwell on the past, given the overload of acrimony not that inspiring, but on a future where we share in "the sum of knowledge that is available to us". The Cebuano Wikipedia is one of the biggest Wikipedias because a bot started with publicly available data on a subject, build a text with variables for the data and build Wikipedia articles from the data. As a result all that data had to be linked in Wikidata and there were a lot of complaints. The one undeniable point; there are errors in the data and even when we fix it, it is not fixed in that Wikipedia.

The twist: the public data is imported in Wikidata first. The text is generated in the same way but it is not saved as an article but cached. It follows that when the data is in error and corrected, the cache will expire and the new text will have the latest and greatest. In this way we do provide information in the local language to the best of our knowledge and ability.

Wikidata has an ever growing amount of data on subjects that are unlikely to generate Wikipedia articles in any language. It does not mean that we could not provide information. What it takes is accepting counter intuitive arguments use tools like Reasonator, make use of the LSJbot and accept that search results should include what is stored elsewhere, something that has been in production on several Wikipedias for years now.

Our objective "share the sum of all knowledge". I will happy when we share the knowledge that is available to us.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikipedia - fiduciary responsibilities for #Wikipedia #Medical

Retraction Watch has a very relevant article for one of the most important resources for medical information: Wikipedia. Its title: “A concerning – largely unrecognised – threat to patient safety:” Nursing reviews cite retracted trials. It is a follow up interview of an article in the International Journal of Nursing Studies with Richard Gray the principal author.

Given that Wikipedia is the most read resource by medical practitioners, the interview has many relevant pointers on ensuring safe practices. I quote them from the paper and with some modifications they apply to any and all sources used in Wikimedia content.

1. A retraction filter (or whatever mechanism the database in question allows) must be applied to the end output of any search strategy.
2. Journals/databases must make retractions more visible (step 1 above depends on it).
3. Collaborations (e.g. Cochrane, Campbell, The JBI) need to incorporate into their handbooks directives around retraction. For example, a scan for retractions after data sourcing; a scan for retractions before data extraction; a scan for retractions before review submission.
4. The reporting guidelines for systematic reviews (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, PRISMA) needs to include an item stating that authors have checked if any included studies have been retracted.
5. Journal editors should require authors, when submitting manuscripts, to confirm that they have checked that none of the included studies have been retracted. Authors should also include a statement in the paper stating they have done this.
6. Proofreaders may also have an important role to play. For example, authors of one review included in their reference list a citation that clearly indicated the reference was for a retracted paper. Proofreaders could be trained to spot and report these anomalies.

Registering retractions in Wikidata would be a start.

Thanks,

     GerardM

#Wikidata - Rachael E Jack; Spearman medal winner

On Facebook I mentioned a 2016 blog post about the Spearman Medal. I checked for missing entries; they were the two 2017 award winners, Mrs Claire Haworth and Mrs Rachael E Jack.

Adding award winners to Wikidata is something I do regularly. It always starts with a search. Mrs Jack was known as "Rachael Jack" on Wikipedia and by drilling down into the ORCID information I found confirmation that this is indeed the same person.

Mrs Haworth is known to ORCID as well, and through a link to a profile, there was a confirmation that it was the same person; the award winner of the Spearman medal.

Typically I do not spend that much time on red links. What I wanted to know is the value of the network. Given the titles of publications known at ORCID, some of the publications of Mrs Haworth could already be found in Wikidata and were linked.

Thanks to all the work done on scholarly publications, scaffolding information for Wikipedia articles become available.. These two ladies are notable if only because of being recipients of the Spearman medal.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikidata - Lindsay McLaren; #science under attack

Mrs McLaren is the first author of a paper about the (negative) effects of the cessation of adding fluoride to drink water. Retraction Watch mentioned the aggressive attacks on Mrs McLaren by people opposed to the addition of fluoride to tab water and it refers to an article in the National Post.

Adverts bought from Google may give the impression that something is wrong with the science. Not so. Reason enough to put some positive spin on Mrs McLaren and provide her with an item in Wikidata. You may consider this to be an invite to write a Wikipedia article..
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - #CocaCola, what science in paid "science"?

Greenpeace has a reputation on the science it uses to base its actions on. Its objective is one that should be not controversial but it is because it affects business as usual for industries like the plastic bottled drinks of a Coca Cola or the production of oil by a Shell.

Industry has a long tradition of performing research and of keeping it confidential when this is considered in its interest. Another, new strategy is to commission research to find the numbers to shore up its market position.

When the numbers do not add up because reality is different, the last bastion to defend is the integrity of the science and its scientists. Even when a case goes to court, the findings of a judge are disputed when other scientists do not consider the legal findings. In a post at the Dutch Greenpeace website, 5 reasons to dispose of rebate and 12 reasons to reinforce rebate, multiple examples of doctored science are mentioned. Mentioned in a way where research is invalidated by research. When a bad faith actor like the plastic bottle industry buys research, it follows that the research is easily suspect and with the same brush, the organisations, the people involved.

When science is pseudo science, when both Wikipedia and Wikidata use sources to establish points of view it follows that this pseudo science is used to establish a neutral point of view. That is exactly why a Coca Cola invests in these programs; just to shore up its business. Obviously the court cases, the papers trouncing pseudo science should be prominently included. This pseudo science has no place in the Wikimedia projects except when it is obvious for what it is.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - Cyrus J. Colter and G. B. Lancaster - #diversity

Cyrus J. Colter was inducted on the Black Literary Hall Of Fame in 1999. He has a Wikipedia article in Japanese and his Wikidata item has been expanded with a link to Open Library and VIAF

According to a tweet, G. B. Lancaster was once one of New Zealand's most popular writers. When you google her, you find that G.B. Lancaster is a pseudonym for Edith Joan Lyttleton. For Mrs Lyttleton there is now a link to Open Library as well.

From a diversity point of view, both Mr Colter and Mrs Lyttleton represent minorities. Giving attention to either increases the diversity of Wikidata. Linking both authors to the Open Library has the most inclusive effect. There is now a bigger public for the books they have written.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - #Reebok Human Rights award

Once upon a time, there was a company called Reebok who presented an award to human rights activists under the age of 30. Every year four or five people received $50,000.--. Every year attention was given to human rights. Important enough because an award like this gives additional relevance and resonance for an extremely good cause. It may even provide some extra protection by making people more visible.

The award is no longer presented. Some people who were recognised  refused the award because in their opinion Reebok itself should take care about its human right record. Some people took actions and they were successful; the last award ceremony was in 2007. That is all; a lot less attention for human rights, defeat in victory.

The best information about the Reebok Human Rights Award is at the Internet Archive's Wayback machine.  Nothing wrong with the credentials as stated of the people who were awarded.. When you compare this with the linked people at Wikipedia, you will miss the Chilean soccer player, the Nigerian business magnate and find what are Wikipedia red links.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikimedia - #diversity and #inclusion requires #trust

All the Wikimedia projects have their culture. Each project has its own culture and there is this overall stated ambition that diversity and the inclusion that is needed to make it work is alive and well.

We have our diversity conferences and the best result is how the "gender gap" is approached. It gets a lot of attention and the positive effects are noticeable. There is however more to diversity and some of the beliefs we hold so dear prevent the inclusion from those that are at the outside looking in.

One of the Wikimedia traditions is that we do not trust; trust is in the citations, the sources. We do not trust each other, why should we? When for diversities sake, people who receive the "Harriët Freezerring" are added, it is accepted because there is a Wikipedia article that mentions them.. But when people are added because they are "artists from the African diaspora" there is a problem. There are no articles yet and the point of adding the artists first is because Wikidata enables managing projects in multiple languages.

There are many people who are targetted for attention in Wikipedia editathons. There have been editathons in the past so there is an established track record for the Black Lunch Table. That did not bring trust, the trust needed to accept that the BLT will manage the people on the list. The trust that bare boned items will get sufficient statements eventually.

The problem with trust is that when it is not given, it can not be assumed for other, similar situations either. The trust that retractions from scientific papers will be included so that we know what Wikipedia articles are inherently wrong. Retractions are absent at this time and while I trust the people involved in the inclusion of citations, why trust at all when equally worthy causes are not trusted? Why include all these scientific papers without similar quality control?
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Belief - Black Pete, Rudolph and Christmas

It is Christmas time and a good time is had by all. As everone knows; Santaclaus has reindeer and one of them has a red nose. The notion of Santa is based on a Dutch tradition "Sinterklaas" and everybody knows that he arrives by steam boat from Madrid accompanied by "Zwarte Piet" and comes loaded with presents for all the children who have been good. It is all part of winter celebrations, Santaclaus is firmly associated with Christmas and it is well documented that Jezus was not born on this day so many centuries ago.

When you start to evaluate belief and find things to criticise you can and may do so. However, it is easily understood why this is not appreciated at all. People want to believe in a Jezus that did not look at all like how it is usually depicted. The fact that Santa comes from the North pole found a lot of cheer thanks to Norad and I read an amusing story that Rudolphs red nose is due to bioluminism. 

There is a lack of appreciation for "black pete" as some consider it an example of "Blackface". Do read the Wikipedia article, its origin is in a USA when slavery was alive and well. The Netherlands has a different culture; Zwarte Piet is clothed in seventeenth century garb he brings presents through the chimney but is always spotless. He is a smart, hardworking guy and only thanks to Zwarte Piet Sinterklaas can bring presents to all the children of the Netherlands. Remember, the Netherlands were Spanish until the seventeenth century.

Like in any belief system; those who truly belief benefit the most. When children are of an age when they will start to suspect that Sinterklaas is a ruse, they will be informed about the awful truth. When they no longer belief, when they are "gortig", they are expected to make surprises for their peers. They may share in the fun of a truly Dutch tradition. For those who object, the German term "hineininterpretieren" fits the application of blackface to Zwarte Piet.
Thanks,
     GerardM

Francesco Redi and the #BHL - A purpose for #Wikisource

Mr Redi is of a stature that his statue is in the Uffizi Gallery. His books are available in the Internet Archive, thanks to the Biodiversity Heritage Library.  Wikisourcers waved their magic on several of his books and the result is a superior output for for instance "Esperienze intorno alla generazione degl'insetti".

Mr Redi has four books who received the Wikisource treatment.. and then what? In response to a tweet, I was told of the existence of these books in Wikisource. I checked them on Wikidata and added Mr Redi as the author. There is nothing to indicate in Wikisource where the book came from (the BHL provided them with a DOI).

In a tweet, the BHL indicated that they are interested in books that received the Wikisource treatment. So lets consider where we are:

• Wikisource has many great books transcribed and available as an ebook
• It is not known outside of Wikisource what books are available in what quality and where they came from
• We could have this information in Wikidata. It will give a clue what is available; we can query for the books when they are in Wikidata
• What is the purpose of Wikisource if it is not for people to read all these fine books?

Thanks,

       GerardM

A purposeful #strategy for #Wikidata

A strategy for Wikidata? Obvious, it is all about having a purpose. It is not about policies, it is not about what we need or expect of others but it is about the purpose you, I and others have for us to collaborate on in an inclusive Wiki and data project.

The implication of making the purposes of our community rule supreme are huge. Purpose like so many other things can be measured. When people have a purpose for Wikidata and actually use it, their need for quality is self evident. They will invest their time and effort in fulfilling their purpose. The one question is how to fit in the many purposes that exist for Wikidata.

Take for instance the objective of Lsjbot for a rich Wikipedia in the Cebuano language. He uses data from an external database to create articles. Data from these articles are imported later through the Cebuano Wikipedia in Wikidata. This is seen by some as controversial because of the need to integrate data that often already exists. The purpose is obvious; rich information in the Cebuano language. The solution is obvious as well; let Lsjbot use the data at Wikidata to generate the information for the Cebuano Wikipedia. GeoNames is happy to collaborate with us on this, so when we care to collaborate and welcome its data at the front door, we can mix'n'match the data into Wikidata, curate the data where necessary and share improved quality widely, not only on the ceb.wp.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library Consortium is working extremely hard to expose their work to the general public. Over a million illustration found their way to Flickr. Fae imported many of these to Commons and most if not all the associated publications can be read on the Internet Archive or on its website. Their content is awesome, check for instance their Twitter account. We can import all the BHL books in Wikidata, we are importing all associated authors using Mix'n'Match. The images are in Commons but how is this brought together? How do we add value for the BHL and as important, for our shared public?

The Internet Archive is a Wikimedia partner. It provides essential services for us with its "Wayback machine". It is how we can still refer to references that used to be online. One other venture of the Internet Archive is its Open Library.  What we already do for the Open Library is linking their authors and by inference books to the libraries of the world through VIAF. We could share this information with the Wikipedias so that its readers may find books they can read. (Talk about sharing the sum of all knowledge).

Both the IA and the BHL want people to read. They (also) provide scientific publications that may be read to prove the points Wikipedia authors make in articles. Both can be big players strengthening the value of citations in WikiCite. At this time its strength is particularly in the biomedical field and it is already attracting bright people to Wikidata. As data from other fields finds its way, people like Egon and Siobhan will find their way. This will make Wikidata even more inclusive.

To make this future work, to become more inclusive, we should trust people more particularly when they indicate why they use Wikidata. The Black Lunch Table is a great example. The description at Wikidata says: "visual artists of the African diaspora initiative that includes Wikipedia editathons and outreach". One way of knowing how effective this initiative is is the history page of its listeria list. It shows a steady growth of information added. When you analyse it further you find artists added and selected for new editathons. Truly a great example of Wikidata having a purpose.

A strategy based on purpose, is a strategy based on trust. Not blind trust, but the kind of trust where it is seen that people are committed to improve both quantity, quality and usefulness of the data they identify with.
Thanks,
      GerardM

When #Wikidata is good for something

When #Wikidata is good for something, it shines. It does not take much prodding to find people to improve on what it does so well and consequently when Wikidata is useful, quality follows easily.

The promise of  a useful Wikidata was delivered at its start by having it replace the native interwiki links of Wikipedia. Within a month the quality of Wikipedia links had improved dramatically and at this time corner cases are still worked improving quality even more.

The WikiCite project is really important in many respects and it has so much more to offer. It is useful because it brings many initiatives and projects together under one roof. It is why scientific papers are included, including its authors. We find that more and more authors are included as well and they are often linked to the ORCID, VIAF and other external identifiers of this world. This has great value because it allows Wikipedia articles and information maintained elsewhere to be linked. What it can be used for is limitless. End users will find new and interesting ways to use the data and make it into information.

When Wikidata is to be good for Wikimedia projects, this information brought to Wikidata because of WikiCite has great potential. It largely reflects the citations in all the Wikipedias and consequently through linked so external sources we could know what sources are problematic, retracted or bought by interested parties. We could, we don't. When we did, we would provide weight against propaganda and fake news.

The big thing holding us back is trust. Wikipedians need to consider a Wikidata that is not only used for links and that can be trusted for high level maintenance of its citations. Wikidata is to appreciate its use and trust that its information will be used and that this will increase its value and quality. WikiCiters have to understand that Wikidata is not a stamp collection only including publication data. It must include information about retractions, about papers considered problematic for political or scientific reasons (or both).

When Wikidata is to be good for something; we should expand our collaboration with Cochrane, Retraction Watch and organisations like it. There is everything to gain; quality, contributors and relevance.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikipedia #NPOV - When there is no neutral point of view

Mr Jacobson, a climatologists at Stanford University wrote a paper. Its findings were disputed in another paper. Jacobson maintains that the USA can be served for its energy needs exclusively with green energy. The contrarians have it that there must be a mix of conventional and green energy.

There are several issues with the latter paper; it is a paper supported by the conventional energy industry. The result of the paper are in the best interest of this energy and the paper is considered by many not to be the result of a scientific process. So much so that Jacobson went to court.

There is a big difference with an opinion piece and a scientific paper. The critique of the contrarians is that Mr Jacobson does not consider nuclear, fuel and bio fuel solutions at all. They argue that it could make the transition more difficult or expensive. But that is not the point. The point is that you can and, the point is that green energy is getting cheaper.

When a paper is bought by industry and the premise of the original paper is ignored, it is no longer scientific but becomes an opinion piece. Mr Jacobson is not the first predicting the demise of "big" energy, Greepeace has been doing it for decades..

There is no middle ground. It is why Mr Jacobson is going to court because the paper of the contrarians only serves one purpose; postponing the inevitable. It is not a scientific critique in any acceptable way.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikidata - Disambiguating for the Biodiversity Heritage Library

Tatiana Carneiro is an entymologist. Her work is known at the Biodiversity Heritage Library. When you check the "authors page", there are two other identifiers known and, for "Tatiana R. Carneiro" the same two identifiers are shown as well.

When you google for Mrs Carneiro all kinds of information may be found but you do not want to do this for all the 177,271 BHL authors that are waiting in Mix'n'Match. It is no fun and only a few people take up a task like this.

So the question is; how do we make it more rewarding and how do we bring the many Brazilian papers to Wikidata as well. What is it that there is to achieve and how does it benefit all the people reading Wikimedia content.

For readers of our content, there is little merit in the fact that all these authors published papers. Many of them have been published with a DOI and, many of these papers are freely available to read. For them the papers are important. So contrary to a more normal database approach it is not the authors we should concentrate on but it is their publications. In addition to this, the BHL actively promotes the use of illustrations and publish them on Flickr. Thanks to the fine work of people like Fae these illustrations end up on Commons as well. It will be a challenge to link them to all this metadata..

There are millions of illustrations, there are far fewer publications and many authors are known for not one but multiple publications. To complicate it even further, an illustration has an illustrator and many publications are exclusively found in archives. Many publishers are no longer active and all this information is or may be considered relevant.

So what to do; first import all the publications that are freely readable. The publications with a DOI and include the author information as "author name string". When an author is known to Wikidata, we can always add the author information as well. The benefit of this approach? People can read now.

To make it interesting we can run a bot using the APIs of the BHL. We add missing books for authors and add the authors to the books where this information is missing. Running this regularly will make it interesting for anyone interested in the work of the BHL. But most importantly, people can read now.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata - a "sand engine" for the UK?

The Netherlands are largely below sea level and given climate change, keeping our feet dry is not at all obvious. There are many ways to defend a coast line and a "sand engine" or "sand motor" is one.

According to EcoShape, there will be a sand motor protecting the Bacton Gas Terminal and the surrounding Norfolk coast.

This does have an impact on the existing Wikipedia articles about the sand motor. It is no longer about the Netherlands and as there are more coastal areas that need protection, more sand motors are to be expected. For Wikidata, all the sand motors can have their own item. It will become possible to query where they are, where they are planned and what areas are protected in this way. The original sand motor will have its own place in history but it will not be unique. That is good.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikidata - I fucking love #science

When I am on Facebook, information from "I Fucking love Science" is always a nice read. Mrs Andrew received the Stamford Raffles Award. It is why I found her article.

When you read the article, it is heavy on Mrs Andrew's problem of being taking seriously because she is a woman and there is also a lot about the accusations of plagiarism. The problem is that plagiarism and the unlicensed use of intellectual property are quite distinct. Given that IFLS is about reporting on science, there should be no argument; they do not claim the ideas they report on as their own..

It is better to split the information about Mrs Andrew and IFLS; it brings clarity and it invites additional information about the reach of IFLS and the reason why she was awarded the Stamford Raffles Award.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikidata vs #Wikipedia - Rukmini Maria Callimachi

Mrs Callimachi did not only win the Polk Award, she is both a journalist and a poet and did not only win journalism awards. One of the awards, the Michael Kelly Award is hidden on the Wikipedia article of Michael Kelly. 

This article is about how Wikidata and English Wikipedia can help each other. The Wikipedia article lists seven awards and this makes it easy to add other award winners for them as well.

Thanks to Magnus' awarder, this is fairly easy but some awards hide out as part of an article and the award has to be added in Wikidata.  It may be one reason why later awards are missing. The religious award she is said to have won, it is a different award with a similar name. The award and the organisation that confers it had to be created.

The point, we can compare data at a Wikipedia with what we have on Wikidata. They should match. When they do not, there is an issue. Copying the data from Wikipedia is easy and it is the obvious thing to do. When Wikipedians decry the quality of Wikidata, they should reflect on why this is the case. When we collaborate, we will slowly but surely improve our quality. In the final analysis our aim is the same; share in the sum of all knowledge.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikipedia vs #Wikidata - the George Polk Awards

Some Wikipedians consider Wikidata inferior, so much so that they agitate towards a policy that bans Wikidata in "their" Wikipedia. They are welcome to their opinion.

I do bulk imports from Wikipedia and all the time I suffer the consequences. Some three to four percent of their data is wrong for all kinds of reasons, reasons that are manageable with proper tooling.

The George Polk Award is an award for journalism and it got my attention again because the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists received it for their work on the Panama Papers. I noticed that many people listed who had been awarded the Polk Award did not have articles in Wikipedia, that many of the link in the list of award winners pointed to the wrong person and that many award winners did not even have a "red link".

I am in the process of checking all the links and adding the date for the award. I found many issues among them a civil war general and many others false friends. I am adding items for the people who do not have an English article and, I have to check each of them because several do have articles in other languages. It is a lot of work and it is not as useful as it could be because Wikipedia hates Wikidata and we do not collaborate, we do not work together.

There is a Listeria list of winners and slowly but surely it will contains the information that is similar to the English Wikipedia list article. Similar but not the same;

• the false friends will not be there, 
• there will be no red or black links
• people who won the award twice will be missing

Why do this, why spend so much time on one big list? Well, in this day and age of "fake news" we should celebrate journalism but having all this information in Wikidata allows for all kinds of tools as well. We can check for false friends, we can check if the articles on the award winners include the award but also if there are "winners" who are not known in this list and in the source available for the George Polk winners..

I am not a Wikipedian and truthfully I hate the endless and senseless bickering that is going on. So let me work on the data, make it available to tools. Now you Wikipedians, you may choose not to show Wikidata data in your infoboxes but you will not make your errors go away without collaboration. Yes, you can quote a source but when your data is not in line with what the source states, having a source does not do you good, effectively you provide fake information.

My request to the reasonable people at Wikipedia and Wikidata, let us work together and see how we can improve quality. Lets link wiki links (blue, red and black) to Wikidata and improve the quality of what is on offer first.
Thanks,
       GerardM