015-02-08 14:07 GMT+01:00 Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il>il>: +1. L.

Manual descriptions are, in the vast majority of cases, a waste of volunteer time. Alternative: http://magnusmanske.de/wordpress/?p=265 On Sun Feb 08 2015 at 17:37:42 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon Feb 09 2015 at 10:59:12 Daniel Kinzler &lt;daniel.kinzler(a)wikimedia.dewrote: Yes. I definitely think that 3rd party consumers of wikidata should not have to > think > about whether descriptions have been written manually or were created > automatically. This should be completely transparent. My autodesc API serves both at the moment, so the consumer can decide which one they want to use. Automatic descriptions can "miss the point" sometimes, but are generally more up-to-date. > So, if you want to help with making automated description a reality, > please make > suggestions that take into account the above points, and also consider the > mechanisms for language fallback. (ADs): 1. web-based tools as proof-of-concept. This is done. 2. web-based API to standardise automatic descriptions, and make them easily accessible for everyone. I am trying to do that now, 3. WMF/Wikibase-team picks up the API code, or writes their own; integration into MediaWiki/extension, with proper language generation in many languages, good caching/invalidation, API integration etc. Waiting for that :-) > The only thing that I can think of right away is simply inserting automated > descriptions by bot. This isn't ideal, but I can't think of a better > solution > that wouldn't be hugely complicated (and would thus not be implemented any > time > soon). Maybe you have ideas? I think that would be a massive waste, and it would miss one of the points of AD, which is improvement with more/better statements. What I /can/ see is a cached AD in a new field, one which gets invalidated on every item edit, and maybe on every related item edit (new/better labels for description). The wb_terms table could support that easily, AFAICT. It could be used for search results, and it could be shown as placeholder for, or below, the manual description in the interface. This would, however, require engineering beyond what I can offer as a volunteer. It could also profit from the involvement of someone versed in linguistics. Cheers, Magnus > -- daniel > Am 09.02.2015 um 11:41 schrieb Magnus Manske: > > Manual descriptions are, in the vast majority of cases, a waste of > volunteer > > time. Alternative: > > http://magnusmanske.de/wordpress/?p=265 > > > On Sun Feb 08 2015 at 17:37:42 Gerard Meijssen < > gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com > > <mailto:gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>> wrote: > > > Hoi, > > How does that help ? The point is exactly that there is no point to > > descriptions. Why iterate on a dog it will still be a mutt. > > Thanks, > > GerardM > > > On 8 February 2015 at 14:07, Amir E. Aharoni < > amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il > > <mailto:amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il>> wrote: > > > I'd rather see it not as something terribly disappointing, but > as an > > opportunity to find a way to fill item descriptions more > efficiently. > > > Basically, to find some cycles to resolve > > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T64695 > > > בתאריך 8 בפבר 2015 10:33, ‏"Gerard Meijssen" < > gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com > > <mailto:gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>> כתב: > > > Hoi, > > I understand that item descriptions are going to be used in > a mobile > > app. In my opinion that is seriously disappointing because > it is not > > realistic to expect enough coverage in any language. > Particularly in > > the small languages it will not be really useful. > > > My question is: we have had automated descriptions for a > long time. > > What is it that they makes that they are not used.? > > > Thanks, > > GerardM > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikidata-l mailing list > > Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikidata-l@lists. > wikimedia.org> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikidata-l mailing list > > Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikidata-l@lists. > wikimedia.org> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l > > > > _________________________________________________ > > Wikidata-l mailing list > > Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikidata-l@lists. > wikimedia.org> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/__mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l > > <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l> > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikidata-l mailing list > > Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l > > -- > Daniel Kinzler > Senior Software Developer > Wikimedia Deutschland > Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. > _______________________________________________ > Wikidata-l mailing list > Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

I assume Magnus is referring to cases where for example, an item exists because someone's biography has been added to the Esperanto Wikipedia as a leading esperantist, but whose actual claim to fame for other Wikipedias is quite different (e.g. the person was a poet in another language, a leading politician in some city, etc). On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 12:26 PM, Daniel Kinzler &lt;daniel.kinzler(a)wikimedia.de

Am 09.02.2015 um 13:26 schrieb Magnus Manske: Thanks! Since wb_terms has one row per term, and a field for the term type, it would be simple enough to inject "auto-descriptions". The only issue is that wb_terms is already pretty huge, and adding automatic descriptions in *all* languages would likely bloat it a lot more. Language variants could be omitted, but still - that's a lot of data... -- Daniel Kinzler Senior Software Developer Wikimedia Deutschland Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.

Oh, real-live example for "short automatic descriptions" (same code as the API) vs. manual ones: Searching for "Peter" on Wikidata, with autodesc gadget: https://twitter.com/MagnusManske/status/564782161845551104 On Mon Feb 09 2015 at 13:09:27 Magnus Manske &lt;magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote:

On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 3:22 PM, Kingsley Idehen &lt;kidehen(a)openlinksw.com&gt; wrote: Can you please open a ticket for this on phabricator.wikimedia.org? Then we have it in our todo list. Thanks. Cheers Lydia -- Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher Product Manager for Wikidata Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 10963 Berlin www.wikimedia.de Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.

On Mon Feb 09 2015 at 12:08:01 Amir E. Aharoni &lt;amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il&gt; wrote: I never said that, so please don't put words in my mouth. I did say, on several occasions, that, for the vast majority of items, manual descriptions are a waste of volunteer time. For cases where "the point" of the item is not easily expressible as statements, manual descriptions are indeed useful. But the number of cases where this applies will only shrink, as we get more properties on Wikidata, and as the description generators get better. Which is one reason my automatic description API defaults to short descriptions, unless you ask for a long one. Even then, it will default to short, unless the language/item type combination is covered. The short description generator covers more languages, and is easily extendable. Check out "stock" at https://bitbucket.org/magnusmanske/autodesc/src/019b395c1bd5e13720e5cfda4df… I think the results are, at the very least, understandable by humans; and yes, these things tend to get better very quickly (developers! developers! <throws chair>). Thanks, and it should not. But a little developer time can save megahours (new unit!) of volunteers performing needless work. Yes, labels are a different beast. Though there are some things we could automate; basically, all people with a German label and no English one could use the German one in English just as well. Those cases aside, automated translation can be helpful, but can also go horribly wrong in cases.

On 09.02.2015 11:41, Magnus Manske wrote: I am slightly concerned for the external data users (which I am too). Descriptions are very useful to have in the data dumps. I don't mind if they are auto-generated or written by humans, but I am worried that I would have to go to a web service for fetching all them, which seems a lot of work and very time consuming if you do it on the data dump scale. It may not even be possilbe in all (offline) contexts where dumps can be used. More generally, switching from "we provide the data" to "we provide some data and a list of web services that you need to query to get the rest" seems to be a change of paradigm that I am not entirely happy with. Just consider how much data we import that is generated automatically -- should we in all of this cases switch to offering a web service that gives you the data if you really need? So, +1 for auto-generated descriptions, but -1 for not having them in the data anymore. Cheers, Markus -- Markus Kroetzsch Faculty of Computer Science Technische Universität Dresden +49 351 463 38486 http://korrekt.org/

Am 09.02.2015 um 12:08 schrieb Magnus Manske: It's entirely practical, and apparently what at least some consumers of our dumps expect and desire. -- Daniel Kinzler Senior Software Developer Wikimedia Deutschland Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.

Am 09.02.2015 um 12:25 schrieb Magnus Manske: Possibly. Depends on how much more data this would actually be. Which also depends on whether we would omit descriptions in languages that can easily be covered by language fallback (e.g. no separate descriptions in de-ch and de-at). -- Daniel Kinzler Senior Software Developer Wikimedia Deutschland Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.

Hoi, It is pointless to include automated descriptions when they are then saved in a fixed form. The point of automated descriptions is exactly that they change as new statements are made. This is one reason why they are superior to manual descriptions. The other is that when one label is added in a language, it immediately affects all items that include the associated item. When the argument is that external users need the best descriptions available at whatever time, it is best to have the automated descriptions separate. We have enough experience of the disruption caused by failing dumps. Given that there is a need for descriptions for off line usage, it makes sense to consider caching such a file and removing the content that is changed and have it regenerated in a batch process. When a description is needed it can always be generated there and then. These can be used interactively as well. Thanks, GerardM On 9 February 2015 at 13:21, Markus Kroetzsch < markus.kroetzsch(a)tu-dresden.de&gt; wrote:

On 9 February 2015 at 10:41, Magnus Manske &lt;magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: Why not make that part of the Wikidata game? You could show the proposed description and the article lede, in the user's preferred language, then offer options to: * Accept the prosed description * Edit the proposed description, then save it * reject the proposed description and skip to the next article For "en" users, you could add a check-box to "also save the proposed description to "simple". -- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk