New subject: Proposal towards a multilingual Wikipedia and a new Wikipedia project

14 Apr 2020

As some of you know, I have been working on the idea of a multilingual
Wikipedia for a few years now. Two other publications on this are here, I
have bothered you with mails about it here previously too:

https://research.google/pubs/pub48057/

https://wikipedia20.pubpub.org/pub/vyf7ksah

I've also been giving talks about the topic in several places about this
idea, some of them have also been recorded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzVA7YLwhTE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLiJ6E9sG6U&list=PLQVG_tuf3Q2fji-CwqEDR…

I gathered some awesome feedback in those few years (also from some members
of this list, thank you!), and I also implemented a few prototypes trying
out the idea, learning a lot from that.

All of this has helped to sharpen the idea and come up with a more concrete
proposal. In short, the proposal is that we do a two-step approach: first,
allow for capturing Wikipedia content in an abstract notation, and second,
allow for creating functions that translate this abstract notation into
natural language (For simplicity, I gave this two steps names, Abstract
Wikipedia for step 1, and Wikilambda for step 2. I realize that both names
are not perfect, but that is just one of the many things that we can figure
out together on the way).

I wrote up this proposal in a paper, which I uploaded to my Website almost
two weeks ago, and I also submitted it to Arxiv. And as soon as it was
published on Arxiv, I wanted to share it with you and see what you folks
think (I wanted to wait for it as Arxiv would allow the URLs to remains
table - my Website has gone down before and might so again).

https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.04733

The new proposal is much more concrete than the previous proposals (and
therefore there is much more to criticize). Also, obviously, nothing of
this is set in stone, and just like the names, I am very much looking
forward to hear suggestions for how to improve the whole thing, and I will
blatantly steal every good idea and proposal. I am not even sure what a
good venue for this discussion is, I guess, eventually it should be on
Meta?, but also about that I would like to hear proposals.

Abstract Wikipedia is a proposed extension to Wikidata that would capture
the content next to the Wikidata items. Think of it as a new namespace,
where we could create, maintain, and collaborate on the abstract content.
Similar to the Wikidata-bridge, there should be a way to allow
contributions from the Wikipedias to flow back without too much friction.
The individual Wikipedias - and I cannot stress this enough - have the
choice to use some or any or all or none of the content from Abstract
Wikipedia, but I most definitely do not expect the content of the current
Wikipedias to be replaced by this. In fact, I have no doubt that any decent
article in any language Wikipedia will remain superior to the outcome of
the proposed new architecture by far. This is a proposal for the places
where the current system left us with gaps, not a proposal to turn the
parts that are already brilliant today dull and terrible tomorrow.

Wikilambda is a proposed new Wikimedia project that allows us to share in a
new form of knowledge assets, functions. You can think of it as similar to
Modules or Templates, but a bit extended, with places for tests, different
languages, evaluation, and also for all kind of functions, not only those
that are immediately useful for one of the Wikimedia projects, and most
importantly, shared among the projects. So one of the first goals would be
to increasingly allow fo a place to have global templates, another idea
that has been discussed and asked for for a very long time. Wikilambda,
just as Wikidata, is expected to start as a project supporting the
immediate needs of the sister projects, and over time to grow to a project
that stands on its own merits as well.

We don't really have an effective process for starting new projects, so I
am trying to follow a similar path that we took for Wikidata back then. And
back then it all started with Markus Krötzsch, me and others talking about
the idea to anyone who would listen until everyone was bored of hearing it,
trying out prototypes, and then talking about it even more, and improving
all of it constantly based on your feedback. And then making increasingly
concrete proposals until we managed to show some kind of consensus from the
communities, you, and the Foundation to actually do it. And then, well, do
it.

So, I've done some of the talking, with researchers, with the public, with
some of you, and also with folks at the Foundation, to figure out what next
steps could be, and how this can be made to work. Here's a more concrete
proposal. Now I am here to see whether we can find consensus and be bold. I
want to hear from you. I want to hear what you think what the right place
is to discuss this (here, this list? Another mailing list? Meta? Wikidata?
Some Telegram or Facebook group? (OK, I was joking about the latter)).
Which parts of the proposal are good and which need improvement? Where is
more detail or clarification needed to allow for a meaningful discussion?

Just as with Wikipedia and Wikidata and our other projects, this is a crazy
idea at first. Maybe even more crazy than our other projects. And the only
way there is a chance of us being successful is, if, eventually, thousands
of us work together on it. The only way this worked in the past is by being
open, start out collaboratively, discuss the path forward, and work towards
creating the project together.

Stay safe,
Denny