Newsletter #114: Wikifunctions is starting up - Abstract-Wikipedia

7 Aug 2023

This newsletter can be found on the Web here:
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/08/07/wikifunctions-is-starting-up/

After three years of development, we are excited to share that Wikifunctions
<https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikifunctions:Main_Page>
is
slowly beginning to roll out.

Wikifunctions, the newest Wikimedia project, is a new space to
collaboratively create and maintain a library of functions. You can think
of these functions like recipes for a meal—they take inputs and produce an
output (a reliable answer). You might have experienced something similar
when using a search engine to find the distance between two locations, the
volume of an object, converting two units, and more.

You can learn more about how Wikifunctions works in this short video on
Commons
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikifunctions_in_7_minutes.webm>
 and YouTube <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHy63VOp0RQ>.

Wikifunctions is a project that allows you to create new functions, run
existing functions, and understand how they work. We anticipate that the
system will eventually be able to generate sentences, texts, and full
articles. Using the simple facts housed in Wikidata
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page>, you will be able to
write functions that make calculations, provide a person’s age, estimate
population densities, and more, and integrate the results into Wikipedia.

Additionally, Wikifunctions allows you to read and implement functions in
your native language, be that English, Spanish, Arabic, Bengali, or one of
the hundreds of other supported languages.

At the moment, just like any other new Wikimedia initiative, we are rolling
out Wikifunctions with minimal content and features to start. Logged-in
contributors can run a few early functions, and editing will be limited as
we test the project’s stability. You can request edit access
<https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:Apply_for_editing> on
Wikifunctions, and we will give out the rights to more people as we test
and learn. Things will bend, break, get fixed, and break again as we build
up the project’s capabilities. For now, we are excited to announce that the
Wikimedia communities have decided on the very first function: *join
together* <https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z10000>. The function
takes two strings and returns them combined. If you are logged-in, you can
try it out now on Wikifunctions
<https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z10000>.

We are looking forward to a thriving community to grow and maintain a
library of many useful and interesting functions in the future.
------------------------------

Wikifunctions is a core component of the larger Abstract Wikipedia
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Abstract_Wikipedia>
initiative,
which will enable Wikimedia volunteer editors to create and maintain
content in a single place that can be shared across languages. In short:
Abstract Wikipedia will build a system where an editor can contribute
knowledge using their native Swahili, and a reader will be able to benefit
from that knowledge by reading it in their native Japanese.
Thank you

On behalf of the Abstract Wikipedia team and the whole Wikimedia movement,
please join me in welcoming Wikifunctions as a new project. We can’t be
more excited to invite you to experience it.

We plan to continue developing Wikifunctions to add new features: we will
build in better support for programming languages, access to Wikidata,
integration with Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, the ability to
deal with binary data files, and much more.

If you are interested in working with us to build a catalog of functions
(and have some patience to deal with the hiccups of an early new project),
please join us <https://www.wikifunctions.org/> as a contributor on
Wikifunctions! We are looking forward to becoming a new community.

We thank Google.org, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Wikimedia
Endowment for their support.