The on-wiki version of this newsletter is available here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2021-06-04
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We are planning for our first office hour! The Wikifunctions and Abstract
Wikipedia office hours will be online events where the development team
presents what they have been working on recently, and the community is
welcome to ask questions and discuss important related issues. They will be
announced on the mailing list and in the newsletter, and are planned to
take place every four to six weeks.
Our first office hour will be at 16:00 UTC on June 22, 2021, and will be in
the Telegram channel and IRC Channel #wikipedia-abstractconnect
<https://web.libera.chat/?channel=#wikipedia-abstract> (bridged together).
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Shani Evenstein Sigalov <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Esh77> is
teaching a course “From Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, from Wikipedia to Wikidata” at Tel
Aviv University <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Aviv_University>. Shani
prepared a video with Denny Vrandečić
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Denny> where they discuss Abstract
Wikipedia and Wikifunctions. The video is available on YouTube
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GjNkrvT7Yc>.
In the interview Shani and Denny discussed some of the challenges in
Wikipedia and Wikidata, and how they brought about the idea of Abstract
Wikipedia. What the differences are between "Abstract Wikipedia",
"Wikifunctions" and "WikiLambda"; What the current state of the
project is;
and how it all ties to the current Internet Ecosystem and things like AI
and Machine Learning.
Next Monday, June 7th, at 15:00 Israel time (12:00 UTC), Shani will be
hosting Denny in her course for a 45 mins Q & A session with her students
via Zoom. This part of the class will be open to anyone interested in this
topic, and you are welcome to either join them live and ask questions to
Denny (after watching the pre-recorded interview), or watch it all later.
If you are interested in joining, please write Shani an email (shani dot
even at gmail dot com) with the title "Joining the Q & A session with
Denny", by Sunday June 6th at 20:00 UTC, and she will send you the Zoom
link. This is to avoid Zoombombing.
If you are unable to participate live, but still want to engage, feel free
to send in questions via email or leave them on Shani’s Facebook post
<https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1932697493549355&id=100004273693748#_=_>.
The session will also be recorded, so if you cannot make it to the live
session, you will be able to watch it later on YouTube.
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Lucas Werkmeister <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lucas_Werkmeister>,
our esteemed colleague at Wikimedia Deutschland, who runs the Notwikilambda
site <https://notwikilambda.toolforge.org/> as a volunteer, has set up the
function evaluator and function orchestrator on Notwikilambda. He also
created instructive videos of him doing so on Twitch:
- Lucas setting up the function orchestrator
<https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1039150002>
- Lucas setting up the function evaluator
<https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1042511078>
These videos get automatically deleted after two weeks, i.e. in another
week after publishing this newsletter.
The function orchestrator is the service that receives a function call,
validates it, brings all necessary information together, calls the function
evaluator as needed, and eventually will resolve function compositions. The
function evaluator, on the other hand, takes code provided by Wikifunctions
contributors and runs it in order to produce results for the orchestrator.
Both of them are now set up on Notwikilambda, thanks to Lucas' work. Thank
you!
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Boris Shalumov <https://2020-eu.semantics.cc/users/boris-shalumov>, host of
the podcast “Chaos Orchestra” on the topic of Knowledge Graphs, has also
interviewed Denny (among other guests, such as Sören Auer, a co-founder of
DBpedia, Jans Aasman, CEO of Franz Inc, or Daniel Schwabe, Professor at the
Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, and a few others), and they discuss
Wikidata, Wikifunctions, and many other topics.
The podcast episode is available on YouTube
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcEdlxXlJS8>, Spotify
<https://open.spotify.com/show/3CMVAHbd7lNb2yObyl8ERe?si=FnTIGlj7SaKBwJ7a3zPJLQ&nd=1>,
and Google Podcasts
<https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNzY3NDgzLnJzcw>
.
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We'll also participate in the Arctic Knot conference
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/06/02/arctic-knot-envision-the-future-of-your-language-community/>
this
year. Community member Mahir Morshed
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mahir256> will present on how to get
the lexicographic data ready to be used in Abstract Wikipedia, and Denny
will present on Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions in general.
The conference will be free, fully online, and registration is open
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Knot_Conference_2021> right now.
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On the development side, this week saw the start of the performance and
security reviews, to make sure the architecture and implementation are on
solid ground to take us to the launch later this year. They are both
scheduled to go for two weeks. We are cooperating with the respective teams
at the Wikimedia Foundation and are thankful for their support regarding
these critical aspects of the new project.