Hey,
Anyone know of any Wikibase installs where people have installed PAWS (
https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/PAWS ) and created notebooks as an
alternative way to writing queries on the query engine? Or developed any
PAWS notebooks to make managing a Wikibase install easier?
Sincerely,
Laura Hale
--
twitter: purplepopple
Hi,
Wikibase is amazing software, and if some of the tools being developed for
Wikidata can be re-purposed for Wikibase, its potential grows even more
exponentially. (In the same way that some extensions and the ease of
upgrading made Mediawiki a much more desirable CMS than it might have
otherwise been.)
I was hoping people could share what their projects are, a little bit about
the project and its purpose. In this context, I was hoping people might be
willing to share what your priorities are as it relates to Wikibase and
meeting project goals.
In case you don't know, Miguel and I are involved with ParaSports
Data. ParaSports
Data is a disability and disability sports knowledge base that can serve as
a powerful resource for academics, NGOs and other stakeholders in the area
of disability rights and disability sports. ParaSport Data was conceived in
2016 as a resource for structured data about disability and disability
sport, including facts like dates, performance results, disability
population sizes, event information, and classification related data. Using
Wikipedia and Wikidata as a model, it seeks to be the largest single
knowledgebase about disability and disability sport that allows for
stakeholders to search, analyze and re-use this data to draw awareness to
disability, disability sports and human rights as an extension of those two
things. The purpose of this project is to create a data set of Paralympic,
Deaflympic, Special Olympics, other disability sports and general
disability information for use by researchers.
As it relates to Wikibase, our immediate needs and concerns around these
needs probably fall into the following four areas:
1. Upgrading MediaWiki, Wikibase, the Query Engine, and installing
Extension:OAuth and Quick Statements. This is not explained anywhere, and
the best process as we understand it is outlined at
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329028278_Wikibase_Upgrade_Workflow
. It makes it scary to do on our own as there is no process, lack of
documentation and it is hard to locate others who have successfully done
this.
2. Better optimizing the Wikibase software and query engine so it uses
fewer server resources. (This partly ties into point three.)
3. Identifying funding sources to pay for our installation as I currently
pay out of pocket for all hosting, and this is not a long term solution.
4. Improving bulk data import on Wikibase to prevent fewer errors, and
need to merge items after the fact. This is because either the Wikibase
software or the way we bulk import only exact matches item names. If in
bulk creating items, an item description is different than the existing
one, it creates a new item. Statements are then added to the lowest Q
number when adding statements based on an item name match.
What are your priorities as it comes to your own installations? :)
--
twitter: purplepopple
Hi,
This was touched on the Telegram group for a quick period of time but as
those conversations can quickly disappear, I thought I would bring it up
here. :) That way it can be easier to find.
While doing a PostDoc at the University of Salamanca, my supervisor
suggested that I create a project on Research Gate to better promote
ParaSports Data. I had done this but never really updated it until this
past week as sometimes it just seems like another thing to do when I would
rather be doing data. :) But if the goal is to encourage academic re-use
of the project, my supervisor argued it was worth the time and effort to be
on the site (despite the shortcomings expounded elsewhere about the
commercialization aspect of academic work). It can be found at
https://www.researchgate.net/project/ParaSports-Data . Any feedback on the
project would be appreciated, and I have tried to make it more about
creating a disability knowledge base, and about the software that powers it.
I know one or two other people mentioned on Telegram having used Research
Gate, and it would be great to hear more about their experiences. :)
Sincerely,
Laura Hale
--
twitter: purplepopple
Hi,
Anyone have any advice regarding upgrading Wikibase? We want to upgrade
the install at https://para-sports.es/ but there are a bunch of technical
hurdles that are difficult to get past. These include:
1. Upgrading Mediawiki to the latest version in order to be able to
upgrade Wikibase. This needs to be done without changing the local
customization settings and while trying to maintain a potential Mediawiki
farm, as we want to be able to have a local image thing like Commons that
can be pulled into Wikibase where Commons would be.
2. Upgrading extensions to be current with new version of Mediawiki.
3. Upgrading Wikibase after upgrading Mediawiki. Our database for
Wikibase is over 100,000 items, We don't want to screw this up.
4. Upgrading the query engine after this, and being able to better
localize this as the current examples are from Wikidata, and we can't seem
to get rid of the Wikidata logo from the Query engine.
5. Installing the OAuth extension. This is required for Quick
statements extension.
6. Installing QuickStatements.
Has anyone else who has updated Wikibase dealt with these issues? Is there
any advice?
Sincerely,
Laura Hale
--
twitter: purplepopple
Is anyone else using Research Gate as a way to get researchers interested
in the data available on their Wikibase installs?
I had a research project there, but was encouraged by my PostDoc supervisor
to be more proactive in using the space and similar spaces to share updates
on projects, request assistance from other academics, share some datasets
culled from the project, share draft papers using the data that might not
be ready for prime time and ask academics in my discipline on the site how
the project can assist them in their work. Curious if others had been
directed in a similar type of direction.
Sincerely,
Laura Hale
--
twitter: purplepopple
hi all,
I have created a telegram group to facilitate wtter communication. While
Slack works really well for Miguel and I personally, I have come to realize
it is not as used nor as easily accessible as telegram. :)
https://t.me/joinchat/CNWKUwqLfaRFGI-Irp9qSg is the URL for group for
anyone interested in joining. :)
I have also created an IRc channel but chances of being available there
often are small as I am not a regular user. :) it is at #wikibase-cug on
freenode.
sincerely,
Laura Hale
Hi,
I participated remotely in the Wikidata Zurich Meetup - Wikidata BDay
session. And while not entirely related to Wikibase, I prepared for it by
writing answers to questions and I thought it might be interesting to some
people...
(I) How is Wikidata valuable / useful for you or your organization? If
possible, describe it with a concrete example
1. Wikidata is valuable as a model for how to organize properties on your
own Wikibase install, and finding ideas for how to use your data. It is
also useful as an easy to extract data from source to start building your
own Wikibase install.
(II) Please indicate 1 thing that you particularly like from Wikidata, and
1 thing that you don’t feel so comfortable with from Wikidata
2. Wikidata is a lot like old school library catalogs. Information is
near each other and can suggest alternative pathways or relationships that
can be worth exploring when writing academic papers.
One thing I do not like are generic nature of some properties which make it
hard to use domain specific knowledge in a way that is easily extractable
for queries or knowing what should be entered. An example is
classification. For Paralympic sports, this is the type of disability
classification used in competition, but it can also refer to classes of
submarines. For education, it can mean university or a non-educational
sports organization where someone got a scholarship to sponsor elite
sport. This can require huge domain subject knowledge to clean up.
Things I do not like are unsourced statements, which make it hard to judge
value of data as many numbers have a subjective value based on who created
them. For example, how many people died as a result of World War I.
Better to have multiple numbers with multiple sources than one source, even
if they disagree. Death toll from Hurrican Maria is another example where
multiple numbers is a good thing, even if there is source conflict.
what else can Wikidata do to keep / improve data quality
3. Quality can be improved by adding more references to statements, and
realizing that one statement on a property may not be enough. Encourage
people to source, especially when manually adding data. When doing bulk
data imports, make sure there is a quality aspect to it and seek out these
sources. Don't necessarily wait for people to offer data.
how do you think we can get more newcomers involved?
4. Get more newcomers involved by thinking more about data output.
Wikidata items are meant to be read by machines, not by humans. Humans
need human readable output. That output needs to be created in such a way
that it is useful. The query engine creates to many barriers to entry for
data use.
Also, realize that different users have different needs. Think about needs
of specific user groups and how to address the needs of that group.
Wikipedians, academics, edit-a-thon organizers and developers all have
different needs. By addressing those needs more specifically, you can
better reach these audiences.
Sincerely,
Laura Hale
--
twitter: purplepopple
Has anyone successfully installed Quick Statements to run on their Wikibase
install? If so, how did you accomplish that?
Sincerely,
Laura Hale
--
twitter: purplepopple