Dear Wikibase and Wikidata Communities,
As mentioned in our latest announcements about upcoming strategic changes,
we decided to pour our energy into ecosystem-related activities such as
federation and data governance. As you might know, our Linked Open Data
Strategy
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LinkedOpenData/Strategy2021/Wikibase> is
built on the idea that our products are capable of building synergies as
well as growing sustainably.
With this research project, we hope to get a more nuanced understanding of
which projects are perceived to belong into which product category. We aim
to synthesize and map how people currently use the three LOD products, what
their desired use cases are, and where the boundaries between these
platforms may need clarification or additional support.
This process is part of a broader strategy to ensure our hosting
infrastructure remains sustainable and mission-aligned.
A key outcome will be a clearer understanding of:
-
What kinds of projects are best suited for each LOD product
-
Where overlap, duplication, or ambiguity exists
-
How we can make more mission-aligned, predictable decisions on growth
and hosting
Process Design
You will be invited to participate in an asynchronous card sort exercise
where you will be asked to sort imagined projects into four categories:
-
1 - Wikibase Cloud
-
2 - Wikidata
-
3 - Suite or other ways of Wikibase hosting
-
4 - Wikibase is not a suitable software for this use case
Participants will be asked to explain their thought process aloud so that
we can also ensure that we’re considering the full dimensions of each use
case (e.g., technical needs, scope, resource requirements). The results
will inform product strategy across WBC, WBS, and WD—while also offering
key insights into ambivalent or complex areas that require further
discussion.
This approach ensures everyone can participate in their own time, without
needing to attend multiple meetings.
We’re offering two ways to participate:
1. Card Sort Research Activity (Primary Method)
-
Asynchronous (early- mid-July)
-
Approx. 30 minutes
-
No technical expertise required
-
Focused on sorting and classifying use cases
-
Recorded screen and microphone
-
Optional: follow-up interview (if you’d like to talk more)
2. Extended Stakeholder Group (Optional Additional Involvement)
Includes:
-
Asynchronous activity (above)
-
Research insights discussion (synchronous, 30-45 minutes, end of July)
-
Async policy draft review (end of August)
-
Group session (August, 1.5–2 hours)
Total time: ~3.5 hours
Compensation: 35 EUR (if eligible)
Participation
We aim to recruit at least 30, ideally up to 50 community members across
the LOD ecosystem to participate in the research activities, including:
-
Wikibase Cloud users
-
Self-hosted Wikibase users
-
Wikidata users who are invested in the broader Wikibase ecosystem.
-
At least 10 marginalized knowledge holders
Join us!
We will send a link to participate in the card-sort within the next week.
If you would like to participate in the Extended Stakeholder Group, please
reach out to us via email: annie.kim(a)wikimedia.de. We will share the
opportunities as they come up, likely at the end of July and the end of
August, respectively.
Thank you for your continued care and contributions. We're looking forward
to exploring this research with you! :)
On behalf of the Linked Open Data Ecosystem,
Valerie Wollinger (She/Her)
Community Communications Manager Wikibase
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0)30-577 11 62-0https://wikimedia.de
Keep up to date! Current news and exciting stories about Wikimedia,
Wikipedia and Free Knowledge in our newsletter (in German): Subscribe
now <https://www.wikimedia.de/newsletter/>.
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us to achieve our
vision!https://spenden.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.
V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Charlottenburg, VR
23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207. Geschäftsführende
Vorständin: Franziska Heine
Dear Wikibase Community,
Today we’re releasing two features, one for Wikibase Suite Deploy and the
other for the Wikibase Image. With these releases, Wikibase Suite Deploy
becomes compatible with SELinux and we added new system dependencies to the
Wikibase Image.
Highlights
Following are the highlights of these new features:
For Wikibase Suite Deploy:
-
We had to instruct docker to add "SELinux labels" to host file system
volume mounts in order to allow containers to access files and write in
there.
-
On SELinux, the traefik container was not allowed to use the docker
socket anymore. Therefore, we moved the traefik configuration from docker
labels to a traefik config file.
You can find all the changes here:
https://github.com/wmde/wikibase-release-pipeline/commit/e70777977ffed8620e…
For the Wikibase Image:
-
These system dependencies unlock the use of additional extensions
supporting several types of media files.
-
System dependencies we added: ghostscript, poppler-utils, exiv2,
libtiff-tools, ffmpeg, and libvips-tools.
-
This allows the use of extensions such as PdfHandler
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:PdfHandler>, PagedTiffHandler
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:PagedTiffHandler>,
TimedMediaHandler
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TimedMediaHandler>, VipsScaler
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:VipsScaler> and others.
You can find all the relevant changes here:
https://github.com/wmde/wikibase-release-pipeline/commit/ecb2da1a68bb7aaa84…
This feature builds on one of our previous releases which allowed users to add
user-defined extensions
<https://github.com/wmde/wikibase-release-pipeline/tree/main/deploy#user-def…>.
We hope this further supports you to customize your Wikibase Suite Instance!
How to get itNew installation
To install Wikibase Suite Deploy, follow the instructions in our
documentation
<https://github.com/wmde/wikibase-release-pipeline/tree/main/deploy#initial-…>
.
Updating from earlier versions of Wikibase Suite Deploy
For information on how to upgrade from earlier versions of Wikibase Suite
Deploy, check out our upgrading documentation
<https://github.com/wmde/wikibase-release-pipeline/tree/main/deploy#minor-an…>
.
Got feedback or questions?
Join our channels on Telegram https://t.me/wikibasesuite and
https://t.me/+WBsf9-C9KPuMZCDT. You can also check out our Phabricator
board at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/view/5755/.
We can’t wait to hear what you think of this feature!
Want to stay up to date?
Sign up for our mailing list to follow and participate in discussions about
Wikibase development:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikibaseug.lists.wikimedia.org/
Best,
--
Deepesha Burse
Developer Advocate
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0)30-577 11 62-0
https://wikimedia.de
Keep up to date! Current news and exciting stories about Wikimedia,
Wikipedia and Free Knowledge in our newsletter (in German): Subscribe now.
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us to achieve our vision!
https://spenden.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Charlottenburg, VR 23855 B.
Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/029/42207. Geschäftsführende Vorstände: Franziska Heine.