Hello all!
The Search Platform Team usually holds an open meeting on the first
Wednesday of each month. This month is an exception, the team is at an
offsite on February 5th, our office hours are moved to February 12. Come
talk to us about anything related to Wikimedia search, Wikidata Query
Service (WDQS), Wikimedia Commons Query Service (WCQS), etc.!
Feel free to add your items to the Etherpad Agenda for the next meeting.
Details for our next meeting:
Date: Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Time: 16:00-17:00 UTC / 08:00 PST / 11:00 EST / 17:00 CET
Etherpad: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Search_Platform_Office_Hours
Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/vgj-bbeb-uyi
Join by phone: https://tel.meet/vgj-bbeb-uyi?pin=8118110806927
Have fun and see you soon!
--
*Guillaume Lederrey* (he/him)
Engineering Manager
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
On behalf of the Islandora Foundation, we invite submission of proposals
for IslandoraCon 2025, taking place July 14-17, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada
on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with options to
present and attend online.
The theme of IslandoraCon 2025 is: All in on Islandora.
IslandoraCon brings together a community of librarians, archivists,
cultural heritage collections managers, technologists, developers, project
managers, and open source project enthusiasts in support of the Islandora
framework for digital curation and asset management.
We welcome proposals on a wide range of topics related to managing
collections with Islandora, developing Drupal modules and software support
for Islandora, and Islandora community initiatives and interests. These may
include:
-
Digital accessibility
-
Workflows, policies, and training
-
Multimedia viewers and displays
-
Institutional repository requirements, migrations and integrations
-
Metadata
-
Documentation
-
User testing
-
Bots, site performance, and security
-
Drupal versions, updates, modules, and potential integrations
-
Islandora architecture and affordances
-
Digital preservation workflows and integrations
-
Digital exhibits
-
Assessment and metrics
We anticipate having a variety of session formats, including lightning
talks (5 minutes), individual presentations, panel discussions, and longer
workshops, training, or troubleshooting sessions. Sessions will be 25 or 50
minutes, which includes time for questions. The planning committee is open
to additional suggestions for session formats – in your proposal, please
indicate what kind of format you think will best fit your topic and
presenters. All sessions will be streamed and/or recorded.
If you have an idea for a session and are looking for co-organizers or
co-presenters, please post in the IslandoraCon 2025 Slack channel
<https://app.slack.com/client/TLL690XEU/C07BZDFLN3S>!
Deadline for session proposals: February 14, 2024. Please use this Google
form <https://forms.gle/evK99y7rSdRYQLit8> for proposal submissions. If you
have questions about proposal format or submission, please post in the
IslandoraCon
2025 Slack channel <https://app.slack.com/client/TLL690XEU/C07BZDFLN3S>or
email IslandoraCon 2025 chairs Cory Lampert <cory.lampert(a)unlv.edu> or Cary
Gordon <cgordon(a)chillco.com>. We look forward to seeing you there!
[image: UNLV Logo] <http://unlv.edu/>
Cory Lampert
Professor and Head, Digital Collections
University Libraries
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Pronouns: she/her
cory.lampert(a)unlv.edu
Office: 702-895-2209 <17028952209>
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9467-5214
[image: A button with "Hear my name" text for name playback in email
signature] <https://www.name-coach.com/cory-lampert>
I live, work, and learn on *NuWu- Southern Paiute Land.* To learn more
about the Paiute Nation, their history, and the history of this land, visit
here <https://www.kaibabpaiute-nsn.gov/spc/SPCp2.html> and here
<https://utahindians.org/archives/paiutes/history.html>. Learn about land
acknowledgments and ways to be in solidarity with Native nations beyond
land acknowledgments here
<https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_CAyH4WUfQXTXo3MjZHRC00ajg>.
Dear Colleagues,
We are delighted to announce the 3rd Workshop on Semantic Technologies and Deep Learning Models for Scientific, Technical, and Legal Data, to be held on June 1st or 2nd, 2025, in Portoroz, Slovenia, as part of ESWC 2025.
We invite you to submit your research and join us in vibrant discussions with experts in the field.
Key Dates:
* Abstract Submission: February 28th, 2025
* Paper Submission: March 6th, 2025
* Notifications: April 3rd, 2025
* Camera-Ready Contributions: April 17th, 2025
* Final Papers Zip Archive: April 17th, 2025
* Workshop Dates: June 1st or 2nd, 2025
Workshop Scope:
This workshop focuses on leveraging Semantic Technologies, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Deep Neural Networks (DNN), and Large Language Models (LLMs) to address challenges in processing and analyzing scientific, technical, and legal data. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
* Data collection and sharing
* Knowledge graph construction
* LLM-based applications for metadata and semantic modeling
* NLP techniques for classification, summarization, and exploratory search
* Ethical and privacy considerations in data representation
For the full list of topics and submission guidelines, visit our website: https://semtech4stld.github.io/ <https://semtech4stld.github.io/>
Submission Details:
Submissions must adhere to the CEUR-WS one-column template https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-XXX/ and be submitted as PDFs via EasyChair. Accepted papers will be published in a CEUR-WS volume, indexed on Google Scholar, DBLP, and Scopus.
We welcome the following submission types:
* Full Research Papers: 8-12 pages
* Short Papers: 5-7 pages
* Position or Industry Papers: 3-5 pages
* Extended Abstracts: 1-2 pages
Workshop Chairs:
1. Hidir Aras(FIZ Karlsruhe - Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure, Germany)
1. Rima Dessi'(Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates)
1. Jeenu Joy(FIZ Karlsruhe - Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure, Germany)
1. Danilo Dessi'(Department of Computer Science, College of Computing and Engineering, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE)
2. Francesco Osborne(The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom)
For general inquiries on the workshop, please send an email to ddessi(a)sharjah.ac.ae<mailto:ddessi@sharjah.ac.ae> or jeenu.joy(a)fiz-Karlsruhe.de<mailto:jeenu.joy@fiz-Karlsruhe.de>
We look forward to your contributions and to welcoming you to Portoroz in June 2025!
Best regards,
Jeenu Joy, on Behalf of the other Workshop Organizers
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FIZ Karlsruhe - Leibniz-Institut für Informationsinfrastruktur GmbH.
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Amtsgericht Mannheim HRB 101892.
Geschäftsführer: Prof. Dr. Wolfram Horstmann.
Vorsitzende des Aufsichtsrats: MinR’in Marion Steinberger.
FIZ Karlsruhe ist zertifiziert mit dem Siegel "audit berufundfamilie".
This is amazing! Congrats to the team.
Magnus is raising a good point (thanks!), there is a standard API to integrate catalog into epub reader apps. It's called OPDS [1] and some Wikisource(s) publishes one [2] since a decade. However, it's not very user friendly and we never made outreach to integrate it natively into apps so it's not much used. This OPDS feed is not based on Wikidata but on metadata present inside of Wikisource.
I still think having our own Wikisource branded app is relevant for outreach and visibility, maybe building on OPDS instead of doing something bespoke would allow to reuse even more code?
Congrats again,
Thomas
[1] https://specs.opds.io/
[2] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Help:OPDS
Le vendredi 17 janvier 2025 à 15:37, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com> a écrit :
> This is great!
>
> Silly question: Considering that the reader app will display epub format, is there no existing (open source) epub reader app that could use Wikisource as a, well, source? I would be surprised if there is not a single app where you can set/add an API URL, we would just have to be compatible with that API spec.
>
> This could avoid a whole load of development and technical debt.
>
> On Fri, Jan 17, 2025 at 7:07 AM Bodhisattwa <bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello Wikisourcerers,
>>
>> We are excited to announce that we have been developing a Wikisource reader app for Android mobile users for the last three months and the beta version of the app is almost ready for testing. The development of the mobile app was a much-awaited request from the Wikisource community and when fully released, hopefully, it will help bring more readers to Wikisource platforms.
>>
>> Necessary links of the reader app
>>
>> - A documentation page is in draft on meta wiki here - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikisource_reader_app
>> - The Github repo of the code is here - https://github.com/cis-india/Wikisource-Reader
>>
>> Wikidata integration
>>
>> We have been using the FRBR data model used in the [Wikidata WikiProject Books](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Books) to handle the descriptive metadata needed for filtering and categorizing the contents of the app. To be included in the app, an edition should have
>>
>> - fully proofread or validated
>> - transcluded into the main namespace or NS:0
>> - a Wikidata item with descriptive metadata property like title, author etc.
>> - [Wikisource index page url (P1957)](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P1957) property linked with that item
>> - Wikisource sitelink for the NS:0 transcluded page linked with that item
>> - a proofread and/or validated badge linked with that sitelink.
>>
>> Here are a few example of the book editions which are included in the app
>>
>> - An example of a Bangla book edition is [this one](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q105763275)
>> - A list of all French books to be included in the app can be found here - https://w.wiki/CkMP
>> Pilot languages and API
>>
>> In the beta version, we have piloted with English, French and Bangla as these three languages are storing their metadata on Wikidata. We will roll out for other languages gradually. An API was built using Django and deployed on Toolforge which serves a catalogue of books following the data model described above. It periodically runs a set of SPARQL queries to retrieve data, processes that data and updates the database.
>>
>> - Link - https://wsindex.toolforge.org/books/
>> - Repo - https://codeberg.org/ph4ni/wsindex
>>
>> Features
>>
>> We have decided to display the books in epub format which will be generated through [WS-export tool](https://ws-export.wmcloud.org). Any issues related to epub generation can be reported [here](https://github.com/wikimedia/ws-export).
>>
>> Right now, the following features are available
>>
>> - Browse through a list of works which are completely proofread or validated.
>> - Filter based on the language or literary form of your choice.
>> - Search for books by title or author.
>> - Download books to your local device for offline access.
>> - Share links to the Wikisource page of each book.
>> - Read, delete, and track completion percentage of books in your local library.
>> - Change font size, look up words, and access a dictionary.
>> - Switch between dark and light themes for comfortable reading.
>> - Use the app in multiple languages.
>>
>> Currently, we are working on the following areas
>>
>> - Internal epub reader which can render the styling of the contents as much as possible
>> - Design of the contents and metadata within the app
>> - Fixes here and there
>>
>> Next steps
>>
>> In coming days, we will
>>
>> - start conversation with the Wikisource communities to make aware about the app, share the workflow needed to include contents there and get feedback for further development. (We had one call with the Marathi Wikisource community already).
>>
>> - Next community conversation hour
>>
>> - Sunday, 26 January 12:00 – 13:00 UTC
>> - Video call link: https://meet.google.com/khd-qvfy-nsr
>> - discuss with all stakeholders regarding necessary steps.
>> - register for Google Play Store and release the stable version of the app there
>> - release the app in other play stores gradually.
>>
>> We would like to specially thank Sai Phanindra, who has developed the app as an assignment from CIS-A2K.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Bodhisattwa
>> (Part-time consultant, CIS-A2K)
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikisource-l mailing list -- wikisource-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikisource-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Hi everyone,
The first Wikidata + Wikibase Office Hour
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Events#Office_hours> of 2025 will
be held on Wednesday, January 15th, at 17:00 UTC (18:00 Berlin) in the Wikidata
Telegram channel <https://t.me/joinchat/IeCRo0j5Uag1qR4Tk8Ftsg>.
*What’s the Wikidata + Wikibase Office Hour?*
It’s your chance to:
✅ Hear about what the WMDE development team has been working on and our
plans for the year ahead
✅ Ask questions, discuss topics that matter to you, and share your thoughts
on all things Wikidata and Wikibase
✅ Connect with fellow community members and discover what everyone’s been
up to.
📅 Make sure to mark your calendars!
Cheers,
--
Mohammed S. Abdulai
*Community Communications Manager, Wikidata*
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0) 30 577 116 2466
https://wikimedia.de
Grab a spot in my calendar for a chat: cal.com/masssly.
A lot is happening around Wikidata - Keep up to date!
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Status_updates> 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 Vorstände: Franziska Heine,
Dr. Christian Humborg
Hello,
Last week, we announced that a limited release of the “default values for
all languages” feature—introducing the language code "mul" for labels and
aliases—will soon be coming to Wikidata. We are currently working on
improvements for “mul” in the Termbox on Item pages. We’ve already received
feedback from some of you on the discussion pages, but we’d also love to
hear from those who prefer to *provide* *anonymous feedback*.
Please share your thoughts on this 5-10 minute anonymous survey until
August 4: https://wikimedia.sslsurvey.de/Wikidata-default-values-feedback
If you have any questions or concerns feel free to let us know in this
Phabricator ticket (phab:T356169 <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T356169>
)
Many thanks for your time.
-Mohammed
On Mon, Jul 22, 2024 at 10:03 AM Mohammed Sadat Abdulai <
mohammed.abdulai(a)wikimedia.de> wrote:
> *(This [SIGNIFICANT Change Announcement] is relevant for all Wikidata
> users working with Labels and Aliases.)*
>
> Hello,
>
> You may recall our previous announcement
> <https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org/me…>
> inviting you to test out the “default values for all languages” feature,
> introducing the language code "mul" for labels and aliases, on
> https://test.wikidata.org. I'm pleased to announce that we are now
> proceeding with a limited release on Wikidata. This feature will be
> available for testing starting July 29.
>
> Note of Caution and Tips for Testing
>
>
> -
>
> To try out the new feature during this limited release, you need to
> add the language code “mul” to your Babel boxes
> <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Userboxes#Babel>. A full
> release will follow on the week of August 12, displaying default values to
> everyone by default.
> -
>
> Please refrain from starting any Bot-runs for mul during the limited
> release. We will use this limited release to test the performance and
> verify that everything works as planned. Bot-runs for mul should only
> commence after the full feature is released.
> -
>
> Please also test the help page
> <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Default_values_for_labels_and_aliases>
> explaining how to use the feature. It will be important to get this help
> page right, as the full release will initially contain an onboarding
> element that guides people to this help page.
>
>
> I would like to thank everyone who has participated in the previous
> testing phases or provided feedback thus far. We are eager to hear more
> from you during this limited release. Please do not hesitate to reach out
> with questions or concerns on the talk page of the Help page
> <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help_talk:Default_values_for_labels_and_alias…>,
> or for technical details, in this Phabricator ticket (phab:T356169
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T356169>)
>
> There has also been some discussion on the help page
> <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help_talk:Default_values_for_labels_and_alias…>
> regarding the copy used for the language. We would like to reach a
> consensus before the full release. Join the discussion to add your thoughts
> and input on the thread. This week, a survey will be included in the Weekly
> Summary for those who prefer to provide anonymous feedback.
>
> Cheers!
>
>
> -Mohammed
>
> On Mon, Feb 12, 2024 at 9:00 AM Mohammed Sadat Abdulai <
> mohammed.abdulai(a)wikimedia.de> wrote:
>
>> (This announcement is relevant for all Wikidata users working with Labels
>> and Aliases.)
>>
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> We're excited to invite you to participate in the community testing of
>> the “default values for labels and aliases” feature. Based on a
>> long-standing community request around language fallback (T285156
>> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T285156>), and based on your feedback
>> from our previous announcement
>> <https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org/me…>,
>> we are currently testing this feature on https://test.wikidata.org
>> <https://test.wikidata.org/wiki/Q42> with the release planned for Q1
>> 2024.
>>
>> What is coming?
>>
>> 1.
>>
>> Default values for labels and aliases (mul): Items that repeat the
>> same label and aliases over and over are hard to maintain and can strain
>> our infrastructure, especially the Wikidata Query Service. As a solution,
>> we are introducing the option for default values in the termbox. The
>> default values are considered in the language fallback chain (language code
>> “mul”).
>>
>>
>>
>> 2.
>>
>> Visualisation of the language fallback chain: Previously, Wikidata’s
>> fallback chain was not visible in the user interface, making it challenging
>> to determine if additional information was needed. As a first step toward
>> improvement, we will now clearly show what content is already available via
>> language fallback in the placeholders for labels (including default values).
>>
>>
>> We need your feedback
>>
>> Please leave your feedback on Help talk:Default values for labels and
>> aliases
>> <https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Help_talk:Default_values_for_lab…>.
>> Your feedback will play a crucial role in verifying if the current version
>> is ready for Wikidata. Additionally, you can find some test Items, known
>> limitations and open questions there for you to review. We will analyze
>> your feedback one week after today's announcement.
>>
>> The next steps
>>
>> After you have left your feedback, please make sure that the guidelines
>> on Help:Default values for labels and aliases
>> <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Default_values_for_labels_and_aliases>
>> are ready for the launch. You can also already plan bot-runs for mul,
>> but please be sure to start with uncontroversial cases. If there are no
>> blockers, we will then prepare a limited release on Wikidata in the
>> coming weeks. The limited release will only be visible if you put mul in
>> your Babel boxes. We will use this limited release to test the performance
>> and verify that everything works as planned. Please don’t start any
>> bot-runs for mul during the limited release. A full release will follow
>> a few weeks later, displaying default values for everyone by default, and
>> featuring an onboarding element that will guide people to the help page.
>> Bot-runs for mul can commence at this stage.
>>
>> Do not hesitate to reach out with questions or concerns in the talk page
>> of the help page
>> <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help_talk:Default_values_for_labels_and_alias…>
>> and for technical details in this Phabricator ticket (T356169
>> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T356169>).
>>
>>
>> Thank you for your support!
>>
>> Cheers,
>> --
>> Mohammed Sadat Abdulai
>> *Community Communications Manager, Wikidata*
>>
>> Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
>> Phone: +49 (0) 30 577 116 2466
>> https://wikimedia.de
>>
>> Grab a spot in my calendar for a chat: calendly.com/masssly.
>>
>> A lot is happening around Wikidata - Keep up to date!
>> <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Status_updates> 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 Vorstände: Franziska Heine,
>> Dr. Christian Humborg
>>
>