Hello all,
Every year, the month of October is dedicated to celebrating Wikidata’s
birthday, as our favorite Wikimedia project went live on October 29th,
2012. Since then, we’ve been celebrating together the achievements of the
community, bringing together active editors and newcomers, and taking this
opportunity to do outreach and bring more people onboard.
This year, for Wikidata’s 12th birthday, we would love to see many
decentralized community events taking place all around the world in October
and November.
Whether you are involved in a local chapter or user group, or in touch with
another organization that could organize an event, or simply interested in
connecting with other Wikidata editors, we invite you to start thinking
about organizing a Wikidata birthday event in the upcoming months!
On the Twelfth Birthday page
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Twelfth_Birthday>, you will find
more information about the birthday and how to organize an event.
Wikidata birthday decentralized events are organized by local groups within
the Wikidata community, onsite as well as online. They can take many forms
and can be adapted to the wishes, languages, favorite topics and interests
of the local group. It can be for example:
-
A meetup / get together with your local/regional community to share a
piece of birthday cake ;
-
An online editing campaign to improve Wikidata together on a specific
topic ;
-
A moment dedicated to celebrating Wikidata’s birthday during a Wikimedia
conference ;
-
A “translathon” to improve the labels of Wikidata in your language ;
-
A workshop in a library or university to get more people aware of
Wikidata ;
-
A livestream presentation to showcase interesting tools ;
-
…and many other things!
On the How to run an event page
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Twelfth_Birthday/Run_an_event>, you
will find many other examples of events, and you can take inspiration from
the past years and what other people have been organizing.
You will also find a communication kit with visuals that you can use to
communicate about your event, and instructions on how to add your event to
the global schedule.
If you are planning an event for Wikidata’s birthday, you may need some
financial support in order to run the event smoothly. On the Funding page
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Twelfth_Birthday/Run_an_event/Funding>,
you will find some useful information about how to get funding, to help
your participants join or to provide equipment or refreshments.
What is new this year: Wikimedia Deutschland will run an experiment on
providing microgrants to fund projects related to the Wikidata birthday.
These grants, of a maximum amount of 1,000€, will be provided to the
selected projects after an application process that is running until
September 1st. You also have the option to ask for WMF’s Rapid Fund if the
amount or eligibility criteria work better for you. You will find all the
information about how to apply and what to prepare on the Funding page
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Twelfth_Birthday/Run_an_event/Funding>
.
If you are interested in organizing an event, we strongly encourage you to do
it together with other people. We suggest that you reach out to your local
affiliate to get logistical and communication support, or to other Wikidata
editors who share similar interests, for example your favorite WikiProject.
You are also very welcome to join the Wikidata Events Telegram group
<https://t.me/joinchat/HGjGexK8LA2wJZEk1x1p_A>, in which you will find
other community organizers who have been running events in the past and can
answer your questions or provide inspiration. On top of that, we are
running organizers office hours
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Twelfth_Birthday/Run_an_event#Connec…>
from July to October: you can join these online meetings to connect with
other organizers and ask questions to the coordination team.
I’m looking forward to hearing about your Wikidata birthday events, and I’m
available at lea.lacroix_ext(a)wikimedia.de if you have any questions.
Best,
--
Léa Lacroix
Community Engagement & Events Consultant
Contractor for Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Hello,
You may recall that the Wikidata development team at Wikimedia
Deutschland requested
a CentralNotice banner
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org/me…>
to deploy the Wikidata community survey. I'm pleased to inform you that the
request
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Request#Wikidata_Community_Su…>
was approved. The banner will be displayed for 13 days starting from July
16 and will be closed on July 28.
Your responses to this survey will help us understand the diverse ways
people contribute to Wikidata and identify patterns in user contributions.
This information will support our efforts to foster a healthy, inclusive
community and inform future efforts of improving the project for everyone.
The survey is brief and will only require 10 minutes of your time to
complete.
Link to Survey (open until July 28):
https://wikimedia.sslsurvey.de/Wikidata_Community_Survey_2024
More information about the survey, the use of the data, and the questions
asked: Wikidata:Usability and usefulness/2024-Community-Survey
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Usability_and_usefulness/2024-Commun…>
Many thanks for your participation. If you have any questions please do not
hesitate to write on the discussion page linked here
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata_talk:Usability_and_usefulness/2024-C…>
.
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
(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”).
1.
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
Hi everyone,
Our next Wikidata+Wikibase office hour
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Events#Office_hours> is scheduled
for Wednesday 10th July at 16:00 UTC (18:00 Berlin). As usual, the office
hour will happen in the Wikidata Telegram group
<https://t.me/joinchat/IeCRo0j5Uag1qR4Tk8Ftsg>.
*What's the Wikidata+Wikibase office hour?*
*The Wikidata and Wikibase office hours are online events where the
development team at WMDE presents what we have been working on over the
past quarter, and the community is welcome to ask questions and discuss
important issues related to the development of Wikidata and Wikibase.*
Make sure to note the date in 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 all!
The Search Platform Team usually holds an open meeting on the first
Wednesday of each month. 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, July 3, 2024
Time: 15:00-16:00 UTC / 08:00 PDT / 11:00 EDT / 17:00 CEST
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
--
*Guillaume Lederrey* (he/him)
Engineering Manager
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hello,
As many of you may already know, we have been working on introducing a
new Wikidata
data type <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Data_type> that will make it
easier to find EntitySchemas
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Schemas> and use them to connect to
other Wikibase Entities. This will allow editors to refer to existing
EntitySchemas in statements to indicate what class of Items, Lexemes etc.
are governed by an EntitySchema. This new EntitySchema datatype is now live
on Test Wikidata <https://test.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page> for
testing and your feedback.
Background
EntitySchemas were first introduced in 2019 as a way to model the structure
of Wikidata Items and validate data against those specifications. There are
a number of shortcomings with EntitySchemas still, which means they are not
as useful and used as much as they should be. We are now addressing a
number of those issues, starting with this new data type.
In 2019, we built the first version of the EntitySchema datatype, but it
was eventually rolled back based on your feedback. We have made a lot of
progress since then and take your feedback into account when developing
this new iteration.
The main goal of this development is to help editors model data more
consistently by making EntitySchemas more visible and integrated into
day-to-day editing work. The new EntitySchema data type offers the
following features:
-
A new data type that allows making statements that take an EntitySchema
ID as a value
-
A canonical URI scheme for EntitySchemas has been developed that matches
prefixes of other Semantic Entities (Items, Lexemes, and Properties) to
identify them as concepts and access them when they are referred to in
statements in various formats such as RDF
-
"What Links Here" now enables you to see what Items, Lexemes, and
Properties link to an EntitySchema in a statement
-
A “Concept URI” link has also been added to the EntitySchema’s sidebar,
mirroring the same format as Items
What will come next for EntitySchemas:
-
Displaying EntitySchemas linked in statements by their labels instead of
their IDs, making them more readable and easier to understand.
-
Support for language fallback to make EntitySchemas legible across
languages.
-
An updated termbox (the table with labels, descriptions and aliases) to
provide a more consistent experience between Items, Properties and
EntitySchemas in the future.
Testing and Feedback
Today, we’d love for you to explore EntitySchemas on Test Wikidata
<https://test.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page> and provide feedback.
We hope that the new EntitySchema data type will increase centralized
discussions around the modelling of specific classes in Wikidata. This new
visibility will allow for more integration of EntitySchemas into the
ecosystem, leading to improved data quality through more consistent
modelling. Ultimately making the reuse of our data easier, especially for
small to medium-sized reusers.
Here is an example we prepared earlier Q497
<https://test.wikidata.org/wiki/Q497>.
If you encounter any issues, have questions or concerns, or want to provide
feedback, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us on Wikidata talk:Schemas
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata_talk:Schemas#New_EntitySchema_data_t…>
or
leave a comment on this ticket phab:T332724
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T332724>.
Thanks so much,
Arian
--
Arian Bozorg (he/him)Junior Product Manager Wikidata
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0)30-577 11 62-230https://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
Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig
anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
Hello everyone,
We are excited to announce that the second iteration of the Wikidata online
course for beginners will start on July 1. *(You may recall the previous
course
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org/me…>
that concluded at the end of May.)*
This time, the course will be hosted on learn.wiki
<https://learn.wiki/courses>, which offers a better user experience than
the previous platform. Learners can now log in using the same credentials
you use for the main Wikimedia projects. Based on feedback from the first
round, we have also made a few changes, including reducing the amount of
content and streamlining the learning process. Other than that, the course
structure remains the same.
*📚 Course Structure*
- Chapter 1: The Wikimedia movement and creation of Wikidata
- Chapter 2: Understanding Knowledgegraphs and Queries
- Chapter 3: Discovering Wikidata, open data, and the semantic web
- Chapter 4: Contributing to Wikidata, the Community, and Data Quality
- Chapter 5: Bonus Resources on Scientific Bibliography from Wikidata
Head over to Wikidata 101: An Introduction
<https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Deutschland+WMDE001+2024/abo…>
to enroll, and feel free to spread the word and invite your friends and
colleagues to join us on this learning adventure!
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me directly.
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