Hi Ben,
On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 1:25 AM, Benjamin Good <ben.mcgee.good(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I recently introduced wikidata to a (very
computationally savvy) colleague
by sending him this link:
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q423111
His response is indicative of an interface problem that I think is actually
very important:
"Is there a simple way to get the RDF for a given concept? The page seems
to only present the english names for the concept and its linked concepts."
Leaving aside RDF, it is really not straightforward for newcomers to get
from a concept page like that to the corresponding structured data. This
could be solved with the consistent addition of a simple link like "view
json/xml/rdf" to each of the concept pages on wikidata. They would just be
links to the API calls: e.g.
http://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbgetentities&ids=Q423111 in this
case.
As the concept pages themselves get tossed around a lot, such an addition
could be extremely valuable in teaching the uninitiated what its all about
and would come at very little cost - to me, this button is akin to the 'view
source' action on web pages - an absolutely fundamental part of how the web
grows - even now.
There is a link in the sidebar titled "concept URI" which takes you to
the URI for the concept of the current page and does content
negotiation. I am trying to strike a balance between making this more
visible and not overloading the UI and confusing those users who have
no idea about any of this. Suggestions for how to achieve this better
than we currently do are welcome.
Cheers
Lydia
--
Lydia Pintscher -
http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
Product Manager for Wikidata
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
10963 Berlin
www.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
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