Hoi,
As part of my work on the deaths of 2014 and 2015 I have harvested categories that were on the people who died.. It is why I have so many edits on my profile. It could not have been done without the tools of Magnus. It would not have been fun without them either.

My theory was that the connections to the people who died is what makes them relevant. Because they can be related to other people through their jobs, their profession and the awards they received.

The other reason why it makde sense to do it this way is because death is a great equaliser and it prevents the bias that is inherent in doing things by country. The bias is implicitly there because most people die in our wikiverse who are from the first world anyway.

Thanks,
     GerardM

PS I blogged a lot about my work on http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com


On 10 June 2015 at 13:10, James Heald <j.heald@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:
Further to what Lydia has written, I have also had a session proposal accepted for Wikimania:

https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Building_up_Wikidata,_country_by_country


Per the current schedule, it looks as if there is going to be a "Wikidata morning" on Saturday in Room D:


10 am -- Lydia
    "State of Wikidata - giving more people more access to more knowledge one edit at a time"

(10:30 coffee break)

11:00 am -- panel, led by Lydia
    "Ask Us Anything About Wikidata"

     All your questions about Wikidata will be answered. Editors and the development team will be around to answer your most pressing questions about Wikidata.


11:30 am -- panel
    "Building up Wikidata, country by country"

     What can national chapters and local Wiki-projects do to build up Wikidata?

     This session will ask a panel from different countries what works to build up awareness and skills, and how to deepen the quality of Wikidata's coverage of a particular part of the world -- its people, places, history, events, organisations, culture, and every other related thing that ought to have a detailed comprehensive Wikidata item.

     *  What face-to-face events work, to build up knowledge and an active community?
     *  How to assess current coverage, identify priority areas, and help groups to self-organise to improve them?
     *  Are there special 'tentpole' projects the country has identified -- eg highlight focus areas, or particularly good data sources to align or assimilate?
     *  What are the best tools and workflows to get things done?


(12:30 lunch)


I should stress that I proposed this session because these are questions that I would really like to hear some thought about -- not because they're questions I think I have any answers to!

I had hoped we might have been able to build up some experience in the UK, as to how to build up community structures to help editors to work on things -- but it hasn't really gone forward here.

On the other hand, I have been hugely impressed by some of the initiatives that Dutch-language Wikipedia seems to have taken, that people have mentioned in the last few weeks, to get people to make sure articles they have worked on on nl-wiki are properly described on Wikidata; and also what seems to have been quite an active and successful community engagement programme by Wikimedia France.

I'm sure there are a lot of other good tales to tell from other countries/languages as well.

So it would be great to have an idea of who might be likely to be going to be at Wikimania in Mexico who could take part in this workshop/panel, and present some of the things that have been going on -- and also (whether you're going to be in Mexico or not), what other tales are there, from different countries, that people should hear about ?


(for one thing, something I don't know, do we even know what information has been harvested from Wikipedia categories for people/places/things/events related to a particular country?  And how comprehensive that harvesting has been?)

This session will only be as good as the community can make it, so it would be really good to know what ought to be in it.


All best,

   James.




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