Welcome to 2023’s Final Weekly Summary!

A big thank you to everyone who contributed to the newsletter this year!👏🙏 As we step into 2024, we'd love to hear what changes you would like to see in the newsletter. Share your wishlist here: What changes would you like to see in the newsletter in 2024?"

Discussions

• Open request for adminship: EPIC (RfP scheduled to end after 26 December 2023 20:34 UTC)
• New requests for permissions/Bot: Balyozbot. Tasks:

1. Import sitelinks, labels, descriptions from ku wikipedia pages which use the template w:ku:Template:Înterwîkî etîket û danasîn. (There are over 1800 articles that use this template waiting to be connected to Wikidata at the moment.)
2. Add sitelinks to kuwiktionary / kuwikipedia categories / create an item for the category if necessary. I have been doing this manually for quite some time using Quickstatements but since I need to get permission for the first task, I will be handling them using a bot as well.

Events

• Upcoming: Introducing WMF Wishathon for Wikimedia’s Community Wishlist! "focused on bringing together people who already contribute to technical aspects of the Wikimedia projects, who know how to find their way on the technical ecosystem, and who are able to work or collaborate on projects rather autonomously." March 15th to 17th, 2024.
• Ongoing: Weekly Lexeme Challenge #122: Rock-forming minerals

Press, articles, blog posts, videos

• Blogs
  • African Librarians empowered to share knowledge and enhance information visibility through AfLIA Wikidata Online Course --> The "Promoting Open Knowledge Practices in African Libraries through Wikidata" project, executed by AfLIA with support from the Wikimedia Foundation, trained African librarians on using Wikidata to enhance the visibility of library collections and close the knowledge and gender gap on Africa. The course was facilitated by experienced African Wikimedian editors and included diverse strategies for learner engagement and support.
• Papers: Increasing Coverage and Precision of Textual Information in Multilingual Knowledge Graphs by (Conia et al, 2023) --> This paper introduces a novel task of automatic Knowledge Graph Enhancement (KGE) to bridge the gap in the quantity and quality of textual information between English and non-English languages in Wikidata. It presents M-NTA, an unsupervised approach that combines Machine Translation, Web Search, and Large Language Models to generate high-quality textual information, and studies its impact on Entity Linking, Knowledge Graph Completion, and Question Answering tasks.
• Videos
  • Wikidata, Wikisource and Wiktionary: Wikisource for DH (WiSe 2023) --> The lecture "Fundamentals and application-oriented methods of the Digital Humanities" by Kay-Michael Würzner is designed as a series of lectures in which teachers in the "Digital Humanities" course present their fields of work and key topics and present them for discussion.
  • Empowering Open-Source Generative AI by Integrating the Wikidata knowledge graph --> Generative AI has changed the information ecosystem, and open-source knowledge graphs like Wikidata can become invaluable assets, propelling a myriad of applications forward. Jonathan Fraine & Lydia Pintscher present the practical integration of Wikidata's open-source, open-access knowledge graph to empower Generative AI applications. Harnessing the real-time updated, structured data encapsulated within Wikidata, they explore automated content creation, data augmentation, and semantic analysis, underpinning the generative paradigms. Through a blend of theoretical insights and real-world applications, they elucidate how to leverage Wikidata to elevate generative AI applications, breaking down existing data silos, and fostering a collaborative ecosystem within our global community of developers and contributors.
  • Wiki Indaba 2023 - African content on Wikidata --> Discussion with Alice Kibombo, Georges Fodouop and Jesse Asiedu-Akrofi, about Wikidata for African Librarians during the Wiki Indaba conference, that took place between 3-5 November 2023 in Agadir, Morocco.
  • No Time to Wait - S07E10 - ACMI // Wikidata - Paul Duchesne + Simon Loffler --> Report on recent residency program to extensively link together collection data from ACMI with Wikidata. This work has allowed the organisation to import vast quantities of data and media to enrich their own internet collection experience, as well enable writing information back to source and federating with other linked institutions.
  • Wiki(s)data #5: Wikidata Live editing (in Italian) --> The ontology of Wikidata: how to interact with it for a better quality, by Epìdosis (A)
• Notebooks
  • Map of K-Pop Idols --> An interactive map where each red dot represents a K-pop Idol (a singer or musician in South Korean Pop music) you are able to click on.
  • Disney as the Mega Corporation it is Today --> Disney has greatly evolved from the simple animation company that first debuted in 1923 with its signature Steamboat Willie animation. This analysis details some of the major acquisitions Disney has chosen to help expand its reach as a media and entertainment company.
  • The Gender-Equality Gap in STEM Awards --> A network graph and multiple data visualizations on UCLA's alumnni awards based on gender.
  • Exploring The Belichick Coaching Tree --> This analyses details the coaching tree of the prolific American Football coach Bill Belichick.
  • State of statues in the US --> Map of how many statues there are, who is depicted in the statues, their genders, and where the statues are concentrated.
  • An Analysis on Nepo Babies: Net Worths and Fame --> This work uses Wikidata to analyze the influence and success of children of famous actors (nepo babies) in the entertainment industry, and compares the careers and net worth of these children with their parents to understand the impact of nepotism on their success.

Tool of the week

• Cersei - is a tool designed for importing or scraping data from various third-party sources, using source-specific Python code. It can use a "headless browser" to scrape complicated websites that rely on eg JavaScript to navigate. It can therefore access data sources that can not be accessed via eg Mix'n'match. The data from sources can be updated regularly, either for everything, or just changed entries (if the source has a "recent changes" equivalent).
• Wikidata:Zotero/Cita - is a Wikidata addon for Zotero that adds citations (i.e., what other items an item cites) metadata support to this open source reference management software, using cites work (P2860) information available from Wikidata, and enabling users to easily contribute missing data.

Other Noteworthy Stuff

• Job opening: Data Scientist / Knowledge Engineer to use Wikidata as a foundational layer for an US National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Prototype Open Knowledge Network.

Did you know?

• Newest properties:
  • General datatypes: none
  • External identifiers: ‎WHDLoad database ID, Shanghai Library movie ID, ‎PCSX2 Wiki ID, KRS number, ‎Twitch numeric channel ID, ‎RPCS3 Wiki ID, ‎Black Games Archive ID, ‎Citra compatibility database ID, ‎DraCor ID, ORBi article ID, ‎IGN wiki article ID, ‎AreWeAntiCheatYet ID, ‎RPGFan game ID, ‎Arcade Hub ID
• New property proposals to review:
  • General datatypes:
    • Laws of Malaysia URL (Uniform Resource Locator for laws of Malaysia)
    • production manager (manager that is responsible for the administration of a feature film or television production; oversees production plans, controls resources, initiates production, ensures ongoing operations, monitors schedules and expenditures, and creates a detailed production schedule and budget)
  • External identifiers: Schnittberichte.com ID, National Library of Malaysia OPAC ID, HistoriaGames series ID, Kemono Games game ID, Internet Game Database event ID, GamesMeter ID, Walk Score ID, Malaysia company new number, Am Faclair Beag ID, xemu compatibility database ID, Sofascore player ID, GameGear.jp ID, RPGWatch IDs, Team England ID, TORCH taxon ID, ScummVM ID, Abandonware France IDs
• Query examples:
  • Distribution of the different tram gauges in Germany (source)
  • Scale of stampedes reported on Wikidata (source)
  • Timeline of the Christmas movies (source)
  • Christmas traditions around the world (with pictures) (source)
• Newest WikiProjects: WikiProject Städel Museum Wikidata Clean-Up - This WikiProject from the Städel Museum aims to actively participate in the Wikimedia community by maintaining and updating the quality of its data. This includes their collection of public domain art, which has been digitized and made freely available for public use. The project focuses on ensuring that the most current and high-quality data, including high-resolution images and improved metadata, are available on platforms like Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata.
• Newest database reports: children of dead mothers - List of mother-children pairs, where death date of parent < birth date of child
• Showcase Items: Esperanto (Q143) - international auxiliary language designed by L. L. Zamenhof
• Showcase Lexemes: L1222568 (বড়দিন) - Bengali noun for 'Christmas'

Development

• Due to the winter holidays, the development team is taking a break and no deployment is happening for Wikidata at the moment.

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Monthly Tasks

• Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
• Comment on property proposals: all open proposals
• Contribute to a Showcase item.
• Help translate or proofread the interface and documentation pages, in your own language!
• Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
• Help write the next summary!