Might want to consider beginner, streamlined documentation to learn SPARQL (including WikiData specifics).
Most census/demographic statisticians, economists and business people are coming from the relational database world (SQL and spreadsheets), so making the hop over to RDF / linked data involves quite a learning curve. They get frustrated because they are highly productive with SQL, yet flounder on the SPARQL side without graduated help.
SPARQL syntax is not entirely "intuitive" for SQL users. A really good tutorial that starts at ground zero and takes a user up to a minimal level of independent SPARQL proficiency would be great. If users can fairly quickly write simple queries and get useful results they are better motivated to go further, and learn more nuances.
The label service is also not totally "beginner" friendly (for data users). The subject: "[Wikidata] Label gaps on Wikidata" illustrates some struggles that pop up immediately for many new users. General level SPARQL textbooks have zero coverage of WikiData specifics.
Perhaps high quality documentation already exists? Would be great to have at least a syllabus (learn this first, then move on to this, then on to... Might be good to also have common / high value "use-case" scenarios with pointers to documentation/tutorials that cover it. Existing example queries are very helpful but many are complex. For training purposes we need a graduated set of examples, that are designed step-by-step to teach how to construct queries.
Rick
On 3/2/2017 6:03 AM, Léa Lacroix wrote:
Hello all,
As you know, the Wikimedia hackathon https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2017 will take place on May 19-21 in Vienna.
During this event, we will organize a documentation sprint to help volunteers to improve the user-level documentation for Wikidata.
During these 3 days, you'll be able to join (IRL or remotely, at any moment) to work on improving and translating the help pages. We suggest a focus on these 3 topics:
- Beginner documentation about Wikidata https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T159216
- Lua for Wikimedians https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T159217
- Wikibase installation https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T159218
We will also organize some workshops (translation tools, illustration...) to help you build a better documentation.
You will find all the information on the related page https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2017/Wikidata_documentation_sprint. If you're interested, feel free to add yourself in the attendees list.
We're now building a list of simple tasks that volunteers could work on during the event. If you have any ideas, parts of the documentation that should really be improved... feel free to add your ideas on the talk page https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Hackathon_2017/Wikidata_documentation_sprint, or if you feel comfortable with Phabricator, directly create subtasks of the tasks listed above.
Thanks a lot, and maybe see you there!
-- Léa Lacroix Project Manager Community Communication for Wikidata
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 10963 Berlin www.wikimedia.de http://www.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
Wikidata mailing list Wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata