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
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:
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. 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, 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
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.
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