Hi Wikidatans,

Inspired by the Zika corpus project at WikiCite 2016,[1] I wanted to see if it was (a) possible and (b) practical to set up an automatically updating table (ideally for use in Wikipedia but pulling from Wikidata) that would allow the Black Lunch Table Project initiative on Wikipedia to automate and customize their Task List -- which is somewhat massive.[2]

Heather Hart from Black Lunch Table holds editathons all over North America,[3] and I think they will be intersectional with some of the other Wikipedia initiatives. So for events in places like North Carolina or New Orleans, it would be helpful for her to be able to pull artists from those communities. And for Art+Feminism in March, it would be helpful for her to be able to pull artists who are female-identifying.

We set up some categories as a way to granulate a possible SPARQL query:

- Wikipedia category:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Visual_artists_of_the_African_diaspora

- Wikimedia Commons category:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Visual_artists_of_the_African_diaspora

Wikidata item:
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q28654190

Right now the task list is approaching 1,000 entries, and I assume the task list will only grow as it is a crowdsourced list. It is understood that obviously not all entrants are notable, and many are at mid-career levels, so even a stub might be stretching it to be on Wikipedia. But a solid percentage are definitely notable and are deserving of pages. 

I was also thinking that this sort of functionality would be helpful for other initiatives -- maybe also Art+Feminism -- so this process might be transferrable for others too.

Goal: To automate the task list process somewhat.

And at minimum would be a good Wikidata project. 

I think that even exploring the possibilities here has been very fruitful and illustrative of Wikidata's functionality for both myself and Heather/Black Lunch Table Project. I think it might also provide very positive outreach for others as well.

Best,

- Erika


[1] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Source_MetaData/Wikidata_lists/Items_about_Zika_virus_or_fever

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Black_Lunch_Table/Lists_of_Articles

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Black_Lunch_Table/Event_Archive



Erika Herzog
Wikipedia User:BrillLyle