Hello all,
Over the last few years, more and more research teams all around the world have started to use Wikidata. Wikidata is becoming a fundamental resource [1]. That is also true for research at Google. One advantage of using Wikidata as a research resource is that it is available to everyone. Results can be reproduced and validated externally. Yay!
I had used my 20% time to support such teams. The requests became more frequent, and now I am moving to a new role in Google Research, akin to a Wikimedian in Residence [2]: my role is to promote understanding of the Wikimedia projects within Google, work with Googlers to share more resources with the Wikimedia communities, and to facilitate the improvement of Wikimedia content by the Wikimedia communities, all with a strong focus on Wikidata.
One deeply satisfying thing for me is that the goals of my new role and the goals of the communities are so well aligned: it is really about improving the coverage and quality of the content, and about pushing the projects closer towards letting everyone share in the sum of all knowledge.
Expect to see more from me again - there are already a number of fun ideas in the pipeline, and I am looking forward to see them get out of the gates! I am looking forward to hearing your ideas and suggestions, and to continue contributing to the Wikimedia goals.
Cheers,
Denny
P.S.: Which also means, incidentally, that my 20% time is opening for new shenanigans [3].
[1]
https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=wikidata&sort=relevance[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedian_in_residence[3]
https://wikipedia20.pubpub.org/pub/vyf7ksah