Hello all,

I’m happy to announce that the *Wikidata Bridge https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikidata_Bridge* project (you may have heard about before under the name “client editing”) started. The goal of this project is to offer a way to Wikipedia editors to edit Wikidata’s data more easily. This will be achieved by an interface, connected to the infoboxes, that users can access directly from their local wiki.

The project is now at an early stage of development. A lot of user research https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikidata_Bridge/Research has been done, and will continue to be done through the different phases of the project. The next steps of development https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikidata_Bridge/Development will be achieved by the development team working at Wikimedia Deutschland, starting now until the end of 2019.

Here’s the planned timeline:

- From June to August, we will build the setup and technical groundwork. - From September to November 2019, we will develop the first version of the feature and publish a test system so you can try it and give feedback. - Later on, we will test the feature on a few projects, in collaboration with the communities. - We will first focus on early adopters communities who already implemented a shortcut from their infoboxes to edit Wikidata (for example Russian, Catalan, Basque Wikipedias) - but we also welcome also communities who volunteer to be part of the first test round https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikidata_Bridge/Get_involved. - Then we will reach some of the big Wikipedias (French, German, English) in order to see if the project scales and to address their potentially different needs. - Even later, we can consider enabling the feature on all the other projects.

On Wikidata, from the technical side, not much will change. When the feature to edit Wikidata’s data from Wikipedia will be implemented, a tag for edits coming from Wikidata Bridge will be added, so the Wikidata editors can watch and filter these edits more easily.

If you want to get involved, there are several ways to help:

- - Help translating the documentation pages https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikidata_Bridge - Follow the updates https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikidata_Bridge/Updates and participate in the first feedback loop https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:V1x2lxtu8rgi954a - If you’re also active on a Wikipedia project, feel free to reach them and help answering their questions about Wikidata - Discuss the specific Wikidata-related topics or issues on Wikidata:Wikidata Bridge https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Wikidata_Bridge

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on the on the dedicated talk page https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Wikidata_Bridge.

Cheers,