Hoi,
I am giving notice that I will no longer maintain the people who are known
to have died on Wikidata. There are a few reasons:
- I do not have the same amount of time I used to have
- My time is better spend on other things. Linking people through
associations is more relevant
- I am sick and tired of the procrastination on bringing in information
from DBpedia
I have been indicating the need for importing data from DBpedia for a long
time and, there are always reasons why people think it is fine to wait even
longer until their pet project is ready. It implies that they assume that
everything will remain the same in the mean time. I refuse to accept that
attitude and that is why I will stop adding more dates of death as a
regular practice.
This does not mean that the data is not there, it does not mean that
Wikidata cannot have it. It means that we import from sources that are
known to be as trustworthy as Wikipedia. After all DBpedia data is based on
Wikipedia.
I will have more fun doing other things.
Thanks,
GerardM
Hoi,
I am not championing Sparkle and other wonderful tools. I am adding data
and i do no longer have the time. While I applaud your work it does not
bring new data like the date of death into Wikidata. It works on the back
of the work of the drones like me who add data. Your work while important
is secondary and therefore your preferences are secondary.
The primary need is to bring quality information to Wikidata. Quality is
not in sources but it is in knowing that there is agreement on the data and
where there is not, only then sources become interesting at this stage or
our game.
I will blog about the relative worth of sources in the near future. At this
time I find it mostly a distraction because we are not working on
comparison of data as long as it is not used to bring quality everwhere it
does not do what I am looking for. It is concentrating on single facts and
not on quality in the first place.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 4 June 2015 at 10:49, Markus Kroetzsch <markus.kroetzsch(a)tu-dresden.de>
wrote:
> Hi Gerard,
>
> On 04.06.2015 09:26, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> An argument rages about the significance of the English WIkipedia using
>> Wikidata for person data, things like date of death.
>>
>
> I don't see an argument raging anywhere, though you seem to be raging
> quite a bit ;-) Maybe you have been discussing elsewhere than on the
> DBpedia or Wikidata mailing lists? (Are the Dutch Wikipedians discussing
> this maybe? If it's not in English, could you give us a summary of the
> issues discussed in this argument?)
>
> From my point of view, it would be great if DBpedia could donate some of
> its data to Wikidata. For example, there could be a bot that imports "date
> of death" statements from Wikipedia via DBpedia as you suggested. The
> Wikidata community has imported many statements from Wikipedia in the past
> and I don't see a big problem doing this with DBpedia in the middle if
> people feel that this is easier than extracting stuff from Wikipedia right
> away. I think the reason why it is not done is that nobody has prepared and
> proposed such a bot yet. If there is nobody from DBpedia who can help with
> this, maybe the best people to approach would be the bot authors who have
> helped to import all the existing personal data into Wikidata.
>
> As I wrote in my previous email to the Wikidata list, I would prefer if
> Wikipedia-scraped data (whether from DBpedia or not) would go through the
> primary sources tool, to help Wikidata to get rid of all the "imported from
> Wikipedia" references. But this does not apply to DBpedia specifically in
> any way.
>
> Anyway, let's not over-dramatise this discussion. If you want to champion
> this work, you could start by doing a simple query against the DBpedia and
> Wikidata SPARQL endpoints to count how many dates of death each of these
> datasets contains right now. The next step would be to use another simple
> query to display the most recent dates of death so as to compare them. This
> could give the community a sense of whether a large-scale bot action, a
> Wikidata game, primary sources, or a simple list of "editing suggestions"
> could be the right tool of getting the missing data into Wikidata.
>
> Regards,
>
> Markus
>
>
>> DBpedia does a better job than Wikidata does and it does it because they
>> not only use dumps to update their information but they also use
>> information from RSS. Therefore they do a better job than volunteers
>> like myself at Wikidata do.
>>
>> In my blogpost [1] I argue for cooperation. My point is very much that
>> increasingly I find I do no longer have the time to maintain the data
>> for people who died in 2014 or 2015. I have done that the last two years..
>>
>> I desperately want to do other things with Wikidata, things that are
>> more relevant. PLEASE consider cooperating with the DBpedia people. They
>> are part of our ecosystem, they want to share and they want to make
>> their data available with our license.
>> Thanks,
>> GerardM
>>
>>
>> [1]
>>
>> http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2015/06/english-wikipedia-and-those-who-…
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikidata mailing list
>> Wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
>>
>>
>
> --
> Markus Kroetzsch
> Faculty of Computer Science
> Technische Universität Dresden
> +49 351 463 38486
> http://korrekt.org/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikidata mailing list
> Wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
>
Hoi,
An argument rages about the significance of the English WIkipedia using
Wikidata for person data, things like date of death.
DBpedia does a better job than Wikidata does and it does it because they
not only use dumps to update their information but they also use
information from RSS. Therefore they do a better job than volunteers like
myself at Wikidata do.
In my blogpost [1] I argue for cooperation. My point is very much that
increasingly I find I do no longer have the time to maintain the data for
people who died in 2014 or 2015. I have done that the last two years..
I desperately want to do other things with Wikidata, things that are more
relevant. PLEASE consider cooperating with the DBpedia people. They are
part of our ecosystem, they want to share and they want to make their data
available with our license.
Thanks,
GerardM
[1]
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2015/06/english-wikipedia-and-those-who-…
Hello,
The next office hour of the Wikimedia Language Engineering team (now part
of Editing) is scheduled for next Wednesday, June 10th at 14:30 UTC.
However, this time instead of only IRC we are hosting it as an online
discussion over Hangout/Youtube. Given the limitation of Google Hangouts,
there will be limited seats for joining into the Hangout. Hence, do let us
know (on the event page
<https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cuunke6rbmqpetvslv6jlakbhnc>) if you
would like to participate on the Hangout. The IRC channel #wikimedia-office
and the Q&A channel for the youtube broadcast will also be open for
interactions during the session.
Our last online round-table session was held a few months back with the
editors of the Catalan Wikipedia. You can watch the recording here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHu3vdlE1X8 .
Please read below for the event details and do let us know if you have any
questions.
Thank you
Runa
== Details ==
# *Event*: Wikimedia Language Engineering office hour session
# *When*: June 10th, 2015 (Wednesday) at 14:30 UTC (check local time
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20150610T1430)
# *Where*: https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cuunke6rbmqpetvslv6jlakbhnc
and on IRC #wikimedia-office (Freenode)
# *Agenda*: Content Translation
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation> updates and open Q & A
--
Language Engineering - Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
Forwarding because of the significance of the change for bots. My
understanding is that this affects all wikis, so please get this
information out to relevant bot operators on all wikis. Translated messages
may be very much appreciated.
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Brad Jorsch (Anomie)" <bjorsch(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Jun 2, 2015 1:43 PM
Subject: [Wikitech-l] API BREAKING CHANGE: Default continuation mode for
action=query will change at the end of this month
To: "Wikimedia developers" <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, <
mediawiki-api-announce(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc:
As has been announced several times (most recently at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2015-April/081559.html),
the default continuation mode for action=query requests to api.php will be
changing to be easier for new coders to use correctly.
*The date is now set:* we intend to merge the change to ride the deployment
train at the end of June. That should be 1.26wmf12, to be deployed to test
wikis on June 30, non-Wikipedias on July 1, and Wikipedias on July 2.
If your bot or script is receiving the warning about this upcoming change
(as seen here
<https://www.mediawiki.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=allpages>, for
example), it's time to fix your code!
- The simple solution is to simply include the "rawcontinue" parameter
with your request to continue receiving the raw continuation data (
example
<
https://www.mediawiki.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=allpages&rawcontinue=1
>).
No other code changes should be necessary.
- Or you could update your code to use the simplified continuation
documented at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Query#Continuing_queries
(example
<https://www.mediawiki.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=allpages&continue=
>),
which is much easier for clients to implement correctly.
Either of the above solutions may be tested immediately, you'll know it
works because you stop seeing the warning.
I've compiled a list of bots that have hit the deprecation warning more
than 10000 times over the course of the week May 23–29. If you are
responsible for any of these bots, please fix them. If you know who is,
please make sure they've seen this notification. Thanks.
AAlertBot
AboHeidiBot
AbshirBot
Acebot
Ameenbot
ArnauBot
Beau.bot
Begemot-Bot
BeneBot*
BeriBot
BOT-Superzerocool
CalakBot
CamelBot
CandalBot
CategorizationBot
CatWatchBot
ClueBot_III
ClueBot_NG
CobainBot
CorenSearchBot
Cyberbot_I
Cyberbot_II
DanmicholoBot
DeltaQuadBot
Dexbot
Dibot
EdinBot
ElphiBot
ErfgoedBot
Faebot
Fatemibot
FawikiPatroller
HAL
HasteurBot
HerculeBot
Hexabot
HRoestBot
IluvatarBot
Invadibot
Irclogbot
Irfan-bot
Jimmy-abot
JYBot
Krdbot
Legobot
Lowercase_sigmabot_III
MahdiBot
MalarzBOT
MastiBot
Merge_bot
NaggoBot
NasirkhanBot
NirvanaBot
Obaid-bot
PatruBOT
PBot
Phe-bot
Rezabot
RMCD_bot
Shuaib-bot
SineBot
SteinsplitterBot
SvickBOT
TaxonBot
Theo's_Little_Bot
W2Bot
WLE-SpainBot
Xqbot
YaCBot
ZedlikBot
ZkBot
--
Brad Jorsch (Anomie)
Software Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Speaking of specialized lists, I'd like to suggest that this discussion
would be well suited to Research-l, where many people who are interested in
these kinds of questions read and write about them more frequently than
they do on Wikimedia-l. I'm boldly adding that list to the recipients for
this thread.
I have some thoughts about the substance of this discussion but they're a
bit rushed at the moment. I may write more later.
Regards,
Pine
On Jun 2, 2015 4:32 AM, "Milos Rancic" <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Luis, I have to say that you are the first person on WMF side who has
> substantially engaged into this issue and I am very glad to see that :)
>
> The products of your work are of the highest importance, as the community
> is the most important part of our movement, not to say that it's the
> movement itself.
>
> I am finally relieved to know that we are on the path to rationally
> understand what's going on inside of the community after short 14.5 years.
>
> It would be good if you'd share your results with the rest of us.
>
> As for this list: As MZ said, this list is important. However, there is no
> doubt that it's far from being the only or even the most important
> indicator of community health. It is just about one of the rare publicly
> accessible data which could give a clue of what's going on inside of the
> community, but could mislead, as well.
> On Jun 2, 2015 04:39, "Luis Villa" <lvilla(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 10:57 AM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 7:51 PM, Luis Villa <lvilla(a)wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
> > > > On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 9:26 AM, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> 3. Participation in the mailing list may be a misleading indicator
> of
> > > >> activity or interest, as other regional or specialized forums (eg.
> > > >> Facebook, GLAM-oriented lists, etc) have emerged in recent years.
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > > Let me second this. My department is thinking about community health
> > > > metrics (constructive suggestions welcome!), but I would not
> personally
> > > > propose mailing list participation (especially this list) as a good
> > > metric
> > > > - decreased participation here may reflect many, many things, only
> some
> > > of
> > > > which are actually negative.
> > >
> > > This is not the only one indicator, but it's pretty consistent since
> > > 2011 (take a look into [1]). In other words, something happened in
> > > May. Maybe it's actually about the elections because people used other
> > > means of communication for that.
> > >
> >
> > Looking briefly at some of the highest-traffic months, it could simply be
> > that people got tired of discussing high-controversy topics here.
> > (Flamewars are good for traffic volume; not so great for community
> health.)
> > I'm sure Facebook's increased acceptance also has a role. I suspect also
> > that some announcements that used to come here now go to other, more
> > specialized mailing lists.
> >
> > That last one points to a key thing: as MZ says, many people are
> subscribed
> > to this list, but many don't read and don't participate, because this
> > mailing list has an *awful* reputation, and people who want to get things
> > done are going elsewhere. So "the decline of wikimedia-l" may be a sign
> of
> > bad health of the overall community, or it may simply mean that the
> healthy
> > and constructive parts of the community has moved elsewhere.
> >
> > To re-iterate what I said in the last email, I'm all ears for suggestions
> > on creative community metrics. I'll add here that I'm also very open to
> > suggestions on what a new wikimedia-l might look like. (I know some FOSS
> > communities are having good experiences with discourse.org, for
> example.)
> > No commitment that WMF can act on either immediately, of course, but I
> > think it is worth starting both of those discussions.
> >
> > Luis
> >
> > --
> > Luis Villa
> > Sr. Director of Community Engagement
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> > *Working towards a world in which every single human being can freely
> share
> > in the sum of all knowledge.*
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Hello Wikimedians,
The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) meets twice a year to help make
decisions about how to effectively allocate movement funds to achieve the
Wikimedia movement's mission, vision, and strategy. [1] Just before the
Wikimedia Conference, the FDC met in Berlin to deliberate on the five
proposals submitted for this Round. [2] We thank these organizations for
their hard work on their annual plans and their proposals.
The FDC has now posted our recommendations on Meta for Round 2 2014-2015 on
the annual plan grants to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. [3]
Thanks to the leadership of the FDC’s two Board Representatives (Maria
Sefidari and Frieda Brioschi), the WMF Board will review the
recommendations and then make their decision on them by 1 July 2015.
This round, the six proposals were submitted to the FDC. One proposal was
withdrawn before we met to deliberate. We recommended allocations totaling
roughly $1,248,913 USD for these five organizations. Note that all
allocations were made in local currency. A total of $5,060,913 was
allocated in both rounds in this year (2014-2015). The remaining $939,087
from the FDC’s $6 million budget will be returned to the Wikimedia
Foundation.
Before our face-to-face deliberations, the FDC reviewed the proposals in
careful detail. We also reviewed staff assessments and analysis on impact,
finances, and programs, as well as community comments on the proposals. We
also took into consideration the discussion pages of relevant documents.
There is a formal process for grant applicants to submit complaints or
appeals about these recommendations. Here are the steps for both:
Any organization that would like to submit an appeal on the FDC’s Round 2
recommendation should submit it to the Board representatives to the FDC by
23:59 UTC on 8 July 2015 in accordance with the appeal process outlined in
the FDC Framework. A formal appeal to challenge the FDC’s recommendation
should be in the form of a 500-or-fewer word summary directed to the two
non-voting WMF Board representatives to the FDC (Maria Sefidari and Frieda
Brioschi). The appeal should be submitted on-wiki, [4] and must be
submitted by the Board Chair of a funding-seeking applicant. The Board will
publish its decision on this and all recommendations by 1 July 2015.
Complaints to the ombudsperson about the FDC process can be filed by anyone
with the Ombudsperson and can be made any time. The complaint should be
submitted on wiki, as well. [5] The ombudsperson will publicly document the
complaint, and investigate as needed.
The FDC would like to thank Wikimedia Deutschland for hosting this Round’s
deliberations. We appreciate the team that worked hard to make our
deliberations meeting a smooth and successful event.
Finally, we offer our sincere thanks to the six organizations who submitted
annual plan grant proposals to the FDC.
On behalf of the FDC,
"pundit" Dariusz Jemielniak (FDC Chair)
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round2
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2…
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Appeals_to_the_Board_on_the_reco…
[5]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Complaints_about_the_FDC_process
Below is the list of the languages sorted by the number of L2 speakers
(more than one million of them).
L2 speakers appear in two occasions:
* First and important to us is about languages used for wider
communication. For example, French is L2 among educated people of West
Africa.
* The second type is related to the native languages in not so good
position (either dying or reviving). For example, English is L1 language of
the most of Native Americans, as well as Russian is L1 language of the most
of ethnicities of former Soviet Union, while their own languages are L2
ones. (They are important in other cases, but not for this purpose.)
I omitted English (there is no sense, as we are communicating in English
and English is default for all the localization) and few spoken languages
(our content is [mostly] written).
I also removed some languages which belong to the second category (Irish
Gaelic and Scots, for example), but it could be the case that some of the
languages from the list belong to that category, as well (though I am
pretty sure they don't).
There are languages inside of this list with well developed Wikimedia
projects and without particular need to promote work on Wikimedia projects
among them: French, Spanish and German are the examples. There is no
Russian inside of the list, as it's usually L1 language, as mentioned
above, but it belongs to the category of the languages with well developed
Wikimedia projects.
There are also languages spoken in countries with low level of internet
access and issues much more important than writing an encyclopedia, like
Congo Swahili is. Those are the areas not yet ready even for the projects
like OLPC is and we don't have a lot to do there.
But there are a number of languages in between with active chapter(s) or
user group(s) inside of relevant countries. Those languages should be the
priority in promotion collaboration.
They are: Arabic (Arabic user groups), Indonesian (WM ID), Hindi (WM IN),
Urdu (Pakistani user group), Thai (Thailand UG), Bengali (WM BD), Zulu (WM
ZA), Hausa (West African user groups), Xhosa (WM ZA), Afrikaans (WM ZA),
Kannada (WM IN), Telugu (WM IN), Tsonga (WM ZA), Malay (WM ID and Malaysian
Wikimedians), Marathi (WM IN).
The priorities for those languages should include (but likely not limited
to):
* Translation of MediaWiki messages should be 100%.
* Those languages should be priorities for every document which should be
translated. For example, ongoing Board elections; but also various Meta
pages.
* We should have the pool of literate people in those languages for various
purposes, not just for translation. For example, if we want to create
projects in languages of Pakistan, we should have a number of literate Urdu
speakers, willing to help newcomers speaking Urdu as their L2 language.
Will be back with other languages-related data :)
LanguageCodeL1 speakersL2 speakersStandard
Arabicarb206,000,000246,000,000Mandarin
Chinesecmn847,808,270178,000,000Indonesianind23,200,480140,000,000Hindihin
260,333,620120,000,000Spanishspa398,931,84096,990,000Urduurd64,035,800
94,000,000Frenchfra75,916,15087,000,000Thaitha20,396,93040,000,000Bengaliben
189,261,20019,200,000Zuluzul11,969,10015,700,000Hausahau25,109,00015,000,000
Xhosaxho8,177,30011,000,000Afrikaansafr7,096,81010,300,000Bamanankanbam
4,072,04010,000,000Burmesemya32,035,30010,000,000Congo Swahiliswc1,000
9,100,000Northern Sothonso4,631,0009,100,000Kannadakan37,739,0409,000,000
Germandeu78,093,9808,000,000Tamiltam68,776,4608,000,000Juladyu2,550,000
7,000,000Lingalalin2,141,3007,000,000Koongokng5,016,5005,000,000Telugutel
74,049,0005,000,000Ibibioibb1,500,0004,500,000Tok Pisintpi122,0004,000,000
Kriokri495,6004,000,000Amharicamh21,811,6004,000,000Bangalabxg~0
3,500,000Tsongatso4,009,0003,400,000Malayzlm15,848,5003,000,000Marathimar
71,780,6603,000,000Sinhalasin15,613,9802,000,000Efikefi405,2602,000,000Duala
dua87,7002,000,000Yorubayor19,380,8002,000,000Shonasna10,741,7001,800,000
Vendaven1,294,0001,700,000Sangosag404,0001,600,000Manado Malayxmm850,000
1,500,000Sylhetisyl10,300,0001,500,000Ambonese Malayabs245,0201,400,000
Ndebelenbl1,090,0001,400,000Rakhinerki1,000,0001,020,000Gandalug4,130,000
1,000,000Akanaka8,314,6001,000,000Khmerkhm14,224,5001,000,000
My fellow Wikimedians,
I am pleased to announce the results of the most vital exercise in
democracy in the Wikimedia movement for many years:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MCOTM
The first-ever Meta Collaboration of the Month (MCOTM) for June 2015 will
be on the [[Events]] page, a particularly long standing and unfortunately
out-of-date piece of movement documentation.
Meta-Wiki page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Events
Meta-Wiki discussion:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Events#Congratulations_to_this_page.2C…
Nominations are now being accepted for the July 2015 MCOTM :)
(With apologies to the hard work of the WMF elections committee!)
Thanks,
Pharos