Andreas,
Of course it is a Wikipedia-centric analysis, because citing the article
you provide (bold in the original):
*Wikidata presents Wikipedia as structured data*
Wikidata does not exist in isolation. In symbiosis with existing projects
it acts as a catalyst, or at least that is one of the goals.
I am aware of the risks of the CC0 license reuse, and of the possible
"garbage dump" effect, but so far the process of data import/correlation
has been highly human supervised, with initiatives like the Wikidata game:
There is also a process for approving data imports, it is not such a wild
place...
So far it is unclear how the relationship with external consumers will
evolve, maybe it is a new opportunity for them to participate in the data
curation process, either directly or through entirely new feedback loops
that are not possible in the traditional Wikipedia setting. For instance:
All in all, I find very positive that you bring this issues into public
awareness, it gives a broader perspective of the limits of the platform,
both technical and social. I think there is still a lot to discuss about
it, and it is good to have the conversation rolling.
Cheers,
Micru
On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 5:25 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Micru,
That seems a very Wikipedia-centric analysis, as though Wikidata were only
there to feed Wikipedia. I think most re-users of Wikidata will be
elsewhere, and indeed be passive consumers and commercial rebranders whose
audience is unlikely to feed back into Wikidata.
The following article in The Register, which resulted from a conversation
with Andy Mabbett, explains this quite well:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/25/wikidata_turns_the_world_into_a_dat…
There was also another media story last week, about a project by Dutch firm
Lab1100 (complete with some sceptical comments about data quality). It's a
Wikidata-based map of historical military battles fought across the world:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/12180516/Geography-of-violence-Ma…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35685889
So the commercial potential is huge.
I'm not blind to the argument that use will lead to correction, but it has
to be balanced against the risks of "garbage in, garbage out", given the
huge amount of data that will eventually accumulate and need to be curated
by volunteers, and bearing in mind that the CC-0 licence has the potential
of obscuring the origin of the data, cutting the very feedback loop your
argument relies on for a substantial subset of end users.
Andreas
On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 1:57 PM, David Cuenca Tudela <dacuetu(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 12:41 PM, Andreas Kolbe
<jayen466(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> Wikidata and Wikipedia have very different purposes: Wikipedia is an
> encyclopedia to be read; Wikidata is a database. No one reads a
database.
> The whole purpose of a database is to have
its content multiplied and
> surfaced elsewhere. Therefore it is even more essential that its
content
stand on
solid ground.
I disagree with that. In my opinion Wikipedia and Wikidata do not have
different purposes, they complement each other.
In an ideal world all the data present in Wikidata should surface in
Wikipedia, and be referenced from there.
However it is expected that the data comes already referenced at
*statement* level from Wikidata, when Wikipedia doesn't comply with those
standards either. This assumes that the Wikidata community is a generator
of perfectly referenced facts and that the Wikipedia communities are mere
consumers of data. This is a toxic view because it goes against the core
principle of wikis as a tool for taking ownership of the means of
knowledge
aggregation and distribution.
It has to be noted too, that in Wikidata many items have external
identifiers, references, and sources, and they apply to the whole
information contained, not just one single statement, that is something
that should be taken into account when speaking about reliability.
Besides this discussion is trite. Quality comes from use, research and
oversight, and without tools for working with wikidata from wikipedia,
like
connected infoboxes, there is no point in
discussing about data quality,
because as you said "no one reads a database"... except for a few people
like me I guess :)
Cheers,
Micru
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