In 2019 Wikimedia Israel (WMIL) decided to develop instructional material for the Wikidata Query Service (WDQS). The background for this decision was that we see audiences to whom we introduce Wikidata become especially enthusiastic when we present the Wikidata Query Service tutorial, which offers quite a unique feature within the landscape of information services available today. This enthusiasm often dampens when audiences discover that querying is not done using natural language but rather requires learning SPARQL.

We believe learning SPARQL is not rocket science, even for audiences with no programming background. We created a step-by-step tutorial website to give users an introduction and some basic lessons on how to use the query service. While WDQS has a great Help section, this section might not be so helpful to users who are new to Wikimedia platforms. We therefore built the tutorial website on the WordPress platform which has a more familiar design to most users.

We believe this website will make the WDQS more accessible, and hope this will be a way to expand Wikidata to new audiences.

Currently the site is in English but we are open for collaborations to add the tutorial in other languages. We are also keen to hear feedback from those involved in Wikidata Outreach. 

Revital Poleg

Executive Director