[Wikipedia-l] Linking to and collaborating with free databases

[Jakob Voss]

Hi there,

(I just wrote the same on [[meta:Linking to databases]])

Wikipedia is not a database but an encyclopedia. And MediaWiki is not 
designed to manage a relational database. But there are some free 
database projects out there that are worth collaborating with. For 
instance MusicBrainz and freedb collect information about bands, CDs and 
songs. In Wikipedia there are also a lot of articles about bands. Few of 
them are already linking to freedb or MusicBrainz. How about 
consequently linking Wikipedia and selected free databases? Technically 
it's not that complicated. I created an example on en: and de: linking 
to MusicBrainz. See the articles [[en:In Extremo]] and [[de:In Extremo]]:

1. Create a template (see [[en:Template:musicbrainz]]
    and [[de:Vorlage:musicbrainz]])
2. Start using the template
2.1. Select an article of a band or song
2.2. Search for it at http://musicbrainz.org
2.3. Copy the part of the Permanent Link after http://musicbrainz.org/
      for instance "artist/8ebd161e-f45e-41b9-8019-fcbd094c327f.html"
2.4. Add a link to the External Links section using the follwing syntax:
      {{musicbrainz|artist/8ebd161e-f45e-41b9-8019-fcbd094c327f.html}}
3. Frequently get a list of all articles using the template 
(Wahtlinkshere is your friend) and parse the template links
4. Send the list of Wikipedia article titles and MusicBrainz IDs to
    the MusicBrainz guys and convince them linking back to Wikipedia

It's only a little step further to get the following: If I start 
listening a CD a browser window openes showing me the relating Wikipedia 
article of the band or CD! It's that easy and everybody will profit - so 
what are we waiting for?

BTW: We could also collaborate with the en:IMDb but "their" data is not 
open content, so better not linking to them - maybe we better build up 
Wikimovies instead.

Greetings,
   Jakob