Hoi, The issue with data is not so much that it can be whatever, the point is that it should not be whatever. When data is provided, like the size of the Washington DC population, it is relevant to know the source and the date of this information. This will explain what the number actually means. When there are multiple sources for this information, it is not relevant what information is "correct", what is of relevance is that information on comparable subjects uses the same data source.
OmegaWiki, the best implementation of Wikidata, does not carry at the moment information like number of inhabitants. Technically it would be possible to do so however, the data structure needed has not been implemented yet. We do however demonstrate other types of information. Have a look at the Netherlands, it is marked as a "country" and consequently all kinds of attributes associated with this class are available.
When you create a user profile, you can experiment with the representation of the data. You will find that depending of the existence of translations your experience will be in the language that you select. We do want to support more languages and, we want to extend the data available.
As OmegaWiki is providing its data under a more liberal license then the GFDL, it is possible for everyone to make use of its data.
Thanks, GerardM
http://www.omegawiki.org/index.php?title=DefinedMeaning:The%20Netherlands%20...
On Nov 29, 2007 1:24 PM, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 28, 2007 11:27 PM, Michal Rosa michal.rosa@gmail.com wrote:
Just a quick example, according to en Wiki the population of Washington DC is 581,530, German Wiki says it's 548.360, according to French Wiki it's 553 523 and Polish Wiki states it's 582 049.
What you're actually seeing here is what happens when data is stated to a higher degree of accuracy than is warranted. When a number which changes daily is quoted so exactly, of course different sources will differ. I'm not sure where this practise of stating populations as if they could be determined down to the individual person came from.
(I know this is not really relevant to your original point, but to the one that differing information between different Wikipedia editions may not mean any of them are wrong; they're just using different sources for an approximate figure impossible to pin down).
-Matt
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l