User:Charles Matthews/Facto Post/Issue 2 – 13 July 2017

Editorial: Core models and topics

Wikimedians interest themselves in everything under the sun — and then some. Discussion on "core topics" may, oddly, be a fringe activity, and was popular here a decade ago.

The situation on Wikidata today does resemble the halcyon days of 2006 of the English Wikipedia. The growth is there, and the reliability and stylistic issues are not yet pressing in on the project. Its Berlin conference at the end of October will have five years of achievement to celebrate. Think Wikimania Frankfurt 2005.

Progress must be made, however, on referencing "core facts". This has two parts: replacing "imported from Wikipedia" in referencing by external authorities; and picking out statements, such as dates and family relationships, that must not only be reliable but be seen to be reliable.

In addition, there are many properties on Wikidata lacking a clear data model. An emerging consensus may push to the front key sourcing and biomedical properties as requiring urgent attention. Wikidata's "manual of style" is currently distributed over thousands of discussions. To make it coalesce, work on such a core is needed.

Links

• WikiFactMine project pages on Wikidata, including a SPARQL library (in development).
• Fatameh tool for adding items on scientific papers to Wikidata, by User: T Arrow. It has made a big recent impact. Offline for maintenance as we go to press, it is expected back soon.
• As of July 2017, Zotero has a Wikidata translator. A personal Zotero library acts as an intermediary in managing and storing citation metadata.
• GLAM Newsletter June 2017, Wikidata report. This is a good monthly round-up to follow, and welcomes contributions.
• Exciting and Impressive! The Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC) was launched in April: Infodocket on the first three months.
• Olivia Solon in San Francisco, Why the net neutrality protest matters, opinion piece in The Guardian on 11 July.