Hedwig in Washington

Discussions

• New requests for permissions/Bot: KlaraBot - Task(s): Append a human's lifespan to descriptions when they can be authoritatively sourced.
• Closed request for comments: Audio transcription (P9533) - Closed with no consensus. The discussion is ongoing on the Property P5933 talk page.

Events

• Past: Amical Wikimedia, the Catalan-language and culture focused thematic Wikimedia Organization organized the Celebrem Wikidata (Let's celebrate Wikidata) project to celebrate Wikidata's 12th anniversary, from November 10 - 30. This included a Wikidata introduction workshop to equip participants with the editing skills to tackle the project's main aim. This was presented as a game to delete duplicate info on Wikidata and Catalan Viquipèdia infoboxes, in three areas: protected buildings, officers' positions and data related to sports teams players. At the end of the event, ~200 Wikidata-fed infoboxes and Wikidata items were improved and many Wikipedia editors edited Wikidata for the first time!
• Upcoming events:
  • (Deutsch)Wikidata for Legal Historians - Tue. 10 December, 3pm - 7pm (UTC+1). This presentation explores Wikidata as a key platform for LOD, explains its Semantic Web foundation, introduces FactGrid (a Wikidata-based platform for historical research). Highlights potential of both platforms using examples and encourages discussion for legal historical research. Register here.
  • Today (09.12.2024) is the last chance to submit an Abstract for the Wikidata and Research conference (5 - 6 June 2025). If you are interested in participating, please review the submission acceptance format before submitting here.

Press, articles, blog posts, videos

• Blogs
  • MediaWiki Conference Highlights, featuring Wikibase talks including one by Christos Varvantakis and Jon Amar from Wikimedia Deutschland.
  • Semantic Wikibase 2024 Update
  • WMDE launches AI Knowledge project in collaboration with DataStax built with NVIDIA AI
  • Ten years of Philippine local Govt. data for Wikidata's 12th Birthday. Read about SKAP's (Shared Knowledge Asia Pacific) efforts to add 10 years worth of financial data of local Government assets to Wikidata during a Datathon.
• Papers
  • Developing an OCR - Wikibase Pipeline for Place Names in the RGTC Series - introduces a semi-automated workflow for extracting and digitally storing geographically relevant information, including spatial relations and contextual details, from place names in the Répertoire géographique des textes cunéiformes. By Matthew Ong (2024).
• Videos
  • Wikibase4Research - Kolja Bailly presents ways in which the Wikibase4Research tool by the TIB Open Science Lab supports researchers in dealing with Mediawiki software for knowledge bases such as Wikibase and facilitates better and FAIR Research Data Management. Includes a live demonstration and beginner-friendly instructions.

Tool of the week

• CAT🐈: Metrics computing simple metrics (number of labels, number of descriptions, number of sitelinks, number of statements) for item matching a simple claim.

Other Noteworthy Stuff

• Template:Image properties New template listing properties that link to images.
• Let's Connect invites you to get involved in helping spread awareness and knowledge of Wikidata, potentially help organise a Wikidata Learning Clinic. Are you interested in participating? Please sign-up on this registration form.

Newest properties and property proposals to review

• Newest properties:
  • General datatypes:
    • reference illustration (an illustration of this subject to provide a detailed reference for its appearance. It should be ideally tied to the primary literature on the item.)
  • External identifiers: Gallimard author ID, Football Kit Archive ID, Bibliothèque du Séminaire de Tournai author ID, Bibliothèque du Séminaire de Tournai publisher ID, Reg-Arts artist ID, EU Corporate body code, PBY Ben-Yehuda dictionary identifier, Academic Dictionary of Lithuanian entry ID, L'AF au champ d'honneur ID, Radio Algeria tag ID (Arabic), Radio Algeria tag ID (French), The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language entry ID, Kamus Dewan Edisi Keempat ID
• New property proposals to review:
  • General datatypes:
    • land acknowledgement (acknowledgement of indigenous or native people whose ancestors lived at a location)
    • homonym of (taxon item of which the taxon name is an exact homonym)
    • taxon known by this common name (taxon item of which this common name refers)
  • External identifiers: PCGames.de product ID, AniSearch character ID, Hachette author ID, El Watan tag ID, Albin Michel author ID, DNCI label ID, Battle.net game ID, Collectie Nederland ID

You can comment on all open property proposals!

Did you know?

• Query examples:
  • Items missing Hungarian labels or description that are part of Library and Information Science (Q13420675)
  • Items from Maori Wikipedia missing English labels or descriptions
  • Instances of "Shopping Center" located in administrative territorial entity subclass of Norway
• Newest WikiProjects:
  • Nonprofit Organisations in Nigeria, Belgium and Italy.
• WikiProject Highlights:
  • Rwanda - since its creation a couple of weeks ago, it has expanded greatly with new sections for Lists, Museums and Hospitals.
• Newest database reports: Unauthorized Bots - A list of bots and their edits, operating without a Bot flag.
• Showcase Items: Das Erste: A German public service television channel broadcasting for more than 70 years.
• Showcase Lexemes: Kerzu (L8153) the Breton word for December, directly translates from "totally black", rather appropriate for the cold, dark last month of the year.

Development

• You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Weekly Tasks

• Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
• Contribute to the showcase Item and Lexeme above.
• Govdirectory weekly focus country: Ghana
• Summarize your WikiProject's ongoing activities in one or two sentences.
• Help translate or proofread the interface and documentation pages, in your own language!
• Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
• Help write the next summary!

Discussions

• New requests for permissions/Bot: PWSBot - Task(s): Is a selfmade chatbot to answer factual questions as part of a final research project for educational purposes.
• Closed request for permissions/Bot: CarbonBot - Withdrawn by submitter

Events Upcoming events:

• Next Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group session (Attn: Please fill out Pre-Participation Survey!) 17 December 2024: We have our next LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group Session on Tuesday, 17 December 2024 at 9 am PT / 12 pm ET / 17:00 UTC / 6 pm CET (Time zone converter) Wikimedian Mahir Morshed is leading a series of four sessions focused on lexicographical data in Wikidata. We are looking forward to learning more about these Wikibase entities! If you anticipate attending the workshop sessions, please fill out a brief survey linked from our Series Etherpad to help us prepare relevant materials for you. Sessions will be held on November 5, November 19, December 3, and December 17, 2024 at our regular time of 9am PT / 12pm ET / 17:00 UTC / 6pm CET. Event page
• 2025 Wikimedia Hackathon - register now

Press, articles, blog posts, videos

• Papers
  • Are Wikipedia articles representative of Western or world knowledge?, December 12, 2024, The Signpost
  • Baptiste de Coulon, "Les don­nées liées, Wikidata et les archi­ves : une oppor­tu­nité de contri­bu­tion aux com­muns numé­riques". In: La Gazette des archives, n°271, 2024-2, p.37-56 (free access online after 3 years).
• Videos: AWS re:Invent 2024 - Wikimedia Deutschland's Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) and Philippe Saadé talk about d:Wikidata:Embedding Project.

Tool of the week

• Tabular Online Validator - checks if SPARQL query results conform to a provided schema by validating data and highlighting potential errors, such as missing properties, invalid values, or too many values, with the option to refine the schema if issues arise. (A major update to the current ShEx validator that is expected to get integrated into the existing validator soon)
• CAT🐈: Overview if references: looking at references for a set of Wikidata items

Other Noteworthy Stuff

• Now Hiring: OpenRefine Developer & Contributor Engagement
• The Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) is launching the Entity Management Cooperative (EMCO) program in 2025, aiming to unify entity management across the semantic web, including registries like Wikidata. Volunteers, including those with prior experience in PCC’s ISNI or Wikidata pilots, are invited to join the Early Adopters Phase by January 17, 2025.
• The Biodiversity Heritage Library Working Group has set up a page on Meta to coordinate contributions across projects, including Wikidata

Newest properties and property proposals to review

• Newest General datatypes:
  • bequest income (the sum a organisations receives from bequests/legacies in a timeframe)
• Newest External identifiers: PCGames.de product ID, PUG authority ID, Three Decks class ID, Vidas author ID, Usito ID, ZSL authority ID, Collectie Nederland ID
• New General datatypes property proposals to review:
  • About box (Screenshot of the About Box of the respective software (contains important information such as authors, license, version number and year(s) and is included in almost every software))
  • nonprofit tax status (country specific tax status of non-profit organisations)
  • Рахимов, Гафур Рахимович (Gʻafur Rahimov)
  • nomenclatural type of (taxon item of wich this item is the taxonomic type)
• New External identifier property proposals to review: Three Decks conflict ID, Algeria Press Service tag ID (French), Algeria Press Service tag ID (English), Algeria Press Service tag ID (Arabic), JudaicaLink person ID, Newmark Albanian-English Dictionary ID, Norsk oversettterleksikon ID, footballdatabase.eu match ID, Kamus Pelajar Edisi Kedua ID, Berlinische Galerie object ID, Singapore Unique Entity Number, Lyricfind artist ID, HonestGamers game ID, identifiant MACM d'un artisite, Syrian Memory person ID, Identifiant d'un(e) auteurice sur le site Mille ans de littérature d'oc, Paris Match ID, Kamus Dewan Edisi Tiga, identifiant Registre national des gels, DOSBox Wiki, Identifiant Cimetières de France

You can comment on all open property proposals!

Did you know?

• Query examples:
  • World map of recent censuses known at Wikidata for each decade (select decade on the right side)
  • Timeline of inception of Ghanaian universities
  • Most common name in Germany by year of birth
• WikiProject Highlights:
  • Chemistry/Elements
  • Taiwan/Truku - a compilation of information on the subject of Taroko culture, including statistics and records of activities.
• Newest database reports: Dagbani Lexemes with Glosses which are the same as the Lemma
• Showcase Items: Alice Through the Looking Glass (Q17485699) - 2016 film directed by James Bobin where now 22-year-old Alice comes across a magical looking glass that takes her back to Wonderland.
• Showcase Lexemes: آب‌لرزه‌یاب (L744998) - Persian noun, translates to "hydro-seismometer"

Development

• Wikibase REST API: We prototyped search support for the REST API and would like your feedback on it.
• Property Suggestions: We updated the underlying data so you should have more up-to-date suggestions again when making new statements.
• EntitySchemas: We continued the work on making it possible to search for EntitySchemas by their label and aliases when linking to them in a statement.
• Query Service: We are investigating if we can do something about the issue where not all edgeLabels are shown on a graph visualisation (phab:T381857) and if there are any alternatives to the library used for the graph builder in the Query Service (phab:T381764)
• Under the hood: We are optimizing the server setup for the term store to accommodate its growth (phab:T351802)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Weekly Tasks

• Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
• Contribute to the showcase Item and Lexeme above.
• Govdirectory weekly focus country:
• Summarize your WikiProject's ongoing activities in one or two sentences.
• Help translate or proofread the interface and documentation pages, in your own language!
• Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
• Help write the next summary!