Sorry guys, I forgot to share the link with you all: http://tech2.in.com/features/science-and-technology/wikidata-summing-the-sum-of-human-knowledge/630882
On Sat, Dec 8, 2012 at 6:33 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <rsrikant...@gmail.com > wrote: > *Wikidata: Summing the sum of human knowledge* > *By Rohini Lakshané* > > Have you ever wished you could query Wikipedia with a question? Have you > ever wanted to run a search on Wikipedia to extract data rather than trawl > through reams of Wikipedia pages and interlinks? Have you ever imagined a > world where everyone could freely pool knowledge even without sharing a > common language? Wikidata is set to do all this, and more. > > > > Wikidata, deployed in October this year, is the newest project by the > Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation that runs Wikipedia and its sister > projects. It is a semantic, multilingual, structured database that anyone > can read and edit. It is machine readable, which makes searching, sorting > and handling of data efficient and fast. Like with its siblings, Wikidata’s > content and software are published under a free license. > > > > *Central repository of links* > > Wikidata aims to streamline Wikipedia’s rich but chaotic linking > structure. Every Wikipedia page has ‘interwiki links’ that link it to other > Wikipedia pages. ‘Interlanguage links’ connect pages to other pages on the > same topic published on Wikipedias in different languages, creating a mesh > of links. With around 23 million articles in 285 languages, the linking > structure leads to immense duplication. Wikidata will act as a central > repository for all language links on all Wikipedias, with the ultimate > objective of levelling off the raw data in the language versions. Under the > *first > phase<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/Development/Sprint_archive> > * of Wikidata deployment, which is now > live<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/Development/Sprint_archive>, > editors can add interlanguage links (sitelinks) on Wikidata pages. > > > *Ask Wikipedia a question* > > The *future phases<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/Technical_proposal> > * of Wikidata deployment involve converging the data found > in*Infoboxes<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Infobox> > * (December 2012 or January 2013), and the enabling of the creation of > lists on Wikipedia (April or March 2013). > > > > Infoboxes -- tables with the summary of the most important information on > the pages -- across Wikipedias are not uniform. Internationalised export > and import of data present in Wikipedia templates such as the Infobox would > greatly enrich its encyclopaedic value. All information present in all > Infoboxes will then come to one central repository from where it could be > updated everywhere else at the same time. > > > > Wikipedia houses lists on assorted topics created by users -- episodes of > the most popular TV shows, heads of state, and even inventors killed by > their own inventions. However, it is currently not possible to query these > lists and cull out specific information. For example, searching the string > “countries with highest GDP” leads to a search results page with the > entries ‘List of countries with the highest GDP per capita’ and ‘Historical > list of ten largest countries by GDP’. But if you were to search for ‘ten > countries with highest GDP in Asia’ you wouldn’t quickly reach the relevant > information even though it exists in these lists. Wikidata will > automatically create a user-queried list to answer semantic queries such > as, “What were the ten countries with highest GDP in Asia last year?” > > > > Konarak Ratnakar, who has registered over 8,000 edits on Wikidata, says, *“I > found that Wikidata had very few India-related entries. So I started adding > information on Indian cities and the capitals of small countries. I like > Infoboxes very much, and that fact that this project would make Infoboxes > grow motivated me to contribute.” * > > > > *Supporting smaller Wikipedias* > > Of the 285 Wikipedias, only four have more than a million articles. 40 > Wikipedias have over a 100,000 articles. Big Wikipedias have legions of > editors; most Wikipedias with a smaller article base have fewer speakers of > the language or less volunteer manpower. Wikidata aspires to enable smaller > Wikipedias to extend their tendrils to bigger ones, and benefit from the > vast amounts of language-independent data present on them. Having > up-to-date data at their disposal will potentially rope in and retain > editors and contributors on smaller Wikipedias, where researching and > writing voluminous content from scratch may be a laborious task. The web > and Wikipedia would get more content, which in turn, would become useful to > those who only speak the languages in which smaller Wikipedias exist. > > > > *Verifiability and difference of opinion* > > Wikidata can handle differences of opinion. If different sources of data > portray discrepant or conflicting information, Wikidata has the provision > to include such differences, and the different nuances of information. This > data will be accompanied by its source in keeping with one of Wikipedia’s > cornerstones of verifiability. Lydia Pintscher of Wikimedia Deuthschland, > who handles community communications for Wikidata, explains, *“Say you > have the number of inhabitants of Israel. People don't agree on an exact > number for that for various reasons. In Wikidata it will be possible to add > all of them (within reason) with sources. So it'll not be about what is > right but about what some source says.”* > > > > *Pushing the envelope at Wikipedias and the web* > > Wikidata is slated to expand. Once it is fully deployed, it will > apparently allow for more new articles to be created with fewer > contributions. Editors will not need to write full articles on topics that > already exist on other Wikipedias. Instead, they will need to enter data at > the specified data points to get an article with the preliminary framework > ready. Wikidata will also enable micro-contributions to articles that > already exist by allowing easy data entry for editors to expand or update > articles using the available datasets. > > > > Machine-readable data facilitates automatic updating of content that is > currently done manually on Wikipedia, for example, the updating of census > figures or election results. Wikipedia lists too will be automatically > created and updated. > > > > Editing on Wikidata is done through a form-based editor, instead of using > wiki syntax, the mark-up present on Wikipedia, which new editors generally > find tedious. > > > > Once Wikidata is fully operational, it will act as an interchange point > for more Wiki projects, such as the Wikimedia Commons, a media repository. > Wikidata is governed by the Creative Commons Public Domain license, which > renders the data on it copyright-free. As the Wikidata API is freely > available and the software is open licensed, you could run your own > instance. The availability of interwiki data and API opens up many > possibilities -- data extraction, data mash-ups, using interwiki metadata > for regional or localised Wikipedias, and expanding the scope of apps such > as the *Interwiki Redirect Service <http://interwikiredir.appspot.com/>*. > Pintscher says, *“In the near future we'll see the roll-out of phase 2 of > Wikidata and then the adaption of that on the Wikipedias. With time I hope > that more and more players outside Wikimedia will make use of Wikidata and > build great things on top of it. I'm sure they'll come up with many things > we haven't even thought of yet.”* > > > > Wikidata has the potential to be a repository of repositories where the > sum total of human knowledge coalesces, a database that glues together > Wikipedias of all 285 (and counting) languages. > > > > Important Note : Non-commercial reproduction for informative purposes only. > The publisher ( Tech2 ) of the above news article owns the copyrights > of the article / content. All copyrights are duly acknowledged. > > > -- > Regards, > Srikanth Ramakrishnan, > Sathyamangalam-Gobichettipalayam Star Gazers, Coimbatore. > > Please sign this petition for Volvo buses in Coimbatore: > > https://www.change.org/en-IN/petitions/the-transport-minister-tamil-nadu-introduction-of-volvo-city-buses-in-the-city-of-coimbatore > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimediaindia-l mailing list > Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l > > -- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. Sign this petition to introduce Volvo buses in Coimbatore city: https://www.change.org/en-IN/petitions/the-transport-minister-tamil-nadu-introduction-of-volvo-city-buses-in-the-city-of-coimbatore
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