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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Billinghurst (talk | contribs) at 00:42, 13 January 2017 (→Benefits of using Wikidata on enwiki: parameter-less templates, eg. {{authority control}}). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This page is intended as a preparation for a sitewide RfC about the role of Wikidata on enwiki. Before such an rfC can be had, it seems like a good idea to list a few things here. The section on "uses" should be pretty straightforward: the sections on benefits and disadvantages should be somewhat factual (no "I love it" or "I hate it"), but not necessarily 100% objective ("Wikidata is easier to edit / harder to edit" can both be valid points of view); please don't remove entries from either section unless they are patently unhelpful or untrue. If necessary, you can always use Wikipedia talk:Wikidata/2017 State of affairs ;-) Fram (talk) 15:02, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Uses of Wikidata on enwiki

Mainspace

Data use

  • Lists: Some lists were generated by ListeriaBot which draws data from Wikidata (e.g. List of female Egyptologists), and all changes to the lists made in enwiki were overwritten when the bot ran. Wikidata data control has been disabled. Technical support in Wikipedia for list generation is tracked at phab:T67626 (the designs are not final so it is unknown whether this support will have the same flaw as ListeriaBot).
  • Subheads: In mobile view, the Wikidata description is inserted as an italicised subhead (e.g. London has the subhead "Capital of England and the United Kingdom"). It isn't visible to desktop users and if one wishes to edit it, it is not obvious that it comes from Wikidata. For example, in mobile view Social history of viruses used to be shown with the subhead "essay writing for deadly diseases". Editing of descriptions from mobile is tracked at phab:T90765
  • Templates: Some templates and their fields provide Wikidata. Sometimes this data must be explicitly requested in the article (this is called "opt-out") and sometimes this data is populated automatically subject to a Wikipedia override (this is described as "opt-out" data).
  • Inter-language links: Inter-language links are provided through Wikidata but can be overridden using local links

Wikidata categories

Many articles have one or more hidden tracking categories generated by templates used in them. These categories range the following usually:

A value differs between Wikidata and Wikipedia
Indicates Wikipedia or Wikidata pages which may need to be updated
A value is the same between Wikidata and Wikipedia
Indicates Wikipedia pages which could have data removed in favor of Wikidata, or which could be left alone as they work as is
No value is present in Wikipedia
Indicate Wikipedia pages which do not have data
No value is present in Wikidata
Indicates Wikidata pages which could be updated based on the Wikipedia data

Links to a Wikidata entry

Instead of bluelinks/redlinks, some articles link some terms through an interwikilink to Wikidata, which is slighlty paler blue than a true bluelink.

Module WikidataIB: Values fetched from Wikidata using Module:WikidataIB where there is no corresponding article on the English Wikipedia have a link to the Wikidata entry with a marker and tooltip (), rather than a redlink:
At the end of a field there can be an "edit icon" (Edit this on Wikidata) with a tooltip and a link to the corresponding statement in the subject's entry at Wikidata. This can be disabled like this:
The documentation for Module:WikidataIB explains the basics, but is not yet updated with the |noicon= and |onlysourced= parameters. --RexxS (talk) 17:48, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Filtering returned values from Wikidata

If you paste {{#invoke:Sandbox/RexxS/WdRefs|seeRefs}} into any section of an article and preview it, you'll see all of the statements held on Wikidata for that article, along with the references (if any) for each statement. Warning: This can cause depression.

Module:WikidataIB allows an article to set a filter which rejects any values not sourced to something better than "Wikipedia".

At present the rejected sourcing is none or "Imported from ... Wikipedia". Others could be added on request, although for rare cases, using a local value is easier. --RexxS (talk) 17:48, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Other namespaces

Benefits of using Wikidata on enwiki

  • Easier to connect enwiki pages to correlated pages on other projects. I've been using it to connect copyright license templates on Commons to enwiki's, making copyright cleanup easier. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:15, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikidata is easier to train new users
    • No knowledge of wiki-syntax is necessary
    • Citations are more robustly added
    • There is more "auto-fill"
  • Where implemented in templates, can reduce size of a page's wiki-text; and lessen requirement to understand how to template data and parameters. Example is the use of {{authority control}} to display data with a parameter-less template
  • A newly created article could use a Wikidata-aware infobox to help provide an overview of the key facts available on that subject in other Wikipedias at a glance.
  • Whatever new fact we add to en-wp can be made available to all the other Wikipedias and vice-versa.
  • Using data for visualisations, such as this graph of the number of painting items per 10-year bucket on Wikidata. This can be used for all sorts of Wikiprojects and checks for various lists.
    • We are almost at 200,000 painting items on Wikidata, but English Wikipedia has been illustrated with way more than that. Hopefully they will all be added to Wikidata soon. Meanwhile, subsets of paintings can also be shown per painter or collection, so e.g. of all the paintings by Rachel Ruysch currently on Wikidata with location information, we can show them on a world map here. Jane (talk) 14:34, 12 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • About cycling, the algorithm Cycling race is able to work in around 25 different Wikipedias always with the same calls, and have nine functions about infoboxes and tables. An obligation of sourcing was introduced at the creation of the Wikidata Cycling project.
  • Lessen requirement to manually maintain interwiki links, and to also prevent false or broken links. An example is {{Wikisource author}} which checks whether the link actually exists; and when a target page is moved at enWP or at enWS then pages automatically sync to new locations.

Disadvantages of using Wikidata on enwiki

  • Wikidata is not as inviting to untrained new users as Wikipedia
    • Distracts from enwiki's efforts to be welcoming
    • Conceptually any database is more difficult to understand or describe as compared to an encyclopedia
    • Not much culture of conversation between enwp and Wikidata communities, as compared to for example enwp and Commons
  • Fear of something new
    • Its interfaces are in development and subject to change, so knowledge gained about using it will become obsolete soon
    • Wikidata's limitations not well documented in any popular layman summaries
  • Patrolling on enwiki is not integrated with patrolling on Wikidata
    • Many people understand and trust enwiki's quality review process
    • Many people doubt Wikidata's quality review process
  • Fear of corruption
    • Data management is a major corporate sector - should we be cautious moving in this space to keep it community managed?
  • Wikidata content is of variable reliability. By its nature (scooping data from multiple wiki-projects each with individual varying standards) it cannot be treated as a reliable source. There is still currently problems with circular sourcing (Wikidata taking data from Wikipedia which is then being used to fill-in content on Wikipedia). Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:42, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • As others have said, the lack of reliable sources is the major issue. It means that Wikidata edits violate WP:V and WP:BLP. It makes no sense to import unsourced data, in particular unsourced data from smaller wikis (fewer eyes) to larger ones. We have worked long and hard to introduce and maintain good sourcing on enwiki. The Wikidata edits are turning back the clock. SarahSV (talk) 20:31, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Circular referencing (we take it from wikidata, who take it from wikipedia)
  • Changes there influence content here, but don't appear in any meaningful way on our watchlist (checking the "Wikidata" box) and not at all in the enwiki page history
  • Parts of an article needs editing here, parts of an article need editing there, in a completely different editing environment
  • Different notability and sourcing standards
  • Added maintenance to keep things the same on both environments
  • Layout generated on wikidata may violate our guidelines (see e.g. wikiproject cycling discussion)

Prior and current discussions about the use of Wikidata

Interwikilinking

  • phab:T54564 Allow sitelinks to redirect pages to fix the 'Bonnie and Clyde problem' (since 2013)

General

Topical

Article-specific

Talk:List of women linguists
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