#Wikimedia - The George Polk Award winners; how to catch them all

It is this time of year again; the George Polk Awards have been announced. Last year I spend a lot of time adding information to and cleaning the data at Wikidata. There are over 500 award winners known so Reasonator does not catch them all.  Listeria shows more data but multiple entries are an issue.

There are multiple reasons to complete a list like this. In this way celebrated journalists like Michael Winerip  or Michael Schwirtz finally get their presence in the Wikimedia world. It is a way to celebrate journalism, important enough in this time of fake news and, it is a demonstration how data at Wikidata can extend the quality of Wikipedia's information.

Given the amount of award winners, it takes too much time to do all the work in one go. It is now largely a matter of adding the red and "black" linked award winners. At this time it is the 2014 award winners who are being added.

The problem is that time spend on one award takes away time from other projects, equally deserving. Projects like completing information on US governors or British governors. How to register information like epidemics because their impact is not fully appreciated. How to make plain that a source has a negative impact when it is actually retracted..

Anyway, congratulation to the George Polk Award winners for 2017; that their career may blossom with this recognition.
Thanks,
     GerardM

Teaching #Wikipedia using local #news

One of the functions of Wikipedia is providing a background and, to understand what is in the news, you need a lot of background. This is one of the first things to overcome when children start reading the news.

When newspapers are introduced in the class, a first exercise is to just read and have the children select a few articles that are of interest to them. As a follow up they analyse the text for concepts that you have to know about to understand the article. They make lists for the selected articles.

On another day they select new articles, make similar lists but are asked if there is an overlap with other lists. They are asked to write a few lines for all the concepts in such a way that there is enough to understand the article coming from every original news article.

This is when Wikipedia is introduced. The children is shown that it provides basic and neutral information that help them understand, for instance, the news. Their next challenge is read Wikipedia and see how its articles help understand the news. When subjects are missing, they make a list.

The last thing to do is write stubs for missing Wikipedia articles. What then may follow is the standard course ware for writing Wikipedia articles. The objective for this approach is that it helps children to better understand the news; understand that news is a continuum. The news is compact and assumes basic knowledge and such information can be found in Wikipedia.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#VIAF - Move over #Wikipedia for #Wikidata

VIAF or the Virtual International Authority File is maintained by the OCLC or the Online Computer Library Centre. It is effectively where libraries worldwide maintain information on everything. Its importance is hard to grasp; it links to the sum of all knowledge worldwide in all the libraries in the world.

To share in the sum of all knowledge, VIAF links to Wikipedia and so far it was only the English Wikipedia it linked to. VIAF took a huge step in sharing to all of Wikipedia recently. It decided to no longer link to English Wikipedia but to link to Wikidata.

What this does not mean is that the OCLC does not appreciate the English Wikipedia. What it does mean is that by linking to Wikidata it implicitly links to every Wikipedia. It can now link to authors only known in the Russian, the Chinese, the Hindi or any other Wikipedia. This is enabled by Wikidata because it links to any article in any Wikipedia.

It takes me three paragraphs to explain what it is that is happening. The implications are huge. Every month the OCLC will update its information from Wikidata. Given that the OCLC had a Wikipedian in Residence who was instrumental in this development, it is well possible that the information flow will be going more and more in both directions. The German community has collaborated for years with the German Library who maintains its authority file. The GND is included in the VIAF.

At Wikidata we have always been open to collaborating with external resources. This open attitude now results in relevance. A relevance that will expose every Wikipedia in every library of the world that is linked to the OCLC through VIAF. How wonderful is that?
Thanks,
        GerardM

#Wikipedia - Suzette Jordan 1974-2015

Additional attention for important women is always welcome. Mrs Jordan was known as the victim of the Park Street Rape Case. What makes Mrs Jordan so special is that she spoke out. This was a novelty and not really welcomed by the status quo. It was suggested by senior politicians that it was a a misunderstanding between a lady and her client.

Thanks to women like Mrs Jordan, the silence around rape is changing in indignation.

Thank you Mrs Jordan,
       GerardM

#Wikimedia - Guy Kawasaki

With the title "The art of the start" Mr Kawasaki proves himself an author who is known for looking at things with a fresh eye. I have read the book and found it inspiring.

It is therefore that I am ever so happy to hear that Mr Kawasaki is the latest member of the board of the Wikimedia Foundation.

It will be interesting to see what a philosophy of looking fresh at issues and with an eye to create results will do for our movement.

I welcome Mr Kawasaki to our movement and I am ever so happy that in the quote used Wikimedia and not Wikipedia is mentioned. It inspires hope for more inclusive policies.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikipedia - Khaled Idris Bahray a victim of terrorism is to be forgotten II

The good news is, Mr Idris Bahray is not a victim of terrorism. He is dead nonetheless. Mr Idris Bahray was apparently killed by his roommate.

When you read the article in Der Spiegel, you will read that he died in an area where swastikas are painted, with an unresponsive police according to the Wikipedia articles. It is a grim atmosphere were "us and them" thinking prevails.

Such an atmosphere exists not only in Germany, it can be found in so many places including the Netherlands where I live. People are afraid. They are afraid on both sides. It is what terrorism does and intends to do. As a result people are looked at and treated as if they are the enemy. It is done by "us and them" and both sided feel justified in their fear and anger.

Mr Idris Bahray died in Germany, he was not murdered by a terrorist. As we are all terrorised, Mr Idis Bahray's death got the attention it did get.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikipedia - Khaled Idris Bahray a victim of terrorism is to be forgotten

In #Dresden they protest against #Islam. In Dresden they killed Khaled Idris Bahray because he was clearly a foreigner and a muslim at that. As a consequence of his death people are terrorised. They are terrorised because they fear for their life and they have every reason to fear for their life.

Many people assume that their right to freedom of speech is paramount and a death like the one of Mr Idris Bahray is inconvenient and a side issue. Their point of view prohibits them to realise how people are terrorised by people they share this point of view with.

I would be totally ashamed, I find it extremely regrettable that some suggested for the German article is to be deleted. They quote a relevant rule as their argument. Wikipedia was about "Ignore all rules". This is certainly one moment to do just that and keep the article.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#LOC - #Wounded Knee II

At the time I blogged about the restoration of an old photograph take after Wounded Knee. At the time there were many people actively restoring pictures as a group. This is just one of the important restaurations undertaken by Durova.

Now almost five years later, I learned that the Library of Congress included the restored picture with the original. Now that is awesome.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Google - What it does with #Freebase is beyond awesome

In an e-mail Denny Vrandečić announces an astounding bit of news. It effectively says that Wikidata can have all its data if it wants it.

It then goes on saying that it is not expected for Wikidata to accept all this data and follows with an announcement for a tool that is to source data. This news is best read as it was announced..
Thank you Google!
        GerardM

Freebase was launched to be a “Wikipedia for structured data”, because in 2007 there was no such project. But now we do have Wikidata, and Wikidata and its community is developing very fast. Today, the goals of Freebase might be better served by supporting Wikidata [1]. 

Freebase has seen a huge amount of effort go into it since it went public in 2007. It makes a lot of sense to make the results of this work available to Wikidata. But knowing Wikidata and its community a bit, it is obvious that we can not and should not simply upload Freebase data to Wikidata: Wikidata would prefer the data to be referenced to external, primary sources. 

In order to do so, Google will soon start to work on an Open Source tool which will run on Wikimedia labs and which will allow Wikidata contributors to find references for a statement and then upload the statement and the reference to Wikidata. We will release several sets of Freebase data ready for consumption by this tool under a CC0 license. This tool should also work for statements already in Wikidata without sufficient references, or for other datasets, like DBpedia and other machine extraction efforts, etc. To make sure we get it right, we invite you to participate in the design and development of this tool here: 

 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Primary sources tool 

I hope you are as excited as I am about this project, and I hope that you will join me in making this a reality. I am looking forward to your contributions!  

[1] https://plus.sandbox.google.com/109936836907132434202/posts/bu3z2wVqcQc

Denny Vrandečić via lists.wikimedia.org

#Wikipedia - Now in #Maithili

It is a happy occasion when a new Wikipedia is created. Today we may welcome the Maithili Wikipedia. The website has been created and all the content that is currently still in the Incubator needs to be migrated.

I wish the Maithili community well; I hope they will share with us in the sum of all available knowledge.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikimedia Foundation has a new #MD

I just heard that Lila Tretikov will be the new MD for the Wikimedia Foundation. Many people will say "wise" words. I do better, I may be first and I just show a picture of her reaching out..
Thanks,
      GerardM

correction.. executive director .. she will manage :)

#Wikidata - Shirley Temple

When she was a little girl, she was an actress. She was immensely popular and recently, she died.

When something happens to people like her, it generates a lot of activity; Wikipedia articles are updated or written and, at Wikidata missing data is added.

Did you know for instance that she became a diplomat when she grew up? That she had parents or that she had children?

They are the kind of things people have been adding and, as always, as more data is added Wikidata gains relevance.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Beyond extended #search

Forget #Wikipedia for a moment. #Wikidata does more; it supports #Commons, #Wikivoyage and it will support #Wikisource really soon now. Wikidata adds value particularly when it is used in the context of the Wikis that make use of it.

Many people consider that Wikidata is there to support their Wikipedia. It is equally true that Wikidata is able to support the Wikivoyages. As more projects are supported, the fallacy that Wikidata exist to support a specific wiki becomes even more obvious.

The Wikidata extension to search results reflects nicely the power of Wikidata. It helps with the disambiguation of the items, it indicates if there are Wikipedia and now Wikivoyage articles, you can be directed to Commons to find images and finally it shows what it has to offer by presenting information nicely in the Reasonator.

The news in this blog post is that Wikivoyage features among the results for each item. What is new to most people is that the Wikidata extension to search is not restricted to Wikipedia. It will work equally well on Commons and Wikivoyage .. Wikibooks and Wiktionary.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikidata HOWTO - It is in the news

The "concept cloud" of what is in the news, the right livelihood award is topical. According to the article, it is a prestigious international award. One purpose of a concept cloud is to make sure that the information relevant to a subject is well presented and that statements are added.

Awards like this one have been given over many years. Wikipedia often has a category with all the laureates. This is a perfect opportunity to use Widar to add the fact to all the laureates that they received this award.

Obviously you can use it for other categories as well.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of #Brunei

The #Commonweath has a new repository of images. It includes many interesting images like the picture to the right of the 29th and current Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei.

There are many pictures available and partcularly when they are used for educational use, you should have a look. Sadly, for use in Wikipedia these pictures are off limit as they are not freely licensed.

The way it works is, 

• you create yourself a profile
• you select the pictures you are interested in
• you indicate what you will use the pictures for
• you wait for permission to use them
• you download the picture
• you add an attribution

Compare this with the pictures of Mr Hassanal Bolkiah on Commons; 

• this is the category of pictures of the Sultan
• you select one of the pictures like this one..
• you download the picture
• you add an attribution

Thanks,

     GerardM

#Wikipedia zero makes more of an impact

The aim of the #Wikimedia Foundation is to share the sum of all knowledge. It has been often stated that we can only reach those people that have the necessary technology available to them. There is one other hurdle; the cost of the data coming to that technology.

Wikipedia zero is an initiative of the Wikimedia Foundation to enable mobile access, free of data charges, to Wikipedia in developing countries. The objective of the program is to reduce barriers to accessing free knowledge—one of the largest barriers being cost of data usage.

The WMF aims to convince mobile phone operators in the "global south" to provide the high quality and free information of Wikipedia. This is increasingly successful; currently Wikipedia Zero has been rolled out in 17 countries with more countries to follow.

Traffic from Wikipedia Zero is now growing really rapidly not only from new partners but also from autonomous growth from the existing partners.

With more people enjoying Wikipedia as readers, a next question is how to convert some of them to editors. The good news is that both translatewiki.net and Wikipedia recently added functionality for editing from a mobile phone. Combine this with the language technology that allows Firefox and Chrome to support many more scripts and it is clear that the WMF does enable people to truly share in the sum of all knowledge.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Great news from the #ngadc, they dig the public domain!

" With the launch of NGA Images, the National Gallery of Art implements an open access policy for digital images of works of art that the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are now available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial. Users do not need to contact the Gallery for authorization to use these images. They are available for download at the NGA Images website (images.nga.gov). See Policy Details below for specific instructions and notes for users."

This is the kind of news that makes for happy reading. It provides a basis for happy collaboration that starts with the GLAM people in our Wikimedia movement. When you read the terms of use for the images that are in the public domain, they make sense.

The realisation that public domain is best expressed by providing the public with access to this important resource. Once the GLAM people have a working relation, there are so many more things that can be done. This is a great step forward and the world is a better place because of it.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Fixing a lamp with #3Dprinting

The next #copyright battle ground is likely to be all about 3D-printing. Consider the story of the IKEA lamp in Wired; the shade was broken and a designer created a dozen new shades. New shades were printed at a cost of $5,- and the availability of a 3D-printer for several hours.

When a design can be exactly replicated at will there is no need for the factories or shops of IKEA. Consider the impact on retail shops; there is no need for a lot of storage room; all that is needed is a powerful 3D-printer to provide customers what they want.

Obviously factory produced goods are cheap. The cost of a product is very much in things like transport, distribution, overhead and breakage. At this time 3D-printed goods are more expensive to produce. This will change and a new cottage industry will come to exist.

Designs owned by global players can be easily copied and changed and there is little to prevent this from happening. Obviously there will be a lot of copyright posturing and industries expecting royalties because 3D printers are there just to rip off the rights holders...

Ah well, it is the likely way of progress. I however like the notion of more local production.
Thanks,
    GerardM

Buying #software

The software industry insisted that you do not buy a product but that you acquire a license. According to the highest court in the Netherlands this is not the case. In a blog post (in Dutch) Arnoud Engelfried informs about the consequences.

• As it is a product that is bought and sold, the supplier has to conform with all the rules that apply to the sale of goods
• Software can be expected to provide working functionality
• When it does not, the supplier has to amend the situation

With this change in the status of software all the mechanisms that consumers have will kick in. Including rules and regulations around sale over the Internet (you can return such goods within a given time-frame).

It will be interesting to learn how the software industry will respond.

Thanks,

     GerardM

The "pitfalls" of the #Arabic language

A wonderful project aims to create a #dictionary of technology and social media related terminology. It is a necessary project because it will help people use the Internet in the Arabic language.

The one thing that is quite telling is that it aims to add this terminology to classical Arabic and that it refers to "the many different Arabic dialects".

When Muslims learn the Quran, they learn a language as it was spoken in the days of the prophet Muhammed. The Arabic language itself has evolved in the mean time in many distinctly different ways. As such it can be compared to the Latin language, that brought us Italian, French, Spanish..

The question is to what extend a dictionary of modern words will become part of what is after all a classical language and be adopted. It is however very much a wonderful enterprise, it may even standardise the targeted terminology in all the Arabic languages.
Thanks,
    GerardM