Wednesday, April 11, 2012

#Wikidata and what it can do for #Wikipedia

In an opinion piece Mark Graham fears for the many different opinions that exist in the many different Wikipedia articles on a same subject. However, many Wikipedias will do really well when they have high quality info-boxes available to them provided by Wikidata.

The article on Mali on the Zulu Wikipedia contains the info box I used as an illustration and the text: "iMali izwe eAfrika". It is a stub and I am REALLY pleased with the activity in the Zulu Wikipedia. They are working hard copying info-boxes and creating stubs but I would much prefer it when all that is needed is translate the labels and maybe the values as well and have tons of stubs in next to no time. Once well maintained data becomes available, the value of even minimal articles like this will go up a lot. 

When people start to write the articles that go with the data, it will have to fit the data. There will be fights over the data but I am sure that in the final analysis the facts will provide their own Neutral Point Of View. This will not deny the differences in approach in the articles themselves but it will provide a common baseline based on facts.
Thanks,
     GerardM

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