Wikibase Community User Group/Activities list

April 2018

Wikibase Workshop on Research Monitoring and Evaluation

• In collaboration with the European Research Council
• More details on Wikidata

March 2018

Data reuse from Wikibase installs

• Reached out to a writer on The Conversation about using ParaSport Data and its query engine to write about 2018 Winter Paralympics. Created a number of queries with interesting results to demonstrate why this tool is so valuable. They were unable to write anything because of other commitments that came up.
• Using data imported from Ayuntamiento de Madrid, pitched to several newspapers in Spain a project about using disability data to better understand disability in Madrid. Despite repeated e-mails in Spanish to these papers data journalism folks, did not hear back. This was eventually published on ParaSport News.

Community discussion

• Requested creation of a mailing list for the group.
• Created a specific channel on Slack for Wikibase Community User Group.

Query engine

• Created a basic guide for writing a simple query using Wikibase query engine.
• Reached out to someone via e-mail at suggestion of another developer about federating queries for Wikibase installs.
• Laura Hale wrote some queries, found on her user page on Wikidata for a group doing a project related to streets named after women in Spain.

Wikibase bulk uploading development

Demonstration of issue related to inability to use certain characters on Wikibase.

potential fix to Wikibase bracket and special character fix by changing them to other characters.

• Posted to Facebook about issues with inability to user characters like [] in urls when adding them on a Wikibase install. Had discussion on Slack about potential workarounds to this issue. No easy solution as Wikibase does not allow these characters via upload or basic input. See image example of error, and image of potential fix that needs automating for bulk upload tool.
• Miguel Paraz developed a fix for the issue of special characters using the bulk upload tool he created. This means that, using the tool, special characters like [] and spaces can be included in URLs without causing problems .
• Discussed issues around exporting Wikidata geographic coordinates, how these are backwards and re-importing causes problems as a result. Wikidata exports as Long, Lat, not as Lat, Long. Unsure of solutions because this problem is very specific.

Data requests

• Requested data from Ayuntamiento de Madrid about accessibility at schools and universities in the city.

October 2018

ParaSports Data Gap Analysis

• Laura Hale gave a small presentation to two academics an INCIO at the University of Salamanca explaining how Wikibase and its query engine works, discussing the pros and cons of the software and how it compares to other software options.
• Laura Hale participated in a discussion remotely with a Wikidata birthday celebration about Wikibase software.
• Laura Hale published a Gap Analysis created during a Postdoc competed in October and released it in order to give others considering using Wikibase a higher level perspective of some of the issues involving Wikibase usage for large scale projects.

November 2018

Instructions on how to upgrade Wikibase software. This is all theoretical as Wikibase does not have upgrade tools like Mediawiki does. Further documentation is being worked on following a hopeful successful in December 2018.

• Laura Hale posted to Mediawiki with list of questions about upgrading Wikibase as there appears to be a lack of technical documentation for how to do this. Also posted to the Wikibase Community User Group mailing list about this.
• LauraHale offered feedback on Talk:Wikitrace regarding Wikibase related issues.
• Laura Hale had a conference call with WM-DE's Cornelius and Jens about current status of Wikibase Community User Group.
• Updated ParaSports Data Project on Research Gate with information about ParaSports Data and Wikibase Community User Group.
• Laura Hale and Miguel Paraz discussed work flow issues around upgrading Wikibase, things that need to be done with Wikibase around future development with intention of writing both general overview of scope for what should be done to make Wikibase more broadly usable by academics and those with technical expertise to support Wikibase.
• Registered #wikibase-cug^connect on freenode IRC to have a more accessible location to discuss Wikibase with broader community in real time that does not require people to use invite only slack channel.
• Created a Wikibase Community User Group on Telegram. Sent invite to people on the mailing list. Group had 12 members within first 24 hours of creation.
• Created a theoretical Wikibase Upgrade Workflow document as first stage of a December 2018 project to develop more extended technical documentation on this process. This is critical work towards making Wikibase usable in the future by more organizations, as the software becomes less functional and less desirable for use by others if it cannot be upgraded. It is viewed by WCUG leadership as the most critical aspect for getting greater adoption of the software.