Tabular data vs. structured data - How do we get to a win-win solution?
Speakers
Executive Director of the Basque Wikimedians User Group, long-term Wikimedian. I contribute mostly to Basque Wikipedia, and I'm active in Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons. Interested on education and innovation, especially multimedia and interactivity.
Lydia Pintscher is the portfolio lead for Wikidata at Wikimedia Deutschland, supporting the Wikidata community since the beginning. She works at the intersection of community and technology, bringing together people around Free Software and Open Data. She studied computer science at the University of Karlsruhe. She serves as the vice-president of KDE e.V. and the head of the advocacy and awareness section of the European Open Source Academy.
Art historian, Belgian in the Netherlands. Wikimedian since 2003, most active since 2011. I mainly work on Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons and on content related to art and culture (GLAMwiki). I edit as a volunteer, but also intermittently work with affiliates and as a Wikimedian in Residence.
Wikimedian since 2006, admin on Swedish Wikipedia, but my most active project is Wikidata, followed by Wikimedia Commons. I am co-host of the podcast Wikipediapodden and have been doing some Wikidata Live editing.
Member of Wikimedia Sverige (where I once was the CEO) and a bunch of other affiliates. Most notably, I am a co-founder of Wikimedians for Sustainable Development.
Abstract
Wikidata is great [no citation needed] but it has some limits. One of them is handling large amounts of data in one item, for example, when there are large time series with high granularity. A Wikidata item has a real size limit, and the web browser may struggle at handling large amounts of data (and even if it can handle it, it may require a lot of scrolling for the user). At the same time, we have the possibility to store data in a more efficient format in the data namespace on Wikimedia Commons. It can even be used to generate beautiful multilingual charts! The downside, though, is that this data is not queryable in the same way data on Wikidata is.
In this open panel we will hear different perspectives from Commons and Wikidata as well as from users and maintainers. Together we will explore possible pathways forward by comparing benefits and trade-offs.
Additional information
I agree
Better access and sharing of data are related both to equity and reliability. Equity in the way that by storing it in a shared space, it will be usable to all language versions instead of being hidden in tables and static graphs at a local project. For reliability, by getting collective maintenance of it, fewer resources are needed to keep it up to date. When updates are made, they will also propagate to small and large communities alike without them needing to act, thus increasing the reliability of these projects.
Any Wikimedian who wants to enable cross-project synergies will be happy that this discussion is taking place. It has been discussed in small forums many times, but this is the first time an entire session is dedicated to it at Wikimania.
This is not meant to be replicated. Rather, this is a discussion on a global level to reduce replication of data in Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons (or in local projects!).
Average knowledge about Wikimedia projects or activities
Onsite in Paris