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Submissions/How Wikidata helped me to correct errors in articles whose languages I don't speak

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2015 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this July.

Submission no.
2081
Title of the submission
How Wikidata helped me to correct errors in articles whose languages I don't speak
Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop)
presentation
Author of the submission
Harmonia Amanda
E-mail address
Username
Harmonia Amanda
Country of origin
France
Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)
Personal homepage or blog
Abstract
Someone told me once : "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a computer must be in want of a free database." Here is how it changed my life.

Wikidata is more than just storage for interwikis links; we are building a large database out of claims and properties. The tremendous growth of the number of claims last year transformed my use of wikidata: I had come to correct interwikis, I stayed to structure data.

With the example of Wikidata:Wikiproject:Middle-earth (which I created; I am still its only official contributor, so please consider joining!), I will explain how we can check the consistency of data and discover issues needing fixing: merges, translations and... actual wikipedia errors.

In this presentation, you will see how to build a properly linked database of Middle-earth's waterways, how to build the family tree of the House of Durin, how to properly record the deaths of the Battle of Pelennor Fields... and even how to correct errors in languages you cannot even read!

Now this may sound difficult... but it's not (and it's fun too!). I will demonstrate several gadgets and external tools for checking data consistency, for importing informations from Wikipedia and for. conversely, exporting Wikidata to wikipedia articles (e.g., with infoboxes). A good database structure greatly helps; constraints on properties are a powerful tool to detect errors (but not the only one).

Inconsistencies can have four reasons (five with vandalism, which I will not cover in this talk): error in Wikidata, error in Wikipedia, misunderstanding of the properties due to translation issues, and conflicting sources. Correcting on Wikidata is relatively easy (once you find the error, 90% of the job is done), translation issues are more difficult and need discussions to be resolved, conflicting sources force using qualifiers, references and deprecated values; errors on wikipedia... that's the fun part!

Track
  • WikiCulture & Community
Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long)
30 minutes
Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?
yes
Slides or further information (optional)
Special requests


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