For the past few months, Silvia Gutiérrez and Giovanna Fontenelle (from the Culture and Heritage team at the Wikimedia Foundation) have been publishing a series of Diff posts analyzing the results of the collaborative session that sought to build a direct bridge between the Library-Wikidata community and WMF during the 2023 LD4 Conference on Linked Data. 

This is the fifth post in the series that will go deep into the fourth slide of the workshop: the challenges, especially in terms of tools, that participants found when working with Wikidata as librarians. In this case, we asked them to divide the answers into particular tools and aspects, plus the reasons why they thought this was a challenge. We also invited them to add emojis of a toolbox (🧰) and of a DNA (🧬) when they agreed with the content of the virtual post-it.

OpenRefine

The most commented tool on the Jamboard was OpenRefine, which is “…a free data wrangling tool that can be used to process, manipulate and clean tabular (spreadsheet) data and connect it with knowledge bases (…) It is widely used by librarians, in the cultural sector, by journalists and scientists, and is taught in many curricula and workshops around the world.” (OpenRefine page on Meta-Wiki). This tool is also heavily used by Wikimedians to batch upload data to Wikidata and, since 2022, to batch upload files and structured data to Wikimedia Commons as well. Interestingly, in our previous post –about tools people love or are excited about– OpenRefine was the tool that got the most votes, four in total. However, it does appear in this post as well.

In some of the comments, participants highlighted difficult aspects of the tool especially regarding Wikidata, such as: “[It c]an be challenging to reconcile really common names when there is not much data to differentiate one identity from another in authority data.” This is especially true on Wikidata, as there are a lot of names on the project and sometimes not enough context to differentiate between them. In this case, most people need to check them one by one to avoid mistakes. In this same line, participants also highlighted problems with the reconciliation of “instance of” property and the usage of old schemas. Someone even noted that “reconciliation can be a huge lift” and challenged “How can we simplify that?”

Still about OpenRefine, people also expressed problems like failures and slowness: “Doesn’t run smoothly all the time–especially when system is slow at times” and “Google Sheets and OpenRefine both start to fail when building large datasets out of Wikidata”, which are important considerations. While it might be hard to overcome some of these issues, it is also true that this is one of the most beloved and used tools, and now you can learn how to use it by going through the WikiLearn course “OpenRefine for Wikimedia Commons: the basics“, which is already available for anyone with a Wikimedia account.

SPARQL Query

The next aspect mentioned a lot in the Jamboard was SPARQL and, in total, it received five DNA emojis (🧬). These comments are related to the Wikidata Query Service (or the Wikimedia Commons Query Service), a platform that Wikimedians use to get information from Wikidata. In order to accomplish these information requests, this tool uses SPARQL, which is “…a semantic query language for databases” according to Wikipedia in English. This language is indeed difficult to learn as one of the comments highlighted: “Difficult to figure out (1 🧬)”. 

As with OpenRefine, participants also highlighted some technical problems: “SPARQL queries sometimes time out at inconvenient times, or return truncated results that aren’t always apparent as such.” And also suggested how it could be improved: “Easily filtering SPARQL queries on more criteria, like the presence or absence of references.” This last comment received three DNA emojis (🧬).

Other aspects

The remaining aspects participants highlighted during the workshop, other than tools, cover general concepts related to Wikidata and it could be distributed into two groups:

1 – Semantic inconsistencies

As one of the comments with more 🧬 (7) put it, the most difficult part is the semantic inconsistencies. These are all the comments on the Jamboard that reflect this difficulty:

• “Semantic inconsistencies in existing Wikidata data that have to be addressed before a dataset is usable (and incomplete data);”
• “A concept is there but missing a label in my language;”
• “Ontological confusion about what can be an instance of what;”
• “Trying to standardize a data model in a domain when other editors have followed inconsistent practices. I don’t want to just edit their items to fit my model, but I don’t know a better solution;”
• “Where data model is determined by 1:1 correspondence with Wikipedia articles, it can be hard to adjust;”
• “Confusing concepts – the ideas of concepts are overlapping and differing between cultures (e.g. anglo-american vs. others);”
• “Labels in single vs. plural form can cause problems in reconciliation with OpenRefine if mapping to a vocabulary using plurals;”
• “This is WD’s strength as well as its weakness: That anyone can add anything to an item, which ultimately makes retrieving results difficult and inconsistent;”
• “Other people changing your data model afterwards (to be more consistent with their own)–not sure this is a problem but there can be disagreement.”

All of these concerns are extremely important and valid. These are difficulties that all Wikidatians go through on their way to understand and contribute to Wikidata, even at more advanced levels. A suggestion we can make at this point, to those who want to explore this topic a bit more, is to search Wikidata for a Wikidata:WikiProject that is aligned with the data modeling you are working with, in order to find out or establish yourself semantic consistencies. For example, the Wikidata:WikiProject Heritage institutions tried to establish which properties should be added to properly model Wikidata items for heritage institutions, such as museums, libraries, and archives.

2 – Notability

The remaining main comments from the Jamboard are related to the notability of data, both in the moment of adding new data and the one data that could be retrieved. These are all the comments on the Jamboard that reflect this difficulty:

• “Concerns about data quality for reuse in other systems — like discovery UIs;”
• “Concerns about notability when I’m working with global music. The sources I use aren’t widely held by libraries;”
• “Easier to collaborate on item assessment/improvement.”

The notability aspect is a difficult one, especially when in association with the semantic inconsistencies problem. One of the reasons why we need consistency is that we need to be able to talk to other databases and be reusable. 

Other than that, the notability aspect is also a concern as it might exclude topics, sources, or references that are not considered notable enough to be available because of certain biases (gender, language, origin, etc). To understand Wikidata’s notability, check Wikidata:Notability. At the bottom, the Wikidta community also adds: “If the data you’re trying to add falls outside of these notability guidelines, (…) our sibling projects, Wikibase Cloud and Wikibase Suite could be a good home for your data. Go to wikiba.se to learn more about the options.”

This is the fifth of six blog posts! Do you want to read it from the beginning? Here’s the list of links to the previous posts: 

1. #LD42023 I: The Future of Wikidata + Libraries (A Workshop)
2. #LD42023 II: Getting to Know Each Other, Librarians in the Wikidata World
3. #LD42023 III: The Examples, Libraries Using Wikidata
4. #LD42023 IV: Wikidata Tools everyone is talking about
5. #LD42023 V: Main Challenges of Wikidata for Librarians (this post!)👈
6. #LD42023 VI: Imagining a Wikidata Future for Librarians, Together

The core mission of the Wikimedia community includes creating, promoting, and sharing trustworthy information on the Wikimedia projects, which includes countering disinformation to ensure those projects’ integrity. This goal demands concerted efforts, where Wikimedia volunteers and communities engage critically with knowledge, verify sources, and uphold encyclopedic principles while creating and sharing content on the projects. Wikimedians embody this spirit through their diligent creation and use of tools that are crucial to identifying and correcting false information in order to safeguard the online information ecosystem. Their arsenal includes powerful tools such as Wikipedia Huggle and Citation Hunt, which are key to maintaining the reliability of information sources on the Wikimedia projects. 

Wikimedians contribute their energy and time to ensure that the Wikimedia projects are accurate, cite reliable sources, and maintain a high standard of integrity, while also challenging the spread of disinformation and false information. In 2022, the Wikimedia Foundation began to identify initiatives and activities that Wikimedia communities, affiliates, and the Foundation created to counter disinformation. This exercise resulted in the Anti-Disinformation Repository, a collection of all tools and projects that prove why and how Wikimedia is an antidote to disinformation. 

This story is part of a three-part series that explains how Wikimedia volunteers counter disinformation and illustrates how important such efforts are to protect and enrich the online information ecosystem. 

Wikimedians’ tools in the fight against disinformation 

The proliferation of disinformation and manipulation tactics in the online information ecosystem has become more evident in recent years. Detecting and confronting these harmful practices requires detection tools, which Wikimedia volunteers can leverage to effectively counter malicious campaigns before the content gains traction and, thus, safeguard the public from misleading information.

Tools such as Huggle and Citation Hunt reflect common tactics to improve the quality of Wikipedia’s articles and enhance the reliability and trustworthiness of the encyclopedia’s content. Huggle is an editing interface that shows how articles are revised, and is used to deal with vandalism and other unconstructive edits on Wikimedia projects in order to maintain the quality of the projects’ content. This tool, available in more than 30 languages, loads and reviews edits made to the projects in real time, identifying potentially unconstructive edits in the articles and allowing users to revert the changes quickly. Huggle operates as a semi-distributed system, gathering edits through a provider (e.g., the Wikipedia API), and processing and examining them. The information is then shared with other anti-vandalism tools like ClueBot NG so that this data can improve their effectiveness. Huggle’s mission to fight vandalism intersects with the goal to combat disinformation by upholding the integrity of the Wikimedia projects and creating a more reliable environment where accurate and reliable information can flourish.

This proactive approach safeguards the accuracy of information and maintains Wikimedia projects’ credibility as reliable sources of knowledge. Huggle reinforces the community-driven nature of the projects, facilitating more coordination among Wikimedians united in their commitment to address vandalism. Collaborative processes on the projects are based at their core on the use of reliable sources to assess trustworthiness of content. At the same time, Huggle strengthens Wikipedia’s verifiability principle, since it ensures that all content on the encyclopedia is supported by reliable and previously published material from credible sources, defined by the communities themselves. 

In parallel, citations serve as the backbone of Wikipedia’s content in the pursuit of accuracy and credibility. Citation Hunt is a valuable tool in this endeavor, streamlining the process of fact-checking and enhancing the overall trustworthiness of Wikipedia articles by highlighting sentences or paragraphs where citations are lacking. From there, Wikimedians can choose to search and add sources to the statements directly through the tool’s interface. By empowering volunteers to corroborate the verifiability of the sources that they cite in several languages, Citation Hunt helps them to uphold the rigorous principles of verifiability and accuracy that characterize Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects and strengthen the reliability of their content.

Conclusion 

The significance of developing and using tools to detect online disinformation and increase information integrity cannot be overlooked. Wikimedians exemplify a proactive approach in confronting disinformation by equipping their communities with sophisticated tools that are user-centric, context-specific, and are designed to support the unique needs of volunteers contributing to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. The commitment of Wikimedians demonstrates that the right tools and collective efforts can safeguard a healthier and more resilient online information ecosystem regardless of borders and contribute to helping everyone, everywhere, to participate in the sum of all human knowledge. 

*        *        *

Please join us in our mission to foster a more transparent and trustworthy online environment for all. You can subscribe to our Global Advocacy quarterly newsletter to receive updates on the latest developments, initiatives, and resources aimed at countering disinformation and other issues related to free and open knowledge.

Open Inclusive Initiatives launched to address minoritized gaps on lesser-known Wikimedia projects with first training and capacity building.

It is not enough to lament the gender gap and limited contribution to lesser-known Wikimedia projects such as Wikimedia Commons and Wikinews. The focus should be channeled into finding solutions and initiatives to bridge the daunting gap while promoting lesser-known Wikimedia projects.

This theory has led to the launch of a new initiative, Wiki Inclusive Initiatives, dedicated to addressing content gaps about underrepresented groups, such as black and African women, individuals with disabilities, and health issues within the African context, on Wikimedia projects, the open movement, and the internet in general.

These minoritized groups face significant disparities in several areas, including the internet.  

In relation to gender disparities, the Wikimedia Foundation and other studies have documented several research pointing to these gaps and have supported numerous initiatives to reduce biases. However, gender-based knowledge disparities, the use of stereotypes, and misrepresentations still exist on Wikimedia projects.

In terms of health, we see that women’s health issues are relegated to obscurity with far-reaching consequences on knowledge and information on health conditions peculiar to African women and women in general.

Directly linked to health is disability issues, another crucial focus area with little attention. Although the Foundation has initiated a few projects, such as the Wiki Science training course, in 2020, this project was limited to disability scholars and healthcare experts to contribute their expertise on disability issues on Wikipedia. In as much as this was a helpful move, the scope limits contributions from the “ordinary” volunteer and has no clear opportunity for contributions from the African perspective.

Putting everything together, Open Inclusive Initiatives seek to address these crucial gaps in lesser-known Wikimedia to ensure a more inclusive and balanced knowledge on the Internet. Our maiden event, held on June 1, brought together 16 participants in Accra, Ghana, to learn about these gaps and their impact. Participants also received hands-on training to contribute images of African women to Wikimedia Commons.

Led by Pamela Ofori Boateng with supporting facilitators, Ruby Brown and Francis Quaisie, participants of which majority were new entrants, were briefly introduced to Wikipedia editing which, we believe was necessary to provide a firm foundation for understanding other Wikimedia-related projects.

Participants were also armed with valuable career skills training on navigating LinkedIn and positioning themselves for better career prospects.

Please get involved by following us on the social media handles below to learn all about our maiden event and future plans.

FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61560435051433

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/103000609/admin/feed/posts/

Podcast https://bit.ly/3VAySuv

^{[This is the second one of the series of three diff blogs about NDEC Wikimedia Bootcamp 2024]}

NDEC has been running Wikimedia bootcamp since 2020 and has trained hundreds of students, likely exceeding a thousand! In the early days, our retention rate was quite low. We quickly learned from each experience and continuously improved. The 2024 edition has achieved a more stable structure after much trial and error. We learnt a lot from the 2024 edition, just as we have done in previous years. We are sharing some of our insights with fellow Wikimedians working in ECWOs and anyone else involved in Wikimedia and Education spaces.

Statistics

More than 150 students registered for the 2024 bootcamp, which is 65% of the 2022 edition’s turnout. Below are the statistics from both editions for you to pause and ponder.

^{Statistics from the 2024 edition of the bootcamp. (Images by NDEC, CC BY SA 4.0)}

^{Statistics from the 2022 edition of the bootcamp. (Images by NDEC, CC BY SA 4.0)}

What we learnt

1. Money matters: Volunteerism is at the heart of the Wikimedia movement. When taking on larger responsibilities, financial support is a must. Money acts as a catalyst, if not the primary fuel. From 2020 to 2024, we funded all four bootcamps from our personal accounts, despite being high school students. Each bootcamp trained several hundred students and lasted for two weeks. As we continue to learn and improve the bootcamp, we realize that relying solely on personal funds from high schoolers is not a sustainable way to run such a large-scale Wikimedia outreach program. We are grateful to the Wikimedia Foundation Community Development team for their generous support with their online meeting solution. This was particularly helpful as we were unable to secure a subscription ourselves. In this edition of the bootcamp, our participants had to join one in-person workshop that lasted for two hours. They had to join the college classes the whole morning, and then join the bootcamp after that which took them around 4 pm to return home. And we were not able to provide lunches for them, which we mark as our failure as organizers. 
2. Safety first: Safety is one of the biggest considerations at our bootcamp, especially for our high school students (aged 16/17). We understand the importance of protecting young minds and fostering a positive learning environment. Throughout the physical workshop, a well-trained volunteer team of over 30 people, led by our Director of Legal and Advocacy, was present in the designated areas. Easily identifiable by a designated uniform, they provided on-site support and ensured participant safety. Our safety protocols include informing and collaborating with relevant safety authorities, such as the WMF Trust & Safety team and local law enforcement. Due to safety concerns, details of our 2021 and 2023 bootcamps will continue to remain confidential. 
3. Educational institutions are unpredictable: The bootcamp faced numerous challenges due to the academic schedule, including continuous exams, results announcements, and lab classes. Some students were restricted from using the internet by their guardians, while others were too frustrated with their results to participate. One student even sustained a major injury while playing on the college field, preventing them from joining the edit challenge. Finding the sweet spot in the calendar for the two-week program is one of the toughest challenges for the organizers. Aligning the bootcamp with a major vacation period, with no significant exams immediately following, is a good strategy.
4. People love to go global: One of the most beautiful lessons we learned from understanding our participants is that people inherently love diversity. They are attracted to different cultures, languages, and perspectives. The idea of a global volunteer community, where people from almost every corner of the world donate their time and effort for a common goal, is fascinating for anyone new to Wikimedia. When we showcased global Wikimedia activities, our participants became more engaged with the bootcamp. In earlier editions, we focused solely on the process of editing articles and uploading images to Commons. We revised our bootcamp’s outline to provide a broader view of the movement after receiving feedback from participants who struggled to find value in simply editing and aligning Wikimedia volunteering with their priorities. They didn’t understand the purpose behind making hundreds of edits across various Wikimedia projects. Since the 2022 edition, we’ve adopted a new outline that highlights the global collaboration inherent to the movement, which has proven to be extremely impactful. The welcoming video we published before the bootcamp was particularly helpful in this regard.
5. Edit challenge retains more people, but provokes editcountitis: In previous editions of the bootcamp, we designated editathons as the hands-on activity for the second week, where participants created articles on Wikipedia. We noticed that participants were gradually dropping out. Writing a complete article proved challenging for new Wikimedians, and not everyone enjoyed the process. We realized the need for a lighter yet effective editing program for the hands-on part of the bootcamp. Thanks to Wiki Club Jamia, their 500 Edit Challenge highlighted the importance of micro contributions during the initial days of a Wikimedian’s journey. Inspired by this, we adopted the Edit Challenge, replacing the Editathon in this edition of the bootcamp. The results were amazing, with a significantly higher retention rate. This change introduced a new challenge: some participants began to exhibit symptoms of editcountitis, which was initially difficult for us to manage. We’ve since developed strategies to address this issue and will implement countermeasures in the next bootcamp.
6. Health needs to get more priority: The bootcamp was originally scheduled to run from April 24 to May 7. Just days before it began, a heat wave struck the country, leading to the nationwide closure of educational institutions. As the first workshop was planned to be in person, we had no choice but to postpone the bootcamp indefinitely. One of our organizing team members even experienced a mild heat stroke. Once the temperatures dropped to a comfortable level and educational institutions reopened, we rescheduled the bootcamp to take place from May 8 to May 24. This experience has taught us a valuable lesson, and we will ensure that future bootcamps include provisions for special medical attention.
7. In-person meetup increases the impact: In our previous bootcamps, everything was conducted online, which created a sense of detachment among participants. Many of them suggested incorporating in-person events. For the 2024 edition, we decided to hold only the first workshop in person. This decision proved beneficial, as it helped establish a stronger connection with the participants. The bonds formed were stronger, and the participants showed more dedication to completing the bootcamp. Based on this success, we plan to continue including in-person events in future bootcamps.
8. Legacy is valued: Every year, the most junior batch of the college participates in the bootcamp. The following year, these same students serve as safety and hospitality volunteers. The year after that, they step up as leaders of the bootcamp. For instance, the current leaders participated in the 2022 edition, while the volunteers took part in the 2023 edition, the details of which remain confidential. This progression fosters a sense of legacy among the bootcamp participants, creating a strong connection to the team and the broader Wikimedia movement. We will continue this legacy for years, passing the torch of open knowledge from generation to generation. 

Every bootcamp is a learning opportunity for us, and this year’s edition is no exception. We are eager to share our learnings with our Wikimedia colleagues from across the wikimediaverse. We welcome collaboration with any Wikimedia entity that wishes to utilize our experience and insights in their own Wikimedia programs.

_{About the author: Towhidul Islam is the former DIrector of Communications (2023-2024) of NDEC Wikipedia Editorial and Research Team and led the communication work during the NDEC Wikimedia Bootcamp 2024.}

The latest version of MediaWiki, 1.42, the most popular wiki software, is now available as of June 2024. This release introduces new features and enhancements to improve the user experience. MediaWiki 1.42 will be supported until June 2025, ensuring a year of user updates and assistance with this open-source wiki software.

This release further enhances MediaWiki's functionality and performance. In this blog post, we explore its key highlights.

Improved Edit Recovery: Preserving Your Work

MediaWiki's Edit Recovery feature, introduced in version 1.41, matured and now offers enhanced protection for your edits. Here's what you need to know:

• Functionality:
  Quickly restores unsaved edits when you return to the editing interface
• Purpose:
  Guards against browser crashes, accidental navigation, and other disruptions

Key Benefits:

• Minimizes risk of losing valuable contributions
• Boosts user confidence during editing sessions
• Improves overall editing experience

Availability:

• Default HTML Textarea element (2003 wikitext editor)
• WikiEditor (2010 wikitext editor)
• VisualEditor, already built-in

This feature significantly enhances the reliability of the editing process across MediaWiki platforms.

For more details and setup instructions, visit the Edit Recovery user information and Edit Recovery system administrator documentation on MediaWiki.org.

Conditional User Options: Tailoring Default Preferences for Enhanced User Experience

MediaWiki's new Conditional User Options feature offers a new level of personalization for default user preferences. Important details at a glance:

• Functionality:
  Intelligently sets default user preferences based on specific user criteria, such as registration date
• Purpose:
  Enables different default settings for newly registered users compared to existing users

Essential Advantages:

• Streamlines onboarding process for new users
• Provides a more personalized and intuitive user experience
• Allows strategic rollout of new features to specific user groups

Use Cases:

• Automatically enabling new features for users who register after a specific date
• Tailoring default preferences to suit the needs of different user segments better
• Minimizing disruption for existing users when introducing new functionalities

This feature significantly enhances the reliability of the editing process across MediaWiki platforms.

For more details and setup instructions, visit the Conditional user options documentation on MediaWiki.org.

Enhanced Category Sorting

MediaWiki's &lbrace&lbraceDEFAULTSORT&rbrace&rbrace variable now offers improved functionality by extending category sorting to categories added by templates within footnotes.

Main Benefits:

• Ensures consistent categorization across entire pages
• Applies default sort keys universally, including in footnotes
• Improves on previous behavior where footnote categories used page titles as sort keys

This enhancement provides a uniform categorization experience, simplifying page management and improving usability for editors and readers.

CSS "filter" Property Now Allowed

MediaWiki has lifted its long-standing restriction on the CSS filter property and the respective filter functions, marking an intriguing update for the software platform.

Why It Matters:

• Enhanced Customization:
  Users can apply various visual effects to wiki page elements.
• Simplified Workflows:
  Provides an easier way to implement visual effects without complex workarounds.
• User-Friendly:
  Offers a straightforward option for those who find the so-called template styles challenging.

This change opens up new possibilities for visual customization without compromising security. It's particularly beneficial for wikis that have yet to adopt template styles, as users still seek more design flexibility.

Changes for System Administrators and Developers

System administrators will encounter only a few adjustments in MediaWiki 1.42. They should review the configuration changes section in the RELEASE NOTES to understand the specific changes and their potential impact on the MediaWiki instance.

Developers and extension creators will find multiple essential changes in this MediaWiki update. These modifications offer new opportunities for customization, integration, and performance optimization, enabling developers to create more powerful and efficient extensions that enhance the functionality and versatility of MediaWiki-powered websites. The RELEASE NOTES (sections New developer features, Breaking changes, and Deprecations) provide a comprehensive overview detailing every relevant modification.

Compatibility and Upgrade Considerations

As we explore the specifics of MediaWiki version 1.42, we must know the compatibility and upgrade requirements to ensure a smooth transition. Here are the key points to keep in mind:

Upgrade Path:

• Direct upgrade from MediaWiki 1.33 or earlier versions is not supported
• Upgrade to MediaWiki 1.35 before transitioning to MediaWiki 1.42 to prevent data loss
• MediaWiki 1.35 is the oldest version compatible with a direct upgrade to MediaWiki 1.42

PHP Requirements:

• MediaWiki 1.42 introduces a significant change in PHP requirements. It now requires PHP 8.1.x, a large shift from previous releases since MediaWiki 1.35 (which supported PHP 7.4.3 onwards).
• PHP 8.2.x is also supported by MediaWiki 1.42

Considerations for MediaWiki 1.39 Users:

• Staying with MediaWiki 1.39 is a viable option to minimize administrative effort
• Long-term support for MediaWiki 1.39 is available until November 2025, providing ample time for upgrade planning to the upcoming long-term support release

Looking Ahead:

• MediaWiki 1.43, the next long-term support release, is scheduled for release in just half a year (December 2024)
• Upgrading to MediaWiki 1.42 offers access to the latest features and improvements highlighted in this blog post

It's essential to carefully review the compatibility and upgrade requirements before transitioning to MediaWiki 1.42. Following the recommended upgrade path and ensuring PHP compatibility can minimize potential issues and guarantee a smooth upgrade process.

For those currently using MediaWiki 1.39, the extended long-term support provides flexibility in planning your upgrade timeline. However, remember that MediaWiki 1.43, with its long-term support, is just around the corner.

As always, we recommend thoroughly testing the upgrade process in a staging environment before deploying it to production to identify and resolve potential issues.

For comprehensive assistance on handling MediaWiki, check out our help center's upgrade guide. It contains detailed instructions for installation and configuration.

Conclusion

MediaWiki 1.42 significantly improves user experience, and customization options. With enhanced Edit Recovery and Conditional User Options, this release offers valuable upgrades for wiki communities of all sizes. While upgrading requires careful consideration of compatibility, the new features make 1.42 a compelling update. As MediaWiki continues to evolve, we encourage users to explore these enhancements.

MediaWiki hosting

Create your wiki instantly via ProWiki. Never worry about upgrades again. Get started immediately via the free trial, or contact us to migrate your existing wiki.

Registration for Wikimania Katowice is now open. Register to join the in person event by Friday, 26 July, or register for the online event anytime.

Wikimania Katowice will be held at the International Congress Centre in the heart of Katowice from 7-10 August and online on eventyay, our open source virtual event platform that is now partnering with Wikimania for the second year in a row.

Registration is happening on eventyay now.

Join us in Katowice or online

Katowice is a vibrant city with a unique blend of industrial history and modern attractions. A hub for museums, art, music, and more, Katowice has lots to do in walking distance, and is also centrally located within the larger region and well-connected to train lines and airports.

For those meeting us in Katowice, there will be activities around the city starting on 6 August. From 7-10 August, there will be programming all day beginning at 9:00am local time, with activities such as the opening ceremony, poster session, and closing ceremony and party happening in the evenings. August 11 will be a departure day with some activities on offer. The full program will be published soon, but you can read more about the program outline on the Wikimania Wiki. 

Eventyay is an open source, multilingual virtual event platform where participants will be able to browse the program, create their own schedules, navigate easily between livestreamed sessions and chat with each other and conference organizers. 70% of Wikimania 2023 survey respondents agreed that eventyay was easy to navigate and use, and the Core Organizing Team is further building out eventyay features to create a more seamless virtual experience, including increased discoverability of chat, more intuitive program navigation, and more. 

Whether you’ll be joining in person or tuning in online, we are looking forward to welcoming you to Wikimania Katowice!

Note: the in-person ticket is subsidized by the Wikimedia Foundation and costs $100 USD, which covers opening and closing events, plus lunches on the core conference days. Scholarship recipients will receive codes to register for the in-person event. The online conference is fully funded by the Foundation and will continue to remain free for attendees.

Registration privacy statement.

For media inquiries, please contact press@wikimedia.org. 

26 June 2024 —In the last week, there has been media coverage regarding a decision by Wikipedia’s volunteer community on the reliability of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as an encyclopedic source in specific subject areas. In an effort to correct inaccuracies in some of this coverage and promote better understanding of how Wikipedia works, the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that hosts Wikipedia, has issued the following statement. 

Several media reports have incorrectly implied that the ADL is no longer considered a reliable source on Wikipedia. The ADL remains a generally reliable source on Wikipedia, outside of the topic of the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Wikipedia’s volunteer-led processes seek to ensure that neutral, reliable information is available for all. The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that supports Wikipedia’s global communities: it does not write, edit, or determine what content is included on Wikipedia or how that content is maintained. As such, the Foundation was not involved in the volunteer-community decision about the ADL. This independent relationship is crucial to ensuring Wikipedia remains neutral and free from institutional bias. The Foundation has not, and does not, intervene in decisions made by the community about the classification of a source. 

On 6 April 2024, Wikipedia volunteers began open discussions about the Anti-Defamation League as a source for information on Wikipedia. Over a two month period, more than 120 Wikipedia volunteers participated across three separate discussions. Such discussions are a routine process conducted by Wikipedia’s volunteers to determine if a source is reliable under the encyclopedia’s guidelines for use generally or in a given topic area. Volunteer discussions are grounded in the wider media and research ecosystem to assess a particular source; that means fact-based reporting from secondary sources is used to evaluate reliability, rather than opinion-based debates. 

Volunteers have closed the current discussions that started in April. They have thoughtfully laid out the reason for the three decisions, and have indicated, as always, that consensus can change with new facts and information. 

As stated above, the result of these community processes was that the ADL remains a reliable source on Wikipedia, outside of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Volunteers arrived at a consensus that the ADL can generally be cited on the topic of antisemitism, with some exceptions. As of this writing, for example, the Wikipedia article on Antisemitism includes citations to the ADL. It was also decided that the ADL’s hate symbols database can be cited, with some considerations.

Consistent with their principles of transparency, Wikipedia volunteers’ thousands of words and range of perspectives are visible for anyone interested to view, and their decision clearly summarizes the considerations that went into the process. This review was conducted through Wikipedia’s ‘Requests for comment‘ process, one of several processes through which content policy decisions are made through public community discussions to reach consensus. ‘Requests for comment’ are fully transparent and open to the public to view.  They are based on the quality and logical soundness of the participants’ comments, regardless of their background or identity.

Volunteers also follow well-established guidelines that ensure sources, and their coverage of specific topic areas, are regularly evaluated and continue to meet the site’s requirements to be considered a reliable source on Wikipedia. Reliable sources are those publications that have a reputation for fact checking and accuracy, among other criteria. Hundreds of sources are listed on the list of perennial sources, and thousands more have been discussed on the reliable sources noticeboard without being listed. If consensus changes in the future, the decisions are updated to reflect those changes.

This entire process of content moderation by Wikipedia volunteers is open, transparent, and publicly available on an article’s history and talk pages. Anyone can join Wikipedia as a volunteer. 

For more information on how Wikipedia works, you can watch the following videos:

• How does Wikipedia work?
• Can you trust what’s on Wikipedia?
• How does Wikipedia protect readers’ privacy?
• What does the Wikimedia Foundation do?

See this FAQ to learn more about volunteer processes on reliable sources:

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute something to our shared knowledge and that everyone should be able to access that knowledge freely. We host Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects, build software experiences for reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia content; support the volunteer communities and partners who make Wikimedia possible. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA.

The post Wikimedia Foundation statement on volunteer processes on reliable sources appeared first on Wikimedia Foundation.

Sophia Janssens was shocked when she first discovered how little information the Black women in American law Wikipedia article provided to its readers. As a Black woman and future law student, she was instantly drawn to improving the article, knowing that its content barely scratched the surface of the topic.

Confident that there must be more sources about Black women lawyers in the United States, the Brown University rising sophomore set out to include new stories in the article to combat the possibility of misinformation – when an incomplete narrative leads readers to fill in the missing pieces with their own assumptions and preconceived biases. 

“Narratives about social movements in history tend to center either male leaders or white women leaders,” said Janssens, who plans to double major in Environmental Studies and International and Public Affairs. “They are framed in a way that makes it seem like Black women did not play a role.”

Janssens significantly expanded the article by adding over 2,000 words and 18 references, providing readers a more comprehensive understanding of the role of Black women in U.S. legal history.

Her enhancements included the development of two robust new sections on history of the topic in the 1940s to early 1960s and the late 1960s to 1970s, as well as new content for the article’s existing sections. Most notably, Janssens expanded the sections covering the 1870s to 1930s and scholarship on Black women in the legal profession, transforming them from brief mentions into much more informative summaries. 

“I wanted to emphasize the strength and resilience of Black women lawyers throughout history,” explained Janssens. “They faced many obstacles to gain a seat at the table, so I wanted to make sure their work was visible and that their contributions did not go unnoticed.”

While unsure of exactly what type of lawyer she’d like to be one day, Janssens underscored the strong connection between her future legal career goals and the competencies gained during her Wikipedia assignment, including the writing and digital literacy skills needed to edit the online encyclopedia.

“Writing a Wikipedia article requires you to be very judicious about what information to include,” Janssens noted. “I wanted my writing to be well-formed but also accessible to anyone who might come across the article on Wikipedia. Identifying the most important information and conveying it in a clear manner will be helpful for me in a future career in law.”

Overall, Janssens found editing Wikipedia to be user-friendly, noting the pleasure of creating citations.

“I think editing Wikipedia was quite fun!” she reflected. “The ability to easily create citations was very helpful throughout the writing process. I love how they automatically generate in the ‘References’ section at the bottom of the article!”

This spring, Janssens and her classmates added nearly 33,000 words and over 300 references to Wikipedia articles as part of historian Mack Scott’s course “This is America”, which focused on people and events often marginalized or forgotten in American history. During the weeks of the course alone, their collective work on Wikipedia was viewed 237,000 times. 

“I felt a level of pressure working on this assignment that I don’t feel with traditional assignments,” said Janssens. “I felt like I had to make it really good so that it would be perceived well by readers and other Wikipedia users.”

Janssens hopes others will also feel compelled to enhance content on Wikipedia, including the article she herself improved.

“I think it would be cool if other people contributed to the article, as well!” said Janssens. “I like that Wikipedia is collaborative in that way.”

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free assignment templates, resources, and guidance that Wiki Education offers to instructors in the United States and Canada.

The Wikimedia Community User Group Zambia (WUGZA) has initiated talks with the Vakachinyama Youth Movement (VAYMO) regarding a potential partnership to create a Wikipedia edition in the Luvale language. Although discussions have not yet formally commenced, WUGZA has made initial contact with VAYMO to explore this significant opportunity.

The proposed Luvale Wikipedia aims to enhance the representation of one of Zambia’s major languages in the digital realm, promoting linguistic diversity and educational accessibility. If successful, this project will join other Zambian language Wikipedias, such as the Chitumbuka and Chi-Chewa Wikipedias, which are already established. Additionally, a Chitonga Wikipedia is currently under development in Wikimedia’s incubator, where all Wikimedia Foundation projects begin.

“Reaching out to VAYMO is our first step in making the Luvale Wikipedia a reality. We believe that this collaboration will be instrumental in preserving and promoting the Luvale language and culture online,” said a spokesperson from WUGZA.
VAYMO, known for its commitment to youth empowerment and cultural preservation, has been identified as an ideal partner for this initiative. Their involvement would ensure that the project is grounded in community needs and perspectives, vital for the creation of a comprehensive and culturally rich Luvale Wikipedia.

While formal talks are yet to start, both WUGZA and VAYMO are optimistic about the potential partnership. The next steps will involve detailed discussions, planning, and coordination to mobilize resources, train contributors, and gather content for the new Wikipedia edition.

WUGZA’s ongoing efforts to expand free knowledge in Zambia through Wikimedia projects highlight the importance of linguistic inclusivity. The Luvale Wikipedia project is expected to follow the successful models of the Chitumbuka and Chi-Chewa Wikipedias, providing valuable resources in local languages and supporting the preservation of Zambia’s linguistic heritage.

About Vakachinyama Youth Movement (VAYMO):
VAYMO is a youth-led organization focused on empowering young people and preserving cultural heritage. Through various initiatives, VAYMO works to foster a sense of identity and community among Zambian youth.

This is an English translation of my book entitled “A 70-year-old Wikipedian talks about the charm of libraries.” Chapter 1, The Road to Wikipedia. Previously, click here.

OpenGLAM JAPAN Symposium (Chapter 1-4)

I tried everything I could figure out about how to edit Wikipedia on my own, but I still wanted someone to teach me somewhere. I searched for Wikipedia-related events and found that the “7th OpenGLAM JAPAN Symposium: Opening Museums – Tokyo Institute of Technology Museum Version” was to be held in March 2016. OpenGLAM is an activity to promote open data of cultural facilities (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) through the use of IT. I was  attracted by the concept of “open data” and immediately applied.

The event was held on March 21 at the Tokyo Institute of Technology Museum Centennial Hall, and in essence, it was an attempt to put information on the Tokyo Tech Museum collection on Wikipedia. Most of the participants I had never met before. The program, which began at 10:00, consisted of lectures on two topics in the morning and editing Wikipedia in the afternoon.

Topic 1: Pioneering Historical Materials: Between Institution and Custom / Yukihiro Fukushima

Under the theme of “As those who monopolize materials are cursed and those who open them to the public are blessed,” Mr. Yukihiro Fukushima (Kyoto Prefectural Library) evaluated GLAM’s efforts to pioneer historical materials. The speaker and I studied together at the Archives College hosted by the National Institute of Japanese Literature in 2008. At that time, he was working on the digitization of the Toji Hyakugo Monjo, and after working at the University of Tokyo, he has been an associate professor at Keio University since 2021.

Topic 2: Opening up Research and Observation Data: Activities of the National Institute of Polar Research / Yasuyuki Minamiyama

Although I had never touched on research results on Antarctica or the Arctic, Mr. Minamiyama (Information Library, National Institute of Polar Research, National Institute of Information and Systems) presented a wide range of aspects of the topic, including what research and observation data are, metadata of collected materials, the actual practice of collecting and releasing numerical data, data acquisition methods, overseas examples, and concerns. Young researcher Mr. Minamiyama is affiliated with the Center for Open Science Infrastructure Research at the National Institute of Informatics starting in 2019.

Explanation 1: Wikimedia Commons: A Tool to Open Cultural Resources / Kyuhachi Kusaka

After a lunch break, the afternoon session began. This was the first time for me to meet Mr. Kusaka (Tokyo Wikimedian Association), whose user name is “User:Ks aka 98“, which often appears when I browsed Wikipedia. He started with what Wikimedia Commons is, and led to Wikipedia Town as a place to open up information. He explained about the workshops in Toyama and in Futakotamagawa.

Explanation 2: Opening the Tokyo Tech Museum: Making Materials Open Content / Takayuki Ako

Mr. Ako (Tokyo Institute of Technology Museum), one of the symposium organizers, talked about various practical activities to open up the Tokyo Tech Museum. He writes articles and posts them on Wikipedia, accumulates photos of buildings and exhibition rooms, writes from various angles, takes photos, reprints, organizes data, and creates maps of the museum, etc. Mr. Ako is at the Tokyo National Museum since 2018.

Editing Wikipedia

After the talk was over, we were divided into groups and finally started editing Wikipedia. I joined the team of “Gottfried Wagener,” a foreign government advisor. At first, we took pictures of Wagener’s monument on the campus, then started editing. The group included some experienced Wikipedians, so I asked them anything I did not understand about editing. It was the first time for me to upload photos on Commons, but they gave me some tips. I learned how to write the main text and how to add footnotes, which I could not understand if I had only studied on my own.

Around 5:00 p.m., each team presented their results. Since it was my first time attending the Wikipedia event, I talked about many aspects of Wikipedia with many people at reception time. I was surprised to find that many of the people I met much later were also participants in this event.

After all that learning, it took me about six months before I actually started writing articles. I still needed to prepare myself to use the new information dissemination tools. The first step is a hurdle.

The inspired IWD:Inclusion Campaign by Africa Wiki Women(AWW) aimed to engage participants, especially African women, to contribute to Wikimedia projects by addressing knowledge gaps about women while also building skills. The campaign witnessed series of training sessions and office hours throughout the months of April and May. Feedback was gathered from participants at the end of the campaign. This report summarizes data collected from participants, highlighting demographics, experiences, and overall campaign feedback. A total of 70 editors actively participated out of 102 registered participants.

Participant Demographics

The evaluation was completed by 41 participants, with a nearly equal gender split: 20 females and 21 males. Female participation was highest in the 15-25 followed by 26-35 age groups, while male participation was predominant in the 26-35 age group. Most participants hailed from Nigeria (63.41%), followed by Ghana (14.63%), Tanzania (12.2%), Rwanda, and the Congo (4.88% each).

Experience and Education

Among the participants, a majority of women had intermediate experience with at least 500 edits (26.83% out of the 48.78% women represented ), while most men were experienced Wiki editors (29.27% out of the 51.22% men represented).

COUNTA of :How would you categorize your experience in the movement?	Gender/Sex
How would you categorize your experience in the movement?	Female	Male	Grand Total
Experienced Wiki Editor	17.07%	29.27%	46.34%
Intermediate with a minimum of 500 edits	26.83%	9.76%	36.59%
Newbie (less than a year) and with no edits on any Wikimedia project	4.88%	12.20%	17.07%
Grand Total	48.78%	51.22%	100.00%

Almost all participants had tertiary education, with a significant number of women either employed or self-employed, and most men being self-employed or students.

Training Sessions and Feedback

Participants benefited significantly from various training sessions:

• Rating: The campaign met or exceeded the expectations of most participants, with an average rating of 4.3 out of 5.
• Meeting Expectations: According to majority of the participants, the campaign met their expectations, while for the rest, we exceeded their expectations
  • Met expectations: 59.43% participants
  • Exceeded expectations: 38.29% participants

The Inspired Inclusion Campaign successfully engaged a diverse group of participants, predominantly young and well-educated, who were mostly experienced or intermediate Wiki editors. The majority of participants found the training sessions met or exceeded their expectations, and they felt confident in contributing to Wikimedia projects. Key aspects that enhanced the campaign experience included the training sessions and office hours. While there are some challenges in contributing to knowledge gaps about women on Wikipedia and Wikidata, overall, the campaign was well-received and positively impacted the participants’ confidence and skills.

Confidence and Challenges

Post-training, 90.24% of participants felt very confident in contributing to Wikimedia projects, compared to 40% who expressed confidence on the event registration tool. However, some challenges remain in addressing knowledge gaps about women, with participants suggesting more hands-on sessions and continuous support, resources, and references for improvement.

Recommendations for Future Campaigns

Future campaigns could build on this success by incorporating more practical in person sessions, continued engagements, and ongoing support to help participants navigate challenges and sustain their contributions to Wikimedia projects. Almost all participants said they will recommend the campaign to others.

Results and outcome: NB: While we experienced challenges with the dashboard during the campaign, articles were tracked with Google Form Submission or on the campaign meta page.

	Target	Results	Comments and tools used
Number of participants	50	102	Event registration tool: https://w.wiki/9fK6
Number of editors	50	100	outreachdashboard:https://bit.ly/3VKyUPx
Number of organizers	9	9	Event registration tool;https://w.wiki/AQ4H Event implementation team metapage:https://w.wiki/AQ3N
Wikipedia	50	12 new articles created 52 articles translated to local languages; Yoruba, Dagbani, Swahili, Hausa etc.	46 articles expanded and improved
Wikidata	200	89 items created	11 items improved

Part 2: Qualitative Data Analysis: Inspired Inclusion Campaign

The qualitative data from the Inspired Inclusion Campaign provides insights into participants’ experiences, challenges, and suggestions for future improvements. This analysis focuses on themes derived from participant feedback regarding their experiences, the effectiveness of the training sessions, and their confidence in contributing to Wikimedia projects.

Key Themes Identified

1. Overall Experience in the Campaign
   • Many participants described their experience as positive, noting that the campaign was well-organized and informative.
   • Participants appreciated the opportunity to contribute as editors and engage in various training sessions.
2. Effectiveness of Training Sessions
   • The training sessions, particularly on Wikipedia and Wikidata, were highly valued.
   • Participants reported that the training exceeded their expectations, providing them with the necessary skills and knowledge to contribute effectively.
   • The office hours were specifically mentioned as beneficial, offering direct support and engagement with the community.
3. Confidence in Contributing to Wikimedia Projects
   • A significant number of participants expressed high confidence in their ability to contribute to Wikimedia projects post-training.
   • The training sessions played a crucial role in boosting their confidence, with many participants highlighting their newfound skills and understanding.
4. Challenges and Areas for Improvement
   • Some participants highlighted difficulties in contributing to knowledge gaps about women on Wikipedia and Wikidata.
   • While many felt confident, a few participants still felt neutral or disagreed about their ease in contributing, suggesting areas where further support or simplified processes could help.
   • Suggestions for improvement included more hands-on sessions, follow-up training, and continuous community support, resources,, and references for women biographies .
5. Factors Enhancing the Campaign Experience
   • The structured and comprehensive training sessions were frequently mentioned as the most beneficial aspect of the campaign.
   • Community engagement and the availability of office hours were also noted as key elements that improved the overall experience.
   • Participants appreciated the supportive environment, which encouraged them to actively participate and learn.

Participant Quotes

“The training sessions were beyond my expectations. They provided me with the confidence to start editing and contributing meaningfully.”

“Office hours were incredibly helpful. Being able to ask questions in real-time made a huge difference in my understanding.“

“I feel very confident now, thanks to the detailed and interactive training sessions. I’m excited to contribute more to Wikimedia projects.”

“There are still some challenges in contributing to knowledge gaps about women, but the campaign has definitely made me more aware and prepared to tackle them.”

From your experience, what makes it difficult or easier to contribute about women?

“It can be difficult to contribute about women when there are biases, stereotypes, and discrimination that stop their voices from being heard. On the other hand, it becomes easier to contribute about women when there is a support and also inclusive environment that values diverse perspectives and promotes gender equality.”

“It is difficult because more womens are not written in many sources compared to Men’s which cause low numbers of contribution

“More information beyond the basic internet sourcing about the subject is important, and this is challenging to come by.”

“Increase awareness and attention to gender equality and inclusivity.”

“Growing availability of resources and datasets focused on women”

“I’m neutral on this because, while contributing to Wikipedia isn’t inherently difficult, it’s not a walkover either. Personally, I find it easy to create articles on Wikipedia because I understand the subtleties and the art of clear writing. However, Wikipedia has high standards, and without proper training and motivation, new editors may quickly lose interest. It’s crucial to provide sustainable support and guidance to help them navigate the challenges and nuances of editing on the platform.”

‘“It is difficult to contribute about women because most of women are not notable”

“Women articles face more deletion than men because of inadequate references”

Motivation for Future

“I so much love the community because am a woman.”

“The enthusiasm to be part of the editors to keep improving wikimedia space”

“By getting data support all the time and laptop devices,”

“New articles, motivation, and availability of mobile and internet data”

“Inclusivity and equality”

“By organizing in-person events in community, because the easiest way that we grab our community members mind is by organizing physical events”

Continue attending meetings and editing wikimedia projects

“Encouraging people to create more articles and organize more events.”

Data allowances and office hours

“Through financial motivation, and availability of mobile data“

“I can sustain my involvement by constantly contributing and engaging with the movement.“

“By giving more updates on events, organizing campaigns, reimbursing active contributors, and appreciating them.”

Conclusion

The evaluated feedback from the Inspired Inclusion Campaign revealed a generally positive experience among participants. The training sessions were particularly effective in enhancing participants’ skills and confidence on Wikimedia projects. While there are still challenges in addressing knowledge gaps about women on Wikimedia projects, the campaign successfully provided the tools and support needed for participants to make meaningful contributions. This is not going to be the last event. We hope to bring the community more exciting activities and continued engagements, as this was one of the major highlights for the community. We will also look at having some hands-on sessions and continuous support to address remaining challenges and further boost participant confidence.

Register as a member of Africa Wiki Women and join our community WhatsApp group and be part of our community.

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For the past few months, Silvia Gutiérrez and Giovanna Fontenelle (from the Culture and Heritage team at the Wikimedia Foundation) have been analyzing the results of a workshop they organized during the 2023 LD4 Conference on Linked Data. The product is a series of Diff posts talking about what they discovered. This is the fourth post in the series and it will go deep into the third slide of the workshop.

So far, we have talked about yourselves, about others, and about libraries using Wikidata. Next post, we will talk about the concerns regarding some of the difficult tools and Wikidata’s problematic aspects. For now, however, we are going to have a good time with the Wikidata Tools everyone is talking about and Wikidata aspects that are useful for the participants’ work.

For this activity, we asked participants to add their suggestions of good tools and Wikidata aspects using the green post-its, their reasoning on the blue post-its, as well as emojis of hearts (❤️) or toolboxes (🧰).

This is the raking for the tools:

1 – OpenRefine (4 ❤️, 1 🧰):

• “Reconciliation helps us to match strings and other data points to Wikidata items” (3 ❤️)
• “Creating Quickstatements batches easily” (2 ❤️)
• “Ability to connect with OpenRefine to enable batch editing and creation of datasets, and Google Sheets to enable collaborative working” (2 ❤️)

According to its page on Meta-Wiki, OpenRefine is “…a free data wrangling tool that can be used to process, manipulate and clean tabular (spreadsheet) data and connect it with knowledge bases (…) It is widely used by librarians, in the cultural sector, by journalists and scientists, and is taught in many curricula and workshops around the world.“

OpenRefine is a tool heavily used by the Wikimedians, traditionally for uploading and editing items on Wikidata. It even won, in 2019, the category “Editing”, during the WikidataCon Award 2019. For a few months now, OpenRefine is also available for editing and uploading files to Wikimedia Commons.

If you want to discover more about OpenRefine, you can check its official website and its pages on Meta-Wiki, Wikimedia Commons, or Wikidata. If you want to learn how to use OpenRefine, there are some interesting training available:

– Library Carpentry: OpenRefine – A course about Wikidata and OpenRefine
– OpenRefine for Wikimedia Commons: the basics* – An introduction course on how to use OpenRefine with Wikimedia Commons
* This course is also available in Spanish, French, and Italian (Portuguese coming soon!)

2 – Scholia (3 ❤️):

• “Because I can showcase the research at my university” (1 ❤️)
• “It makes our data about researchers in Wikidata more discoverable on the open web”

Scholia is one of the most popular tools out there on Wikimedia projects, as it has great visualizations. However, it’s not surprising at all that it is one of the favorite ones indicated by Librarians. This is because Scholia is a tool that uses Wikidata to create visual scholarly profiles for many items, including topics, people, organizations, species, etc.

For example, here you can check Denny Vrandečić’s (creator of Wikidata and MediaWiki) profile and learn more about his publications, like the number of publications he published per year or even the number of pages per year, the topics he researched the most, and the authors he collaborated the most with.

In this other example, you can learn about the Technical University of Denmark: the topics its researchers have published on, recent publications, awards, and much more. It’s also possible to learn which WikiProjects have more items (spoiler: it involves Mathematics!) and even the global distribution or the male vs. female difference recipients in awards such as the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

3 – Quickstatements (2 ❤️):

• “Zotero Wikidata Quickstatements – https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Zotero“

Similarly to OpenRefine, QuickStatements (or QS) is one of the major Wikimedia tools and it is heavily used by Wikimedians, especially for Wikidata batch edits – even though it also works with Wikimedia Commons. It is based on a simple set of text commands and it can add and remove statements, labels, descriptions, aliases, qualifiers, sources, and any other data on Wikidata.

As the comment highlighted, one of the ways Wikidatians find to use QuickStatements is with Zotero, which is a software for managing bibliographic data and related research materials. Since 2017, Zotero has had a Wikidata translator and QuickStatements can export metadata from Zotero. This way, users can add to Wikidata works that are in their Zotero library or get the information from Wikidata from a publication to add to their Zotero library.

4 – Mix’n’Match (2 ❤️):

• “ability to link multiple identifiers from multiple name authority files in one item and benefit from associated wikidata properties to enhance research value of name data”
• “Also lets us reconcile names with what is in Wikidata and easily create new items in Wikidata that we later enhance.”

“Red link lists on steroids” is how Mix’n’Match defines itself. The tool allows users to match entries of more than 300 thousand external databases with Wikidata items.

For example, for thesaurus, Mix’n’Match offers 60 in several levels of completeness and contributors can choose to help and complete their mappings on Wikidata. It’s possible to help add items related to the Musical Instrument Museums Online or even to the Art & Architecture Thesaurus by the Getty Research Institute.

According to the Meta-Wiki about Mix’n’Match, these are some of the top missing entries you can help to complete:

– Illnesses, diseases
– Comics artists and authors
– Croatian biographies and encyclopedia articles
– Czech biographies, people
– Italian biographies and encyclopedia articles
– Polish authors, politics, playwrights, theater people
– Silent/early films
– Women writers

Here’s a video tutorial of Mix’n’Match recorded for the “Graphic Possibilities Workshop 2020 Wikidata Edit-a-thon”:

5 – SPARQL (1 ❤️)

• “its helpful docs and helper tools, but also the ability to just download the whole database in bulk if all else fails and I can’t get a consistently working SPARQL query. https://query.wikidata.org/” (1 ❤️)
• “check work, demonstrate value quickly”

SPARQL is a semantic query language for databases and it’s used both on the Wikidata Query Service and Wikimedia Commons Query Service (beta).

One can use it to extract data from Wikidata or Wikimedia Commons (via structured data on Commons), by applying a “query composed of logical combinations of triples.”
Queries can be difficult to create and to appropriately extract data from them. To help you, check this page, the Wikidata Query Builder tool, or watch this short video on how to build a query from scratch:

Other mentions: 

– Wikidata gadgets (1 ❤️) – “They make my work go faster”
– SourceMD
– Petscan
– LearnWiki – “a tool to learn Wikidata for librarians!”

And here is the ranking for the aspects of Wikidata:

1. “Out-of-the-box data visualizations. ” (2 ❤️)
   • “They make the data look pretty and show value at a glance.”
2. “One aspect I like is being able to create a schema or vocabulary from the existing properties to describe what you’re working on. It’s very flexible.” (1 ❤️)
3. “Connect with external databases.” (1 ❤️)
4. “The ability to just download the whole database in bulk if all else fails and I can’t get a consistently working SPARQL query. Haven’t had to do that for a while, though.”
5. “Recoin and ORES.”

As these posts-its show, Wikidata can be used by a myriad of different activities and Librarians are really making use of these possibilities to not only leverage their day-to-day activities, but also to contribute to the Open Access ecosystem. Their experience and input are valuable and now that we have reviewed the positive possibilities of Wikidata from Librarians, we are ready to know more about how we can improve from their perspective and explore, in the next post in this series, the Main Challenges of Wikidata for Librarians.

This is the fourth of six blog posts! Do you want to read it from the beginning? Here’s the list of links to the previous posts: 

1. #LD42023 I: The Future of Wikidata + Libraries (A Workshop)
2. #LD42023 II: Getting to Know Each Other, Librarians in the Wikidata World
3. #LD42023 III: The Examples, Libraries Using Wikidata
4. #LD42023 IV: Wikidata Tools everyone is talking about (this post!)👈
5. #LD42023 V: Main Challenges of Wikidata for Librarians 
6. #LD42023 VI: Imagining a Wikidata Future for Librarians, Together

As this post is being published, India is in the midst of its hottest summer in 120 years. Temperatures have soared to more than 53°C (127°F), resulting in over 219 deaths and over 25,000 cases of heat stroke. In July, the planet experienced both its hottest day and hottest month ever recorded. Heat waves and other extreme weather events have had tremendous, and at times irreversible, impacts on natural biological systems, with negative consequences for the planet predicted to grow at faster rates over time. 

In the midst of this growing climate crisis, Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects have become a key resource for providing neutral, verifiable information about climate science in hundreds of languages. In 2023, the Wikimedia projects saw nearly 340 million pageviews to content about climate change. Of those pageviews, 60% were of content in languages other than English. Information about the climate crisis is both critical and sought-after across regions and languages, and volunteer Wikimedians are working hard to document the world’s knowledge on the topic. 

Over the past year and a half, Wikimedians and the Wikimedia Foundation have mobilized around the climate crisis. Our joint efforts resulted in campaigns, trainings, partnerships and more, and through these efforts written content, as well as multimedia and data, grew steadily across Wikimedia projects. Read on to learn more about efforts supported by the Foundation to address knowledge gaps about climate related topics, volunteer-led efforts to organize around and expand the volume of climate content, as well as the Foundation’s internal policies around improving environmental sustainability. 

Expanding support for sustainability action 

In 2023, the Wikimedia Foundation continued to invest in campaigns focused on increasing content about climate change on the Wikimedia projects and providing training and tools for volunteer organizers focused on topics for impact like climate change.

The 2023 WikiForHumanRights campaign, organized by Wikimedia Argentina, Wikimedistas de Bolivia, Wikimedia Chile, Wikimedia Colombia, WikiAcción Perú, Wikimedistas de la Universidad de La Plata and Wikimedistas de Uruguay and supported by the Foundation, ran from April to June 2023. It focused on the theme of pollution, which is one of the Triple Planetary Crises themes in focus at the United Nations and a frequent focus area of contributors in past WikiForHumanRights campaigns. 900 people participated in the campaign, creating over 9,000 Wikipedia articles across dozens of languages, 5,000 Wikidata items and 7,000 uploads on Wikimedia Commons. This includes content on pollution translated into languages across a number of different language wikis, such as Arabic, Hausa, Spanish and Bikol. These contributions mean that there is now a greater global diversity of content on pollution and other environmental crises. Communities from North Africa, to the Philippines, to Colombia and beyond are finding unique local ways to document the challenges created by the climate crises, such as adding environment related vocabulary to Wiktionary and arranging for photo hikes to document climate change in the Philippines. 

During 2023, the Foundation also piloted the Organizer Lab—an initiative funded via the Foundation’s internal carbon fee. 2023 marked the graduation of the first cohort of Organizer Lab organizers, with a second round of participants graduating earlier this year. Across the cohorts, we graduated 48 organizers who spent 12 weeks learning from case studies and examples about the UN Sustainable Development goals, climate change, and how content on the Wikimedia projects can increase awareness and education. The training also covered the intersections of knowledge equity and gender perspectives on climate science, and the importance of closing these knowledge gaps on Wikimedia.  Some of these organizers ran projects explicitly focused on sustainability themes, and most are reporting adding new themes, topics and perspectives to their tactics . Projects like the Wiki Climate Campus Tour Nigeria and Wiki Green Conference in Ghana allow these communities to connect local enthusiasm for sustainability issues with the role of digital platforms like Wikipedia.

Volunteer led efforts to expand climate content 

While the Foundation funds specific, targeted interventions related to closing knowledge gaps, most of the work related to climate, sustainability and environmental issues is led by Wikimedia volunteers. Here are just a few examples of the work led by volunteers to expand climate content in 2023:

• Working group on climate change and environmental topics in Latin America: As an outgrowth of the collaboration from the WikiForHumanRights campaign, a working group emerged of organizers in Latin American affiliates focused on environmental topics from a Human Rights perspective. This new group is building on the region’s long history of running campaigns; the first version of WikiForHumanRights was actually pioneered by Wikimedia Argentina with a focus on other human rights themes. The network not only runs the #WikiForHumanRights campaign regionally, but has been able to collaborate on a number of projects related to environmental education. In 2024, they are going to be hosting the first international sustainability focused Wikimedia conference in Haurez, Peru, as well as running a course in partnership with the Inter American Development Bank on Green Digital skills that teaches youth to edit Wikipedia on environmental themes.

• Wiki Loves Earth: Photography plays an important role in environmental crises, showing the human and the natural impacts of the crises. The Wikimedia movement includes enthusiastic photography communities that focus on these environmental issues. Wiki Loves Earth continues to document the world’s ecologically important locations, and this year announced another round of its special nomination related to Human Rights and the Environment. Additionally, 2023 marked an important milestone for Wiki Loves Butterflies, as it has now achieved over 10,000 photos of rare butterflies and other wildlife from India since its inauguration. In Argentina, a group of Wikimedians built a visual archive of a flood from 20 years ago in the town of Santa Fe that captured the human impact of natural disaster and the lessons to be learned from it.

• WikiProject Climate Change: Within the movement, Wikipedia continues to be a central hub for adding and improving content about climate science. On English Wikipedia, WikiProject Climate change has played an important role in coordinating these improvements. The Signpost, the English Wikipedia community newspaper, recently published a review of several academic studies that have used WikiProject Climate change to better understand both the dynamics of Wikipedia and the popularity of climate change content. Wikimedia affiliates are also investing in content about climate change on Wikipedia. For example,  Wikimedia UK has increased its focus on climate change as part of their long term strategy, with one of the most visible tactics being a Wikipedian in Residence with the University of Exeter. Similarly, Wikimedia Australia sponsored a Wikipedian in Residence at the State Environmental Protection Agency in Victoria. And WikiEdu announced a 2024 initiative focusing parts of its programs on gaps of knowledge around Climate Finance and International policy.  

Through campaigns and other initiatives, Wikimedia volunteers create knowledge which, in turn, enables other knowledge communities to strengthen their own work about climate change and related topics: 

• Biodiversity Heritage Library: In 2023, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL)–the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives– released a white paper in which “Wikimedia’s core projects, particularly Wikidata, take center stage”. In its research, the BHL leveraged Wikidata as the place to integrate its biodiversity and climate change related data to be able to gather insights more quickly and effectively. The researchers write, “Wikidata helps with the problem of opening data silos. There is a lot of knowledge out there, we know a lot about our surroundings, but it is hidden behind paywalls in silos. Wikidata bursts these silos open for the greater public to be used.” They state furthermore that “[Wikidata] is the missing ‘technical infrastructure’ sought after by climate policymakers, national governments, and intergovernmental organizations.”

Documenting the Foundation’s internal practices around sustainability

In addition to providing grants and financial support to Wikimedia communities to improve the content on the Wikimedia projects about sustainability, the Wikimedia Foundation endeavors to document and improve our internal sustainability practices over time. 

Every year, we publish an inventory of our annual Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Scope 1 refers to our direct greenhouse gas emissions from sources owned or controlled by the Foundation like natural gas consumption at our San Francisco office. Scope 2 refers to indirect emissions associated with the purchase of electricity, steam, heat and cooling, such as electricity and heating for the San Francisco office. Scope 3 refers to indirect emissions generated indirectly by our operations, such as energy related to remote work, emission from Foundation-sponsored travel for staff and volunteers, and energy used by our data center vendors. 

We are continually exploring ways to understand and reduce the impact of our activities on the environment. Since 2021, we have imposed a US$50/ton internal carbon fee on our Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, with the revenue being reinvested in movement-led climate initiatives. We put this fee in place in 2021 and are continuing to explore a long term strategy for its use. 

In 2023, our scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions totaled 3,946 metric tons of CO₂-equivalent. Year-over-year, our scope 1 and 2 emissions remained static, while our scope 3 emissions increased by 1ktCO2, or 35%. This change was driven by increased travel to community convenings compared to 2022. In 2023, we saw the return of an in-person Wikimania and Wikimedia Hackathon, events for which the Foundation sponsors, and thus tracks emissions for, travel for both staff attendees and volunteer scholarship recipients. In 2023, Wikimania was held in the East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific (ESEAP) region for the first time in ten years, which significantly increased our overall air mileage. Staff travel to internal offsites and business meetings remained more or less the same year-over-year, as we continue to incorporate learnings from the pandemic and act more intentionally when deciding to meet in person. Our data center emissions, the second largest source of emissions next to business travel, increased slightly in 2023, in line with expected annual data center growth. 

In the coming fiscal year, the Foundation will be moving into a much smaller office in San Francisco as we support a more globally distributed workforce and fewer in-person staff office needs. This is expected to result in a small reduction in both Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. Also next fiscal year, the Wikimedia Foundation’s travel team will begin directly managing flight and hotel bookings for major volunteer-led conferences like WikiConference North America and WikiIndaba, which will allow us to quantify the environmental impact of our conference grant portfolio for the first time ever.

Moreover, our team responsible for selecting new data center locations, is getting better at identifying future sites that balance our server needs with the carbon intensity of the local grid. In 2023, we conducted a search for our ninth data center server site in South America, to reduce latency and improve resiliency for users in that region. More information about this will be shared soon.

You can learn more about our emissions and sustainability initiatives on Meta.

Looking ahead: we’re in this together

As public understanding of the climate crisis grows, the Wikimedia movement has a crucial role to play in highlighting overlooked perspectives about the impact of climate change around the world and expanding our knowledge. An equitable approach to solving the climate crises starts with global perspectives that include content on languages and regions often neglected by academic and international institutions. This is not work that we can do alone! We encourage everyone to get involved. You can learn more about the initiatives and tactics happening around the movement – and how to get involved – in the regular newsletter published by the Wikimedians for Sustainable Development.

Jun 24, 20:48 UTC
Resolved - This incident has been resolved.

Jun 24, 20:28 UTC
Identified - The issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented.

Jun 24, 20:12 UTC
Investigating - We are currently investigating this issue.

Sponsored by the WITH Foundation and hosted by Wiki Education throughout the past year, five Wiki Scientists courses and one editing workshop brought the expertise and lived experiences of 46 scholars and self-advocates of healthcare and adult disabilities to Wikipedia. The professional development courses supported enhancements to 88 Wikipedia articles that have since been viewed 1.23 million times.

Motivated by her lifelong interest and focus on reproductive health and justice, course participant Paula A. Hillard, MD valued the unique learning opportunity to bring her knowledge to the public through the open-access encyclopedia.

“I loved the encouragement and support in my ventures into editing Wikipedia,” said Hillard, a pediatric and adolescent gynecology specialist at Stanford Children’s Health and professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. “In the medical field in particular, many Wikipedia articles need updating. As a physician, I know that many individuals use Wikipedia as one of their online sources of medical information, so the articles must be medically accurate as well as inclusive.”

While previously unfamiliar with the WITH Foundation, Hillard immediately connected with the goals of the organization and eagerly jumped into editing.

“When I read what the [WITH] acronym stands for, ‘Working for Inclusive and Transformative Healthcare’, I was hooked, and wanted the chance to help further that mission,” explained Hillard.  

Fellow course participant Juanita Panlener discovered the learning opportunity through her organization’s ongoing collaboration with the WITH Foundation. As the manager of the National Resource Center of the Spina Bifida Association, Panlener provides information about living with Spina Bifida to family members, individuals, social professionals, and more.

“Once I realized the value of learning how to be a responsible contributor to Wikipedia, and once I realized that we could play a part in updating content about Spina Bifida and topics related to Spina Bifida, I was in!” Panlener emphasized. 

Course participants made high-quality improvements to a variety of Wikipedia articles focused on disability healthcare, including Down syndrome, Disability sport classification, De Barsy syndrome, Evidence-based medicine, Disability treatments in the United States, Curb cut effect, and Ableism.

Curious about the editing process and motivated by the chance to dedicate time to improving Wikipedia by researching a topic aligned with her interests, Arizona State University professor Kenicia Wright joined the course with limited prior knowledge of the site.

“I was surprised by the increase in experts contributing to information on Wikipedia, the sources that are added to support the information being uploaded on different topics, and the goal/number of academic scholars contributing to Wikipedia articles on certain topics,” said Wright.

Like Wright, many participants were surprised by the course content, including the exploration of Wikipedia’s robust editing policies and guidelines in place to safeguard article quality.

“Prior to the course, I was unaware of the extensive behind-the-scenes work involved in creating Wikipedia articles,” said Rachel Lawerh, Population Student Health PhD student at the University of Ottawa. “It was fascinating to see editors collaborating on various topics, guidelines, and measures that are put in place to minimize the spread of misinformation on the platform.”

For instructor Will Kent, Scholars & Scientists Program Manager at Wiki Education, the WITH courses provided the ideal space for experts to gather and share their deep subject-area knowledge acquired from lived experience.

“An important element to these courses is the connection between people’s personal motivations to edit articles in the area of disabilities,” said Kent. “It was especially rewarding for me as an instructor to work with new editors who brought both personal and professional experiences to their writing. In addition to being meaningful to the course participants, it’s important for people writing about the community they represent to be part of that community. This really shines through in their work.”

Interested in learning how to add your own expertise to Wikipedia? Explore Wiki Education’s upcoming courses for subject-area experts.

Explore related articles:

• Edits close to home: ophthalmologist lends expertise to Down syndrome article
• 800K views and counting: professor improves healthcare content on Wikipedia

 

13/06/2024-19/06/2024

Mapping campaigns

• The campaign to map the flooded areas in the State of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) continues and mappers from all over the world are invited to collaborate on the open projects in the HOT Tasking Manager. Links to the projects and other information can be found on the campaign’s wiki page.

Community

• SeverinGeo will present > on 29 June at the SotM France 2024 > a service to download OSM data translated into French. This offers users an alternative of accessing the raw English OSM data.
• CartoCité published > an article showing in detail how to dynamically display OSM data from Overpass on uMap.

Events

• François Lacombe and Jean-Louis Zimmerman will present > a special keynote about the mapping of hydrography in OSM (‘Cartographier les cours d’eau, ça coule de source!’), on June 29 at State of the Map France 2024 > . The authors will highlight the importance of this topic, particularly in the face of global climate change.
• State of the Map Nigeria 2024, to be held at the Obafemi Awolowo University (Ile-Ife, Nigeria) from 9-11 October, announced an open call for the submission of abstracts for general track presentations and workshops until 31 July. The organisers are also seeking sponsors for the event.
• Christian Quest presented the special keynote ‘Panoramax: l’alernative libre pour photo-cartographier nos territoires’ (Panoramax: the free alternative for photo-mapping our territories) at the festival ‘Pas Sage en Seine’ (PSES 2024) and showed the Panoramax resources and the prospects for the future of the project.
• If you’re looking for a reason to go to London in September – Geomob, the geospatial event series organised by OpenCage, is celebrating OSM’s birthday with a very special event on 18 September. The evening will feature five speakers with talks focused exclusively on OSM-related topics. One of the speakers will be Prof. Muki Haklay, who was there at the very, very beginning.
  He authorised the first OSM server for Steve Coast, who was a student at UCL at the time.
• State of the Map Malawi 2024, to be held at the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS) between 18-20 July, has an open call for abstracts until 24 June. The organisers are also offering three categories for sponsorship of the event.
• There is an open call until 30 June, 2024, for OSM communities interested in hosting State of the Map Africa 2025.
• At the SotM France on 28 June Yohan Boniface will present > an instance of the uMap dedicated to public bodies in France. The project received French public funding from the ‘Accélérateur d’Initiatives Citoyennes’ (Accelerator of citizens’ initiatives) and the ‘Incubateur des Territoires de l’ANCT’ (ANCT territory incubator) programs, thus it was developed in only six months.

Maps

• OSM for Cities is a platform that provides daily updated maps of Brazilian cities using OpenStreetMap data. It features various datasets categorised into areas like cycling, health, education, and more, each showing detailed information with tag coverage percentages. The platform is in early development and aims to expand its coverage and capabilities.

OSM in action

• [1] A Minecraft builder, AtmosphericBeats, used custom software integrating OpenStreetMap and USGS data to create a 1:1 scale replica of Kansas City, USA, in Minecraft within 36 hours. This innovative project accurately represents buildings, roads, and natural features, demonstrating the potential of combining OSM data with gaming platforms for detailed and realistic virtual recreations.
• Guess This City is an interactive game in which users click on a blank map to reveal hidden map tiles. Players try to identify the city shown with the fewest clicks.
• Offensive OSINT discussed the integration of OpenStreetMap into the Open Source Surveillance system, enhancing its geolocation investigation capabilities. It provides a tutorial on using OSM and the Overpass Turbo API to search for various points of interest and objects in the vicinity of specific locations. The update aims to make geolocation easier and more efficient for analysts and researchers by using detailed and up-to-date geospatial data from OSM.
• Dawn Chorus is a citizen science and art project that invites people around the world to record and share bird songs to document biodiversity, support scientific research, and raise awareness of nature. The Explore page allows users to listen to and explore a variety of bird songs recorded by participants. The interactive map and timeline features allow users to filter recordings by date, location, and species, providing a unique way to experience and study the diversity of bird song across regions and time.
• TxtDariNAROGONG utilized OpenStreetMap waterway data to visualise the history of Bekasi’s water management system, from the Tarumanegara Kingdom era (circa the 5th century AD), through the Dutch colonial administration, to the recent Indonesian Republic era.

Software

• Let’s welcome Anton Khorev as an additional maintainer for the OpenStreetMap website code, as confirmed by the recently merged pull request.
• OSR is a memory-efficient, multi-mode OpenStreetMap router designed for pedestrian, bicycle, and car navigation. It uses compact data structures and memory-mapped files to efficiently import route data, supporting large maps with relatively low memory requirements.
• Tobias Jordans posted about his efforts to modernise the OSMCha tool by migrating the frontend to a new React-based framework, improving the UI/UX with Tailwind CSS, and tackling technical debt.

Programming

• Bulgent provided > an introduction to using PyOsmium, a Python library for processing OpenStreetMap data. The post covers installation, basic usage, data extraction, geographic calculations, and GeoJSON output. He also contrasts PyOsmium with another library, Pyrosm, highlighting their respective strengths and weaknesses for different OSM data processing tasks.

Releases

• dpschep announced updates to Overpass Ultra, enhancing its customisation features, including loading queries from URLs and Gists, improved configurability for interactive map views, bundled icons for easy integration, and examples demonstrating these features, all aimed at facilitating the creation and sharing of custom Overpass-powered maps.

Did you know …

• … you can load OSM data onto a Garmin eTrex? Localized to Japanese?
• … Geomob? A series of events and a podcast aimed at geospatial enthusiasts, providing a platform to discuss geoinnovation for both fun and profit.

OSM in the media

• Grab will provide updated maps of Tengah, a newly developed town in Singapore, to assist residents, drivers, and delivery riders with navigation in the rapidly developing district. This initiative, supported by the OpenStreetMap community, leverages AI technology to improve accessibility and address the needs of service providers in the area.
• The Youth Innovation Lab presents the BIPAD Portal, a disaster management system in Nepal that integrates OpenStreetMap data to support risk communication and informed decision making.

Other “geo” things

• Matt Brown introduced two detailed maps of medieval and Tudor London produced by the Historic Towns Trust, highlighting the extensive research and archaeological information used to depict the layout of the city in the 13th and 16th centuries. The maps are available online and in fold-out paper versions.
• The Linux Foundation Europe has launched the Open Mobile Hub (OMH), a project aimed at simplifying mobile app development through an open-source framework. OMH provides SDKs and tools for seamless integration with mapping services, including OpenStreetMap. Like Overture which wants to address the fragmentation of geographic Open Data, this initiative aims to address fragmentation in mobile development and improve cross-platform user experiences by offering a unified codebase and an extensible plugin architecture.
• MapFast allows users to quickly create customised, detailed maps by uploading data without needing geometric boundaries or coordinates. It supports CSV files, automatically geocodes geographical information, and offers various customisation options like colours, text, and legends. Users can export maps in PNG or SVG formats and create maps for free with optional subscription plans for advanced features.
• The latest #geoweirdness thread from OpenCage discusses the geopolitics of football in general and specifically the EURO 2024.
• The Guardian reported the development of a quantum compass for the London Underground, a subatomic instrument that aims to provide precise location tracking where GPS signals are unavailable. This technology leverages quantum mechanics to enhance navigation and could revolutionize how underground and other GPS-denied environments are navigated, offering greater accuracy and reliability.
• Komoot released three major improvements in June. New route guidance ensures fewer interruptions. For road cyclists, the route planner now evaluates the road surfaces, guides to road bike-friendly routes, and reduces gravel sections. The new mountain bike router offers insider knowledge about the best trails.
• OpenStreetMap Japan has announced > the Governor’s Cup Open Data Hackathon 2024, where participants will develop digital services using Tokyo’s open data to solve administrative problems.

Upcoming Events

Where	What	Online	When	Country
	OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting		2024-06-21
Alto Maé “B”	UCM (Maputo, MOZ) – Oficina sobre mapeamento com OpenStreetMap!		2024-06-21
Bengaluru	OSM Bengaluru Mapping Party		2024-06-22
Dover	Coffee and Mapping!		2024-06-23
Bielefeld	OSM Ostwestfalen-Lippe		2024-06-25
City of Edinburgh	Geomob Edinburgh		2024-06-25
Kaiserslautern	OSM Einführung und Schulung		2024-06-25
San Jose	South Bay Map Night	✓	2024-06-26
Hannover	OSM-Stammtisch Hannover		2024-06-26
	[Online] OpenStreetMap Foundation board of Directors – public videomeeting		2024-06-27
Lübeck	143. OSM-Stammtisch Lübeck und Umgebung		2024-06-27
Lyon	SotM-FR 2024 – Lyon		2024-06-28 – 2024-06-30
Düsseldorf	Düsseldorfer OpenStreetMap-Treffen (online)		2024-06-28
中央区	マッピングパーティ in 北海道神宮		2024-06-30
Tartu linn	FOSS4G Europe 2024		2024-06-30 – 2024-07-07
	MapRoulette Community Meeting		2024-07-02
	Missing Maps London Mapathon		2024-07-02
Stuttgart	Stuttgarter OpenStreetMap-Treffen		2024-07-03
Dresden	Dresden – OSM Stammtisch		2024-07-04
臺北市	OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #66		2024-07-08

Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.

This weeklyOSM was produced by MatthiasMatthias, Raquel Dezidério Souto, Strubbl, YoViajo, barefootstache, derFred, freyfogle, mcliquid, miurahr, rtnf.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.

Jun 23, 03:51 UTC
Resolved - The sites remain stable and we believe the incident to be resolved.

Jun 22, 23:18 UTC
Monitoring - Things appear stable and we are monitoring.

Jun 22, 22:42 UTC
Investigating - We are aware that users are having trouble editing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia wikis, and we are investigating.

Earlier this year, the Commonwealth Faith Festival, a partnership between the Commonwealth and the Khalili Foundation to foster peace-building through faith, was launched to an audience of diplomats, religious leaders, and academics in London as well as youth ambassadors across the Commonwealth via video link. The day’s discussions set the scene for peace-building initiatives by the youth ambassadors; the most outstanding of these will receive funding from the Khalili Foundation. Dr Martin Poulter, the Khalili Foundation’s Wikimedian In Residence, used a panel session to talk about his work to diversify Wikimedia and to call for more free sharing of cultural material. This is an edited text of the talk.

Wikipedia is the fifth most popular website, but it’s the only one of the top 70 that has a charitable purpose. All the rest have a profit motive. Wikipedia is an exception, driven by a vision that giving people open knowledge that they can access anywhere, immediately, for free, with no adverts is a good thing. The motive is to provide educational material, not to tell people what to think or what to do, but to give them something reliable and factual they can base decisions on.

It’s the biggest and most popular reference work ever created. Everybody uses it, and it’s so popular that even the people who don’t use it are using it. You might think, “I don’t go to Wikipedia. I type my question into Google, and a bit of text comes up answering my question.” Well, that text is normally harvested from Wikipedia or a similar source. Or you might think, “I’ve got a chat assistant. I talk to Siri or Alexa and ask it a question.” That’s often text read out from a Wikipedia article.

Maybe you don’t even use search engines anymore. There are the new chat bots, like ChatGPT. You can ask any question and it will give you an answer in any style. Those chat bots, those technologies were created by harvesting text from Wikipedia. They wouldn’t be able to talk about such diverse topics if that weren’t the case. So the quality of cultural information on Wikipedia is something that concerns all of us.

Wikipedia sets itself this very high standard of giving everyone in the world access to all knowledge and the ability to share knowledge and culture in their own language. But we know it’s way, way short of that ambitious standard. We know that English Wikipedia is much bigger than the others. We know that there’s a gender gap as well as geographical imbalances. A lot of these biases come from wider society: where is scholarship done? What’s considered worthy of celebration? Whose achievements are recorded?

The research Waqas Ahmed (Executive Director of the Khalili Foundation) and I have done is about cultural bias. We looked at coverage of the visual arts. The type of bias we’re looking at is not the kind that affects a single article. Particular articles might have problems, but that’s relatively easy to fix. There’s a more pernicious bias, which is systemic bias across the whole coverage of a subject. If there are thousands of articles and they’re all basically correct, but they’re all from within a particular cultural perspective, then Wikipedia is saying that by default art is associated with that culture.

We found that when you look up sculptors on Wikipedia, it’s overwhelmingly European sculptors and yet sculpture is found in all human cultures. Another example is a gallery of religious art that features the most high-quality images available to Wikimedia. There are about seven from Hinduism, about five from Judaism, six from Buddhism, one from Islam (when we first looked at it), and 70 plus from Christianity. It was not saying anything explicit, yet conveying that religious art is a Christian thing. Then you think of the rich history of Islam, which we’ll come back to; or Hinduism, with so many different traditions, so many kinds of colourful art; or Vajrayana Buddhism, where creating beautiful art is part of the exercise of the religion. It’s not that having a lot of information about Christianity is bad: it’s great that that’s freely available to people! But it needs to be balanced to give a truly global perspective.

The good news is that we can do something about it, you can all do something about it, and we are making progress, week by week and month by month. Because our patron is the great cultural philanthropist Sir David Khalili. His eight art collections, assembled over five decades, are all from outside the Western mainstream and each is considered the biggest or most complete of its kind. And so, working on Wikipedia, we’ve been able to share one and a half thousand images. A thousand of those relate to Islamic civilisation and Islamic history, broadly considered. These are now used in ninety languages and are hugely appreciated. They are used to illustrate hundreds of Wikipedia articles; that’s how we are reaching millions of image views every month.

I’ve been creating articles about aspects of Islamic history and culture. The sitaras: I’d never heard of these, these are the huge textile artworks that cover the door of the Kaaba or other sacred sites of Islam. We’ve been able to share pictures of them, explain how they’re made and their purpose. I write in English and I’m monolingual, but I’m seeing these articles translated into Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Indonesian, Malay, and — as of last week — Uzbek. It’s not me doing that; that’s the volunteer community appreciating the value of what has been given and seeing an opportunity to document an aspect of their own culture.

This is all descriptive. There’s no agenda of converting or de-converting anyone. It leaves the subjective response up to the reader, and I know people in the Arabic community whose reaction is a feeling of pride in their culture. Then there are people like me; I’m encountering a culture completely different from what I grew up with. I was not familiar with a sitara, the Musa va ‘Uj, or the Anis al-Hujjaj. For each of those, there is now a Wikipedia article that tells you what it is and why it’s important to that culture.

We’re also doing editathons. These are training events; we do them mainly with students in universities but they are public events. We’ve trained people to edit Wikipedia, to put in aspects of their culture or the culture they are learning about. That’s a lesson to everyone; you see something missing online, you don’t have to accept that. You can contribute!

You don’t have to be one of the world’s great art collectors to be a cultural philanthropist. We can all be cultural philanthropists, as individuals or institutions. If you’ve got a phone with a camera, you can take photographs. Obviously, you’re going to respect people’s privacy, respect sacred spaces; you’re going to make sure it’s okay to share your photo. But when you see that costume, that ceremony, or that music performance, take the photo, go to Wikipedia and click “Upload file”. Write one line telling us what you photographed and make it available for people to use. Show something that we have never seen, because we didn’t grow up in your part of the world, in your culture.

You can do this as an individual. Some people here are the bosses of organisations; you can do what Sir David has done and direct your organisation to work consensually with Wikipedia. No one’s entitled to your culture, but you can share it to reach millions of people. There’s no better way to reach a public audience.

A motto of the Wikimedia movement is “be bold”. We can actually diversify the online representation of faith and culture if we are bold, as people and as organisations. Thanks very much.

The post Let’s culturally diversify the Internet appeared first on WMUK.

There’s no question that Wikipedian Nabor Barbera’s professional expertise aligned perfectly with the goal of our recent Wiki Scientists course to improve medical information on Wikipedia. New to Wikipedia but with over 40 years of experience as an eye physician and surgeon, Barbera drew from his extensive knowledge to find and fill gaps in ophthalmology content throughout the six-week course sponsored by the WITH Foundation.

But it was a personal connection to the course’s focus on adult disabilities that propelled his work on Wikipedia – and led him to make substantive additions to an already well-developed, well-regarded article on the site.

“My sister has Down syndrome and I am involved in assisting with her medical care,” said Barbera. “I was interested and motivated to share what I knew through Wikipedia.”

Barbera added a new, robust section on ocular findings to the Down syndrome article, including information related to clinical signs of Down syndrome in an infant at birth, and the greater frequency of vision disorders such as congenital cataracts, strabismus, nystagmus, nasolacrimal duct obstruction, and refractive error among individuals with Down syndrome. 

“Wikipedia is one of the best examples of the realization of the original promise of the internet – constructive collaboration and dissemination of knowledge,” explained the ophthalmologist when reflecting on the power of Wikipedia to shape awareness and understanding of topics like disabilities. 

Throughout the course, Barbera also made enhancements to other eye-related articles, including Pseudostrabismus, which could lead to the incorrect diagnosis of strabismus. Pseudostrabismus, the false impression that the eyes are misaligned, generally occurs in infants and very young children, whose facial features are not yet fully developed.

“It was quite rewarding to look at the page view statistics with [our instructor] at the end of the course,” said Barbera. “It’s amazing how many views there were of the work in just a few weeks!  It helps me understand how significant the contribution can be, and I am sure others would share that sense of satisfaction.”

Praising his WITH course and its instructor, Wiki Education’s Will Kent, Barbera underscored the quality of his learning experience, the value of Kent’s encouragement and feedback, and his thanks to the WITH Foundation for supporting healthcare for those with disabilities. 

“One of the benefits of these courses is the fact that participants have an opportunity to learn from each other,” said Kent. “User Nabor Barbera led and fostered several useful conversations about disability topics, understanding the Wikipedia community, and exploring the useful (and sometimes baffling) user interface. These kinds of conversations embody the kind of drive, agency, and curiosity that make an engaged Wikipedian.”

While his course has officially ended, Barbera continues to review and edit Wikipedia articles, encouraging others to lend their own knowledge to improve the site for all.

Interested in learning how to add your expertise to Wikipedia? Explore Wiki Education’s upcoming courses for subject-area experts.

When University of the Virgin Islands psychology major Reem Mohamad enrolled in an English course this spring, the last thing she expected was to change her long held skepticism of Wikipedia as a reliable source of information. Fast forward to the end of the semester – Mohamad not only published a brand new Wikipedia article, but also asserts the rigor of the site’s policies and standards to safeguard content quality.

“Since youth, I’ve always been taught that Wikipedia is an ‘unreliable source’ since everyone can edit a published article,” explained Mohamad. “However, since becoming an editor, I’ve realized the opposite is true. Wikipedia is a lot more structured and rigid in its publication regulations, making edits much more complex.”

Along with her classmates, Mohamad sought to develop new biography articles featuring diverse individuals with notable achievements in STEM as part of a special initiative supported by the Broadcom Foundation. Mohamad created the new article for Quinton Williams, an African American physicist and professor at Howard University.

For Mohamad, who plans to attend medical school in the future, the focus of her Wikipedia assignment felt particularly meaningful as a woman and person of color (POC).

“Seeing another person of color succeed in STEM made me happy,” said Mohamad. “Being a woman and a POC, it can sometimes be overwhelming and create feelings of doubt. ‘Am I going to succeed?’, is a question I frequently ask myself, but whenever I see fellow POCs succeeding in a field I am in, it diminishes my doubts and offers a sense of security.”

When fellow women and POCs read the biographies published by her class on Wikipedia, Mohamad hopes they feel the same sense of security and encouragement. 

To tackle the challenge of creating a new article from scratch, the fourth-year student created a schedule for herself, dedicating different days to specific tasks including robust research, organizing sources, and formatting the article. Not only did the assignment enhance her research skills, but it also sharpened her time management practices – both key competencies that she’ll bring to her next internship and future medical degree, noted Mohamad. 

“When writing about an important person and making that information available to everyone, I feel significant pressure to make sure that everything I report is as accurate as possible, since it can have negative consequences on the chosen individual and/or author if anything is reported inaccurately,” said Mohamad.

When reflecting on her favorite aspects of editing Wikipedia, the future psychiatrist emphasized the joy of seeing her small, individual sections of the article come together to create one cohesive biography about Quinton Williams. 

“It didn’t seem like much detail when formulating each section, but when I saw the whole article, I was truly amazed seeing all of the information reported,” she explained.

At times, finding appropriate and notable sources for the article proved to be a challenge for Mohamad. She recognized the impact of the support of her Wikipedia Expert, Wiki Education’s Brianda Felix, crediting much of her success with the project to Felix’s guidance through sources and citation practices.

And when comparing the Wikipedia assignment to a more traditional research, Mohamad knows her preference.

“It felt much more fun and rewarding as I made an actual contribution to public information,” said Mohamad. “I felt a stronger sense of accomplishment once the completed article came together versus when doing a traditional research paper.”

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free assignment templates and resources that Wiki Education offers to instructors in the United States and Canada.

Have you ever wanted to examine all AOL keywords for its 5,122 public chatrooms circa 1996? Probably not, but I did as part of historical research. Since I had to uncompress an ancient sit file, convert the ancient Hypercard deck to XML, and then format it into markdown/HTML, I might as well share the result.

https://reagle.org/joseph/2024/watson-1996-aol-keywords.html

BTW: This book is not available, for sale or otherwise. Fortunately, the Internet Archive’s Open Library sometimes has access to such resources. I was unlucky that the book version of this resource is no longer available. I was fortunate the original author also created a HyperCard version of the list that the Archive also provides within an emulator.

I ♥️ Internet Archive.

I made a fedi post about ADHD-y burn-out earlier, and it got me thinking — we should probably try to normalise: “Today I got stuck on what should have been a really basic programming task and I needed to ask for help” in our everyday lives, if not for my own mental health, for (often newer, but not always) developers getting really down and upset because they are struggling with something.

06/06/2024-12/06/2024

Mapping

• Shinji Enoki recounted ► his experience with on-foot mapping using StreetComplete and EveryDoor. He enjoyed the gamified elements of both apps, but cautions readers about the risks of frequently stopping or looking at the screen while walking, as he has nearly tripped several times.
• OSM contributor une abeille blogged about mapping focused on people and not just on vehicles or commerce, pointing out that OSM can be useful for a more humanised urban map.
• The proposal to deprecate the cycleway=opposite family of tags can be voted on until Saturday 22 June.

Mapping campaigns

• Mikko Tamura reported that in the span of just three weeks, since the OM Guru Climate Change Challenge 2024 began, more than 250,000 buildings, 11,000 km of roads, 15,000 POIs, and 8,000 km of waterways have been mapped. More than 4 million tiles were swiped, 11,000 Tasking Manager tasks completed, and 16,000 MapRoulette tasks finished.

Community

• Arjun Gangadharan has written a blog post about his passion and motivations for mapping in OSM. He encouraged others to contribute to OSM and listed the various benefits of contributing.
• hobbesvsboyle published a diary entry about how they collect road surface information during bike rides and the workflow thereafter to efficiently add the information into OSM using JOSM.
• The Trufi Association released an update to its mission statement by expanding its operational scope from ‘public transport’ to ‘sustainable transport’ and ‘transportation justice’.
• Kshitijraj Sharma conducted qualitative and quantitative analyses of the Overture Maps dataset version 2024-05-16-beta.0.
• Martin Kokos has started a discussion on improving OSM tags for the visually impaired.
• In the tenth edition of his OpenStreetMap NextGen development diary, Kamil Monicz has invited people to contribute to the project. There are openings for translators, graphic designers, and software testers.
• Sawan Shariar is searching for students to volunteer as campus ambassadors to engage with their university community and to promote SotM Asia and SotM Bangladesh 2024. He is also calling for designers and creatives to help by creating a SotM Asia logo.
• The UN Mapper of the Month is Angie Lorena Trujillo, an Environmental Engineer and GIS specialist from Colombia, who joined the UN Mappers OSM validation course.

Imports

• Kai Johnson analysed the GNIS import that was done from 2008 to 2011 and concluded that there is still a lot to be done.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

• Andrew Wiseman has provided a progress update on the vector tiles development currently being done by the Engineering Working Group of the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

Events

• The State of the Map Europe 2024 tooted that the preliminary conference schedule for SotM EU 2024 is available and tickets can now be bought.
• There’s only one week left to register ► for the 10th SotM France conference ►, to be held in Lyon from Friday 28 to Sunday 30 June.

Education

• Raquel Dezidério Souto reported ► that the IVIDES ► had organised a workshop on mapping trees and vegetation in OpenStreetMap using iD, JOSM, and the FastDraw plugin.
• Severin Menard tooted about the educational activities carried out by UN Mappers since 2021. A complete report of this successful experience can be found on their blog.

OSM research

• Herrera-Murillo et al. have published a conference paper titled ‘Process Analysis in Humanitarian Voluntary Geographic Information: the case of the HOT Tasking Manager’, in which they analyse two years of individual contributors’ actions from the Tasking Manager logs, and process them from the perspectives of control flow, time, organisation, and outcomes of the mapping tasks that comprise a project. OSM data is also extracted for the analysis from the Bunting Labs OSM extracts service.

Maps

• David Thompson shared OpenSidewalkMap, an OpenStreetMap-based webmap that displays the location of sidewalks.

OSM in action

• Peter Van Geit explained how to use OpenStreetMap for planning a Himalayan traverse over multiple days and passing through many valleys. OpenStreetMap POIs such as human settlements, streams, peaks, and camp sites along the planned route can be imported into QGIS for processing the data, and the processed data can then be imported into a phone app, for example OsmAnd, to use during the hike.

Open Data

• Using OSM AddisMapTransit has mapped over 2,300 public transport stops and 443 routes in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. These routes were then converted from OSM to standardised open transport data (GTFS) and submitted to the DigitalTransport4Africa repository.

Software

• franzpc reported that GISCARTA has developed Geodata AI, a web API tool to extract OpenStreetMap data using natural language and AI.
• Emerson Rocha has released SDM v0.5.0 beta, a web application to aid in OpenStreetMap data conflation.
• llya Zverev (@zverik) is pleased to announce that he now has the support of OpenCage in the development ► of his Level0 OpenStreetMap editor.
• Tim Hirrel has released TdhOGR, a GUI tool for converting various geospatial data formats, including OpenStreetMap, to another data format (based on the GDAL library), or to another coordinate reference system (based on the PROJ library).

Programming

• Volodymyr Agafonkin, creator of mapping library Leaflet, has authored a tutorial showing how to programme a web map from scratch, with only a few lines of code.
• There’s a discussion on GitHub about whether to switch the ‘OSM Carto’ raster map style to osm2pgsql’s flex output. A previous pull request for this is here.

Releases

• OpenAndroMaps has released an updated version of their summer 2024 edition, with improvements to the LiDAR-based elevation display feature and the e-bike charging station display.

Did you know …

• [1] … OpenGlobus is a TypeScript/JavaScript library for visualising high-precision virtual globes and various geospatial data using WebGL? It’s open source and available on GitHub.
• … that one of the standard parking signs in the United States refers motorists to the uMap-powered website CityParkingWeb.com?
• … that a proposal process is active? This is a way to introduce and discuss new OSM tags for features and properties.

OSM in the media

• geoObserver discussed ► a very interesting video, titled ‘Urban Mapping: City Maps with QGIS and QuickOSM’.

Other “geo” things

• Sebastiano Ferraris has published a numerical study that attempted to verify whether the seven famous cathedrals that form the ‘Sword of St Michael’ really lie in a straight line.
• Daniel praised the What3Words team’s marketing skills shown during their presentation at Geomob Berlin on Wednesday 5 June, while also warning about its inherent technical flaws, which were discussed in depth by Cybergibbons in a 2021 article.
• EO Solar ►, created by the Deutsche Luft- und Raumfahrtzentrum (German Aerospace Centre), shows ► which building roofs are well suited for photovoltaic systems. This dataset lists the solar energy potential of around 20 million buildings.

Upcoming Events

Where	What	Online	When	Country
Marseille	Cartopartie : accessibilité voirie et l’écologie urbaine		2024-06-15
Defence Colony Tehsil	9th OSM Delhi (Indoor) Mapping Meetup – Session 1		2024-06-15
Kalkaji Tehsil	9th OSM Delhi (Indoor) Mapping Meetup – Session 2		2024-06-16
Hannover	OSM-Stammtisch Hannover		2024-06-16
England	OSM UK Online Chat		2024-06-17
	Missing Maps London: (Online) Mid-Month Mapathon		2024-06-18
Lyon	Réunion du groupe local de Lyon		2024-06-18
Bonn	176. OSM-Stammtisch Bonn (Juni 2024: 20 Jahre OSM – 15 Jahre Stammtisch Bonn)		2024-06-18
City of Edinburgh	OSM Edinburgh pub meetup		2024-06-18
Utrecht	OSGeo.nl Open Zomerpodium – OSGeo.nl Open Summer Stage		2024-06-19
Karlsruhe	Stammtisch Karlsruhe		2024-06-19
Stainach-Pürgg	13. Österreichischer OSM-Stammtisch (online)		2024-06-19
	OSM-Deutschland Vernetzungstreffen		2024-06-20
	OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting		2024-06-21
Rio de Janeiro (on-line)	UCM (Maputo, MOZ) – Oficina sobre mapeamento com OpenStreetMap!		2024-06-21
Dover	Coffee and Mapping!		2024-06-23
Bielefeld	OSM Ostwestfalen-Lippe		2024-06-25
City of Edinburgh	Geomob Edinburgh		2024-06-25
Kaiserslautern	OSM Einführung und Schulung		2024-06-25
San Jose	South Bay Map Night	✓	2024-06-26
	[Online] OpenStreetMap Foundation board of Directors – public videomeeting		2024-06-27
Lübeck	143. OSM-Stammtisch Lübeck und Umgebung		2024-06-27
Lyon	SotM-FR 2024 – Lyon		2024-06-28 – 2024-06-30
Düsseldorf	Düsseldorfer OpenStreetMap-Treffen (online)		2024-06-28
中央区	マッピングパーティ in 北海道神宮		2024-06-30
Tartu linn	FOSS4G Europe 2024		2024-06-30 – 2024-07-07

Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.

This weeklyOSM was produced by Aphaia_JP, PierZen, Raquel Dezidério Souto, Strubbl, Ted Johnson, TheSwavu, barefootstache, conradoos, derFred, freyfogle, isoipsa, miurahr, rtnf.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.

Co-authored by Ian Ramjohn

Today, the US Supreme Court unanimously rejected a challenge to the abortion pill mifepristone, ensuring continued patient access to the drug by mail. Thanks in part to the work of Wiki Scholars course editors, the Wikipedia article on mifepristone is ready to inform the coming thousands of readers looking for additional context on the drug and the SCOTUS decision.

It’s no surprise that when news breaks, people turn to Wikipedia not only to understand key topics but also to make more informed decisions. With billions of views each month, the world’s largest encyclopedia covers nearly every subject imaginable, including healthcare content used by patients, policymakers, and healthcare practitioners alike.

When Justice Matthew Kacsmaryk of the district court for the Northern District of Texas temporarily suspended the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone in April 2023, the readership of the mifepristone article skyrocketed as people sought related information.

The judge’s decision relied heavily on two studies published in the journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology, which found that the drug could harm pregnant women who took it.

Although the papers have since been retracted by the journal due to unreported conflicts of interest on the part of their primary author and methodological concerns, and the US Supreme Court rejected the case (on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue), this case illustrates how individual studies, when taken out of the context of a whole body of knowledge, can create a completely misleading impression of the state of the field.

Cherry-picked sources are often used by activists to support their specific goals, but on Wikipedia, medical content is subject to special sourcing rules that strongly recommend relying on review articles published in the past five years. A properly-referenced Wikipedia article would never rely on a pair of studies that are, at best, outliers. These rules help ensure that Wikipedia articles reflect current understandings of medical topics.

But even with the best of intentions, Wikipedia articles can be out of date, and non-specialists may not know the current state of the literature well enough to catch error misstatements (either intentional or unintentional), which is why bringing subject matter experts to Wikipedia can be incredibly impactful.

In 2019, 2020, and most recently this spring, Wiki Education partnered with the Society of Family Planning to run a series of Wiki Scholar courses where expert members of the society improved Wikipedia articles related to women’s health, including the mifepristone article. In the recent course, an editor added a section on the use of the drug to medically manage early pregnancy loss, while two members of the 2020 cohort also made several small improvements. But it was a participant in a 2019 course who made larger – and more important – changes to the article. 

This editor, who went by the username UCDEBS, separated the existing safety information in the article into a section on side effects. Crucially, for the sake of context, they were able to add information about how rarely serious complications occurred (only 0.04–0.09% of people using the drug had complications serious enough to require hospitalization) and added more information about the duration of side effects. In addition, they added important information about contraindications. 

Ideally, people would get this type of information from their healthcare provider, but when access to abortion care is severely limited, women may need access to these medications under less than ideal conditions, making the availability of high-quality information online even more important.

Since the editor’s enhancements in 2019, the mifepristone article has been viewed nearly 1.5 million times, including the spike in readership following the April 2023 ruling in Texas. 

And today, as readers explore the Wikipedia article seeking answers to questions about mifepristone, the impact of the information will soar once again.

Interested in learning how to add your own expertise to Wikipedia? Explore Wiki Education’s upcoming courses for subject-area experts.

In the last few weeks I have stumbled on various little bits during Wikipedia edits that I thought were worthy of airing! One of them was a re-realization of the boon and the curse of iron and steel. It starts with something I heard a few years ago by economist Sashi Sivramkrishna and others who were following the trail of Buchanan Hamilton in Mysore (listen to the talk here) and they were apparently impressed by the impact of iron production particularly on the destruction of forests in southern India. And last week I found a Wikipedia entry that someone from Parangipettai had written as a draft and which had been left languishing. I went and ensured that it got moved from a draft version to a mainspace entry - it was on the Porto Novo Iron Works, one of the first large-scale iron smelting enterprises in India. The venture, started by a J.M. Heath, did not last long, one of the big factors being the lack of coal for smelting, and he had to make do with charcoal. In a few years, he ran out of charcoal, after depleting the forests of several districts nearby, and the factory had to move to the west coast near Calicut (Beypore). The first director general of forests Dietrich Brandis also noted the role of iron smelting in deforestation. 

Now to Josiah Heath, who is a real character and it is quite a surprise to see that the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography does not even have an entry for him, and there appears to be no available photograph of him (at least online). Heath sent out skins of various animals to the Zoological Society of London and there is a species of bat named after him. More interestingly it seem the fishing cat was described based on a specimen that he sent from India - which it would appear from all likelihood to have come from the Parangipettai region - more likely Pichavaram (wonder if the species still exists there). He also collected a specimen of a Eurasian Griffon Vulture from the same region. Heath apparently was impressed by traditional ukku (better known as Wootz steel) steel-making near Salem where he was initially posted and he seems to have discovered an important factor which he patented. It involved the use of carbon and manganese and he made money initially by distributing packets of his mixture - and later made the mistake of giving its composition. The steel makers of Sheffield, England quickly started using his technique and decided not to pay him any royalty - and he died in poverty. Of course today we could ask whether he actually stole the idea from traditional Indian blacksmiths and whether it could have been patented at all in the first place or of the numerous other injustices involved in all of this. 

Herr Meves

In another Wikipedia-related iron-connection, I found a little-known ornithologist who now has a Wikipedia entry (Wilhelm Meves). Meves was a German pharmacist turned ornithologist - and he decided to treat the brown feathers of lammergeiers with hydrochloric acid and tested them for iron and found that the colour was largely due to iron oxide. He found that this coating was on the outer surface and that the inside of the feathers was largely iron free. He suggested that the birds were bathing in iron-rich waters. Meves worked in Stockholm and mostly wrote in German but some of his findings made their way into the Ibis in English - thanks to John Wolley. And it seems both T.C. Jerdon and A.O. Hume were careful readers of Meves' works. Jerdon was aware of the bleating sound of snipes being produced by air-flow induced vibrations of the outermost tail feather. And Hume even repeated Meves' chemical analysis on his lammergeier specimens from Shimla and confirmed the presence of iron. Hume however noted that neither he nor any of his "intelligent native sportsmen" had ever seen a lammergeier bathe in water and suggested that the red staining may be derived from the blood of dead animals. Hume's original text (emphasis mine):

Anyway, it seems that India's large iron-deposits have a habit of lying in regions rich in biodiversity and ethnic diversity often on ancient tribal lands. It is little wonder that the steel industry barons are involved in disempowering tribal peoples or paying governments to water down environmental laws. I was truly surprised by the amount of work from around the world on related topics.

• Goucher, C.L. (1981). Iron is iron ’til it is rust: Trade and Ecology in the Decline of West African Iron-Smelting. The Journal of African History. 22(2):179-189. https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021853700019393 
• Siran Liu, Thilo Rehren, Dashu Qin, Jianli Chen, Wenli Zhou, Marcos Martinón-Torres, Xin Huang, Wei Qian (2019). Coal-fuelled crucible lead-silver smelting in 12th-13th century China: A technological innovation in the age of deforestation. Journal of Archaeological Science 104:75-84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2019.01.004
• The impact of ancient iron mining and smelting on the landscape balance on Elba Island, Tuscan Archipelago, Italy - Fabian Becker, Raphael A. Eser, Philipp Hoelzmann, Brigitta Schütt (2019). The environmental impact of ancient iron mining and smelting on Elba Island, Italy – A geochemical soil survey of the Magazzini site. Journal of Geochemical Exploration 205 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gexplo.2019.04.009
  
• Iles, L. (2016). The Role of Metallurgy in Transforming Global Forests.. J Archaeol Method Theory 23:1219–1241 https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10816-015-9266-7

Someday I ought to visit Parangipettai and Pichavaram!  

PS (June 2024): Apparently the idea of sustainable forestry is associated with a German term  Nachhaltigkeit - a concept introduced by a mine inspector named Hans Carl von Carlowitz who wrote a book called Sylvicultura oeconomica in 1713. It was based on fears that deforestation for agriculture would destroy the mining industry! And he was likely influenced by John Evelyn who wrote Sylva in 1662.