Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Monte Hurd]

An explicit "description" tag eliminates the heuristic problem, but it has 
other problems I think. 

It is markup reliant which raises the contributory bar and complicates any 
description editing UX. 

That is, when a user taps the edit pencil to the right of the description, 
instead of showing just the description in a simple editable text box with a 
small prompt to "Enter a concise description of 'article title'", you'd have to 
show the first section wikitext and explain the description markup. 

It also conflates two concerns, that of a concise description and some 
sub-portion of the first section text. I can appreciate the desire to write 
descriptive information only once, but this comes at a cost - changes to 
improve the quality of the description would have to also be proofed to ensure 
the changes also work in the sub-portion context. 







> On Mar 22, 2015, at 7:28 PM, Dmitry Brant  wrote:
> 
> Hi Monte!
> inline:
> 
> > Deeply hard, in fact, because it's complicated not only by language syntax 
> > and grammatical rules, but also by qualitative factors (readability, 
> > meaning, context, relevance etc).
> > This already complicated situation then becomes many orders of magnitude 
> > more difficult because these qualitative factors can differ between 
> > languages.
> 
> Again, I agree that this is not an easy problem. However, in the case of 
> language translations, automated descriptions have the potential of 
> simplifying things tremendously. The algorithm for the grammar and syntax of 
> a certain language needs to be written only once. And once it's written, it 
> can be applied to every Wikidata item, past and future. Sure, there would 
> likely be a different algorithm for each language, and maybe even different 
> algorithms for various taxa of Wikidata items.  But this kind of solution 
> simply feels more scalable, and I'm surprised that researching methods of 
> accomplishing this are of little interest.
> 
> 
> > I predict this won't be any worse than what happened when we enabled 
> > section editing.
> 
> But when we enabled section editing, did we do it with a prominent call to 
> action? I just feel a little hesitation about going full-on with something 
> like this, without having a baseline level of administrative feedback in the 
> apps (e.g. a notification for when a description is reverted, and the reason 
> for it).
> 
> To be clear, of course I'm totally on board for experimenting with allowing 
> users to contribute descriptions. Making bold moves is what makes our team so 
> great. My goal is simply to point out various other solutions that, to me, 
> make slightly more sense (and to welcome feedback on why they don't!).
> 
> 
> > But reducing the first sentence in this way is deceptively complicated to 
> > do programmatically, precisely because of the word "arguably" in the 
> > preceding sentence - it's almost entirely a matter of qualitative 
> > judgement. You have to know what a fish is to know what parts of the first 
> > sentence are most important
> 
> That's almost convincing :) but still... why duplicate content when the 
> essential information is already there?
> Maybe I didn't convey my idea of "markup" for extracting a description 
> properly. For example, the description for the [[Fish]] article can be marked 
> up as follows:
> 
> A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all 
> gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack 
> limbs with digits.
> 
> The above markup would be done by a human editor, with the knowledge that the 
> text within the  tag will end up as the Wikidata description.  I 
> would wager that a similar scheme could be applied to any number of articles. 
> Let's try it for a few random articles:
> 
> [[Poland]]
> Poland (Polish: Polska; pronounced [ˈpɔlska] ( listen)), officially the 
> Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska; pronounced 
> [ʐɛt͡ʂpɔˈspɔʎit̪a ˈpɔlska] ( listen)), is a country in Central 
> Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and 
> Slovakia to the south...
> 
> [[Schadenfreude]]
> Schadenfreude (/ˈʃɑːdənfrɔɪdə/; German: [ˈʃaːdn̩ˌfʀɔɪ̯də] ( listen)) is 
> pleasure derived from the misfortunes of 
> others.[1] This word is taken from German...
> 
> [[Ming dynasty]]
> The Ming dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling 
> dynasty of China for 276 years (1368–1644) following the 
> collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty...
> 
> [[Homomorphism]]
> In abstract algebra, a homomorphism is a structure-preserving 
> map between two algebraic structures (such as groups, rings, or 
> vector spaces)...
> 
> ^^ What would be the downside(s) of doing something like that?
> 
> 
> 
>> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 9:37 PM, Monte Hurd  wrote:
>> My previous reply was partial and accidentally sent - here's my actual reply 
>> :)
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 1:53 PM, Dmitry Brant  wrote:
>>> Hi Lydia,
>>> 
>>> Indeed, there are many more W

Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Dmitry Brant]

Hi Monte!
inline:

> Deeply hard, in fact, because it's complicated not only by language
syntax and grammatical rules, but also by qualitative factors (readability,
meaning, context, relevance etc).
> This already complicated situation then becomes many orders of magnitude
more difficult because these qualitative factors can differ between
languages.

Again, I agree that this is not an easy problem. However, in the case of
language translations, automated descriptions have the potential of
simplifying things tremendously. The algorithm for the grammar and syntax
of a certain language needs to be written only once. And once it's written,
it can be applied to every Wikidata item, past and future. Sure, there
would likely be a different algorithm for each language, and maybe even
different algorithms for various taxa of Wikidata items.  But this kind of
solution simply feels more scalable, and I'm surprised that researching
methods of accomplishing this are of little interest.


> I predict this won't be any worse than what happened when we enabled
section editing.

But when we enabled section editing, did we do it with a prominent call to
action? I just feel a little hesitation about going full-on with something
like this, without having a baseline level of administrative feedback in
the apps (e.g. a notification for when a description is reverted, and the
reason for it).

To be clear, of course I'm totally on board for experimenting with allowing
users to contribute descriptions. Making bold moves is what makes our team
so great. My goal is simply to point out various other solutions that, to
me, make slightly more sense (and to welcome feedback on why they don't!).


> But reducing the first sentence in this way is deceptively complicated to
do programmatically, precisely because of the word "arguably" in the
preceding sentence - it's almost entirely a matter of qualitative
judgement. You have to know what a fish is to know what parts of the first
sentence are most important

That's almost convincing :) but still... why duplicate content when the
essential information is already there?
Maybe I didn't convey my idea of "markup" for extracting a description
properly. For example, the description for the [[Fish]] article can be
marked up as follows:

A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of
all ***gill-bearing aquatic craniate animal***s
that lack limbs with digits.

The above markup would be done by a human editor, with the knowledge that
the text within the  tag will end up as the Wikidata
description.  I would wager that a similar scheme could be applied to any
number of articles. Let's try it for a few random articles:

[[Poland]]
Poland (Polish: Polska; pronounced [ˈpɔlska] ( listen)), officially the
Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska; pronounced
[ʐɛt͡ʂpɔˈspɔʎit̪a ˈpɔlska] ( listen)), is a ***country in
Central Europe*** bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech
Republic and Slovakia to the south...

[[Schadenfreude]]
Schadenfreude (/ˈʃɑːdənfrɔɪdə/; German: [ˈʃaːdn̩ˌfʀɔɪ̯də] ( listen)) is
***pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others*
**.[1] This word is taken from German...

[[Ming dynasty]]
The Ming dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ***ruling
dynasty of China for 276 years (1368–1644)*** following the
collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty...

[[Homomorphism]]
In abstract algebra, a homomorphism is a ***structure-preserving
map between two algebraic structures*** (such as groups,
rings, or vector spaces)...

^^ What would be the downside(s) of doing something like that?



On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 9:37 PM, Monte Hurd  wrote:

> My previous reply was partial and accidentally sent - here's my actual
> reply :)
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 1:53 PM, Dmitry Brant 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Lydia,
>>
>> Indeed, there are many more Wikidata items than Wikipedia articles.
>> However, the users of our mobile apps only see Wikipedia articles in our
>> search results (at least for now), which means that they will only be able
>> to contribute descriptions to Wikidata items for which a Wikipedia article
>> exists.
>>
>>
>
>
> They are also used in "*Recent*" and  "*Nearby*" and Vibha wants them in 
> "*Saved
> Pages*" list as well.
>
>
>
>
>
>> No doubt, the description field is an important component of each
>> Wikidata entry.  But, when there is a corresponding Wikipedia article, why
>> not query it to provide an automatic description? This could be based on
>> the first sentence of the article, or a subset of the first sentence, or
>> some other kind of metadata within the article.
>>
>
>
>
>
> Why not query it to provide an automatic description? Because finding the
> best subset of the first sentence(s) isn't all there is to it.
>
> For example, take the enwiki "Fish" article.
>
> The first couple sentences are these:
>
> *A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of
> all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that la

Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Monte Hurd]

My previous reply was partial and accidentally sent - here's my actual
reply :)




On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 1:53 PM, Dmitry Brant  wrote:

> Hi Lydia,
>
> Indeed, there are many more Wikidata items than Wikipedia articles.
> However, the users of our mobile apps only see Wikipedia articles in our
> search results (at least for now), which means that they will only be able
> to contribute descriptions to Wikidata items for which a Wikipedia article
> exists.
>
>


They are also used in "*Recent*" and  "*Nearby*" and Vibha wants them
in "*Saved
Pages*" list as well.





> No doubt, the description field is an important component of each Wikidata
> entry.  But, when there is a corresponding Wikipedia article, why not query
> it to provide an automatic description? This could be based on the first
> sentence of the article, or a subset of the first sentence, or some other
> kind of metadata within the article.
>




Why not query it to provide an automatic description? Because finding the
best subset of the first sentence(s) isn't all there is to it.

For example, take the enwiki "Fish" article.

The first couple sentences are these:

*A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of
all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits.
Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and
cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups.*



So if the we reduce the description to its first sentence we have:

*A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of
all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. *



Now, for the sake of argument, let's imagine the *bold* words below
represent a best case scenario for a relevant subset of the first sentence:

*A fish is* any member of *a* paraphyletic group of organisms that consist
of all *gill-bearing aquatic* craniate *animal*s that lack limbs with
digits.



So, we have "*A fish is a gill-bearing aquatic animal*", or you could
reduce it further to "a *gill-bearing aquatic animal*".


But reducing the first sentence in this way is deceptively complicated to
do programmatically, precisely because of the word "arguably" in the
preceding sentence - it's almost entirely a matter of qualitative
judgement. You have to know what a fish is to know what parts of the first
sentence are most important and then you have to know how to contextually
stitch these words together according to rules of the language's grammar
and syntax so they "read" nicely (see the word "a" and the "s" on the end
of "animal*s*").

Basically, great descriptions require a native speaker of the language with
some skill at summarizing. This is such a low bar for humans that almost
anyone could contribute quality descriptions.


But, If descriptions are not human editable, then we are stuck with the
limitations of whatever heuristics are used to auto-generate the
description.














> The key is that the description would stay with the article, which would
> eliminate the need for duplication and synchronization.
>
> So, in a sense, I would look at it the other way: descriptions within
> Wikipedia articles would be useful for Wikidata entries.
>
> -Dmitry
>
> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 4:17 PM, Lydia Pintscher <
> lydia.pintsc...@wikimedia.de> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 9:10 PM, Dmitry Brant 
>> wrote:
>> > Hi Jane,
>> >
>> > Perhaps my comments came off as more pessimistic than I intended. Of
>> course
>> > I believe in the power of crowdsourcing, and I would never want to make
>> > anyone feel like their contributions are being marginalized.
>> >
>> > I'll agree for now that the idea of "fully" automated descriptions leans
>> > more towards science fiction than reality. :)
>> >
>> > However, my whole point has more to do with the apparent duplication of
>> > content that seems to be happening between the first sentence of
>> Wikipedia
>> > articles and the corresponding Wikidata description.  There's something
>> > about it that seems unnecessary.  If we can figure out a way to
>> > automatically extract the description from the first sentence of the
>> > article, it would simplify things in two ways:
>> >
>> > 1) People wouldn't need to edit Wikidata descriptions, and would instead
>> > focus on improving the Wikipedia article.
>> > 2) People who monitor changes made to articles would need to monitor
>> only
>> > the article, instead of the article plus its corresponding Wikidata
>> > description.
>>
>> There are a lot more items on Wikidata than articles on Wikipedia. And
>> not every language has a Wikipedia article for each item. Don't just
>> look at descriptions on Wikidata as something useful for Wikipedia.
>> They're much more than that.
>>
>>
>> Cheers
>> Lydia
>>
>> --
>> Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
>> Product Manager for Wikidata
>>
>> Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
>> Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
>> 10963 Berlin
>> www.wikimedia.de
>>
>> Wik

Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Monte Hurd]

Ignore that last reply - I accidentally hit submit while mid-way through
writing it.

On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 6:03 PM, Monte Hurd  wrote:

> Responses inline...
>
>
> On Mar 22, 2015, at 1:53 PM, Dmitry Brant  wrote:
>
> Hi Lydia,
>
> Indeed, there are many more Wikidata items than Wikipedia articles.
> However, the users of our mobile apps only see Wikipedia articles in our
> search results (at least for now),
>
>
>
>
> They are also used in "Recent" and  "Nearby" and Vibha wants them in
> "Saved Pages" list as well.
>
>
>
> which means that they will only be able to contribute descriptions to
> Wikidata items for which a Wikipedia article exists.
>
> No doubt, the description field is an important component of each Wikidata
> entry.  But, when there is a corresponding Wikipedia article, why not query
> it to provide an automatic description?
>
>
> This could be based on the first sentence of the article, or a subset of
> the first sentence, or some other kind of metadata within the article.
>
>
>
>
>
> For example, take the enwiki "Fish" article.
>
> The first couple sentences are these:
>
> *A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of
> all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits.
> Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and
> cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups.*
>
> So if the we reduce the description to its first sentence we have:
>
> *A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of
> all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. *
>
> Now, for the sake of argument, let's imagine the *bold *words below
> represent a best case scenario for a relevant *subset* of the first
> sentence:
>
> *A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of
> all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. *
>
> "A fish is a gill-bearing aquatic animal".
>
> That's nice and short and descriptive and reads like a little sentence.
> It's arguably the best reduction of the first sentence possible.
>
> But reducing the first sentence in this way is deceptively complicated to
> do programmatically, precisely because of the word "arguably" in the
> preceding sentence. You have to know *what a fish is* to know what parts
> of the first sentence are *most* important.
>
> In other words, the "best" description is much more qualitative than it is
> quantifiable.
>
>
>
> type of living organism typified by living in water and having gills
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The key is that the description would stay with the article, which would
> eliminate the need for duplication and synchronization.
>
> So, in a sense, I would look at it the other way: descriptions within
> Wikipedia articles would be useful for Wikidata entries.
>
> -Dmitry
>
> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 4:17 PM, Lydia Pintscher <
> lydia.pintsc...@wikimedia.de> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 9:10 PM, Dmitry Brant 
>> wrote:
>> > Hi Jane,
>> >
>> > Perhaps my comments came off as more pessimistic than I intended. Of
>> course
>> > I believe in the power of crowdsourcing, and I would never want to make
>> > anyone feel like their contributions are being marginalized.
>> >
>> > I'll agree for now that the idea of "fully" automated descriptions leans
>> > more towards science fiction than reality. :)
>> >
>> > However, my whole point has more to do with the apparent duplication of
>> > content that seems to be happening between the first sentence of
>> Wikipedia
>> > articles and the corresponding Wikidata description.  There's something
>> > about it that seems unnecessary.  If we can figure out a way to
>> > automatically extract the description from the first sentence of the
>> > article, it would simplify things in two ways:
>> >
>> > 1) People wouldn't need to edit Wikidata descriptions, and would instead
>> > focus on improving the Wikipedia article.
>> > 2) People who monitor changes made to articles would need to monitor
>> only
>> > the article, instead of the article plus its corresponding Wikidata
>> > description.
>>
>> There are a lot more items on Wikidata than articles on Wikipedia. And
>> not every language has a Wikipedia article for each item. Don't just
>> look at descriptions on Wikidata as something useful for Wikipedia.
>> They're much more than that.
>>
>>
>> Cheers
>> Lydia
>>
>> --
>> Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
>> Product Manager for Wikidata
>>
>> Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
>> Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
>> 10963 Berlin
>> www.wikimedia.de
>>
>> Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
>>
>> Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
>> unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
>> Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
>>
>> ___
>> Mobile-l mailing list
>> Mobile-l@lists.wik

Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Monte Hurd]

Responses inline...


On Mar 22, 2015, at 1:53 PM, Dmitry Brant  wrote:

Hi Lydia,

Indeed, there are many more Wikidata items than Wikipedia articles.
However, the users of our mobile apps only see Wikipedia articles in our
search results (at least for now),




They are also used in "Recent" and  "Nearby" and Vibha wants them in "Saved
Pages" list as well.



which means that they will only be able to contribute descriptions to
Wikidata items for which a Wikipedia article exists.

No doubt, the description field is an important component of each Wikidata
entry.  But, when there is a corresponding Wikipedia article, why not query
it to provide an automatic description?


This could be based on the first sentence of the article, or a subset of
the first sentence, or some other kind of metadata within the article.





For example, take the enwiki "Fish" article.

The first couple sentences are these:

*A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of
all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits.
Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and
cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups.*

So if the we reduce the description to its first sentence we have:

*A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of
all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. *

Now, for the sake of argument, let's imagine the *bold *words below
represent a best case scenario for a relevant *subset* of the first
sentence:

*A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of
all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. *

"A fish is a gill-bearing aquatic animal".

That's nice and short and descriptive and reads like a little sentence.
It's arguably the best reduction of the first sentence possible.

But reducing the first sentence in this way is deceptively complicated to
do programmatically, precisely because of the word "arguably" in the
preceding sentence. You have to know *what a fish is* to know what parts of
the first sentence are *most* important.

In other words, the "best" description is much more qualitative than it is
quantifiable.



type of living organism typified by living in water and having gills











The key is that the description would stay with the article, which would
eliminate the need for duplication and synchronization.

So, in a sense, I would look at it the other way: descriptions within
Wikipedia articles would be useful for Wikidata entries.

-Dmitry

On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 4:17 PM, Lydia Pintscher <
lydia.pintsc...@wikimedia.de> wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 9:10 PM, Dmitry Brant 
> wrote:
> > Hi Jane,
> >
> > Perhaps my comments came off as more pessimistic than I intended. Of
> course
> > I believe in the power of crowdsourcing, and I would never want to make
> > anyone feel like their contributions are being marginalized.
> >
> > I'll agree for now that the idea of "fully" automated descriptions leans
> > more towards science fiction than reality. :)
> >
> > However, my whole point has more to do with the apparent duplication of
> > content that seems to be happening between the first sentence of
> Wikipedia
> > articles and the corresponding Wikidata description.  There's something
> > about it that seems unnecessary.  If we can figure out a way to
> > automatically extract the description from the first sentence of the
> > article, it would simplify things in two ways:
> >
> > 1) People wouldn't need to edit Wikidata descriptions, and would instead
> > focus on improving the Wikipedia article.
> > 2) People who monitor changes made to articles would need to monitor only
> > the article, instead of the article plus its corresponding Wikidata
> > description.
>
> There are a lot more items on Wikidata than articles on Wikipedia. And
> not every language has a Wikipedia article for each item. Don't just
> look at descriptions on Wikidata as something useful for Wikipedia.
> They're much more than that.
>
>
> Cheers
> Lydia
>
> --
> Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
> Product Manager for Wikidata
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
> Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
> 10963 Berlin
> www.wikimedia.de
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
>
> Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
> unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
> Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
>
> ___
> Mobile-l mailing list
> Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>

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Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Dmitry Brant]

Hi Lydia,

Indeed, there are many more Wikidata items than Wikipedia articles.
However, the users of our mobile apps only see Wikipedia articles in our
search results (at least for now), which means that they will only be able
to contribute descriptions to Wikidata items for which a Wikipedia article
exists.

No doubt, the description field is an important component of each Wikidata
entry.  But, when there is a corresponding Wikipedia article, why not query
it to provide an automatic description? This could be based on the first
sentence of the article, or a subset of the first sentence, or some other
kind of metadata within the article. The key is that the description would
stay with the article, which would eliminate the need for duplication and
synchronization.

So, in a sense, I would look at it the other way: descriptions within
Wikipedia articles would be useful for Wikidata entries.

-Dmitry

On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 4:17 PM, Lydia Pintscher <
lydia.pintsc...@wikimedia.de> wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 9:10 PM, Dmitry Brant 
> wrote:
> > Hi Jane,
> >
> > Perhaps my comments came off as more pessimistic than I intended. Of
> course
> > I believe in the power of crowdsourcing, and I would never want to make
> > anyone feel like their contributions are being marginalized.
> >
> > I'll agree for now that the idea of "fully" automated descriptions leans
> > more towards science fiction than reality. :)
> >
> > However, my whole point has more to do with the apparent duplication of
> > content that seems to be happening between the first sentence of
> Wikipedia
> > articles and the corresponding Wikidata description.  There's something
> > about it that seems unnecessary.  If we can figure out a way to
> > automatically extract the description from the first sentence of the
> > article, it would simplify things in two ways:
> >
> > 1) People wouldn't need to edit Wikidata descriptions, and would instead
> > focus on improving the Wikipedia article.
> > 2) People who monitor changes made to articles would need to monitor only
> > the article, instead of the article plus its corresponding Wikidata
> > description.
>
> There are a lot more items on Wikidata than articles on Wikipedia. And
> not every language has a Wikipedia article for each item. Don't just
> look at descriptions on Wikidata as something useful for Wikipedia.
> They're much more than that.
>
>
> Cheers
> Lydia
>
> --
> Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
> Product Manager for Wikidata
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
> Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
> 10963 Berlin
> www.wikimedia.de
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
>
> Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
> unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
> Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
>
> ___
> Mobile-l mailing list
> Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>
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Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Lydia Pintscher]

On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 9:10 PM, Dmitry Brant  wrote:
> Hi Jane,
>
> Perhaps my comments came off as more pessimistic than I intended. Of course
> I believe in the power of crowdsourcing, and I would never want to make
> anyone feel like their contributions are being marginalized.
>
> I'll agree for now that the idea of "fully" automated descriptions leans
> more towards science fiction than reality. :)
>
> However, my whole point has more to do with the apparent duplication of
> content that seems to be happening between the first sentence of Wikipedia
> articles and the corresponding Wikidata description.  There's something
> about it that seems unnecessary.  If we can figure out a way to
> automatically extract the description from the first sentence of the
> article, it would simplify things in two ways:
>
> 1) People wouldn't need to edit Wikidata descriptions, and would instead
> focus on improving the Wikipedia article.
> 2) People who monitor changes made to articles would need to monitor only
> the article, instead of the article plus its corresponding Wikidata
> description.

There are a lot more items on Wikidata than articles on Wikipedia. And
not every language has a Wikipedia article for each item. Don't just
look at descriptions on Wikidata as something useful for Wikipedia.
They're much more than that.


Cheers
Lydia

-- 
Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
Product Manager for Wikidata

Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
10963 Berlin
www.wikimedia.de

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.

Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
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Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Dmitry Brant]

Hi Jane,

Perhaps my comments came off as more pessimistic than I intended. Of course
I believe in the power of crowdsourcing, and I would never want to make
anyone feel like their contributions are being marginalized.

I'll agree for now that the idea of "fully" automated descriptions leans
more towards science fiction than reality. :)

However, my whole point has more to do with the apparent duplication of
content that seems to be happening between the first sentence of Wikipedia
articles and the corresponding Wikidata description.  There's something
about it that seems unnecessary.  If we can figure out a way to
automatically extract the description from the first sentence of the
article, it would simplify things in two ways:

1) People wouldn't need to edit Wikidata descriptions, and would instead
focus on improving the Wikipedia article.
2) People who monitor changes made to articles would need to monitor only
the article, instead of the article plus its corresponding Wikidata
description.

-Dmitry


On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Jane Darnell  wrote:

> I agree with Monte Hurd and would add that my personal volunteer time on
> Wiki projects, though unique, is not irreplaceable, and the idea that I and
> others interested in my area of editing could be "overworked" by some new
> technology is just silly. I think you need to have a little faith in the
> whole concept of crowd-sourcing. It really does seem to work. Automated
> descriptions sounds like a terrible idea and I have seen time and again on
> all sorts of subjects that the main claim to fame switches across
> languages. An example is a language -pedia that has added a town because it
> is the location of a castle that is notable in that language -pedia for
> whatever reason, while in the language -pedia of the town itself, the town
> may be better known as a hub on a railway network or some such thing.
>
> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 8:08 PM, Monte Hurd  wrote:
>
>> Responses inline...
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Mar 22, 2015, at 8:57 AM, Dmitry Brant  wrote:
>> >
>> > In preparation for next week's quarterly planning, I'd like to restate
>> some of my concerns regarding Wikidata descriptions and flesh them out more
>> comprehensively, since we're featuring them more prominently in the
>> upcoming quarter.
>> > (n.b. These are more like "devil's advocate" thoughts, lest I make it
>> sound like the Apps team isn't unified in its vision, which it certainly
>> is.)
>> >
>> > My reservations fall under two categories:
>> >
>> > == Philosophical ==
>> >
>> > Wikidata is a superbly valuable repository of *data* -- data that a
>> machine can use to generate all kinds of results that us humans can
>> consume. The "description" field, on the other hand, is the only thing that
>> is *not* data, and is not usable by a machine in any way.
>> >
>> > To allow users to manually fill in the Wikidata description (i.e. to
>> manually duplicate the contents of Wikipedia) is to miss the point of the
>> true potential of Wikidata, which is to be able to *use* the data to
>> generate the description automatically!
>> >
>>
>>
>> I disagree with the premise that the description being "data" means it is
>> missing its promise if it is human curated. I am more concerned with the
>> quality of the description.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > Of course the counterargument to this is that the current state of
>> auto-generated descriptions is not quite good (they often sound strange or
>> nonsensical), but that's only because the tools we have at our disposal for
>> generating descriptions are still in their infancy. I don't deny that this
>> will be a hard problem to solve, but in my view, this is ultimately the
>> *correct* problem to solve.
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> It's surprisingly hard to create auto generated descriptions that rival
>> the quality of user generated descriptions.
>>
>> Deeply hard, in fact, because it's complicated not only by language
>> syntax and grammatical rules, but also by qualitative factors (readability,
>> meaning, context, relevance etc).
>>
>> This already complicated situation then becomes many orders of magnitude
>> more difficult because these qualitative factors can differ between
>> languages.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > The other thing (a more obvious one) that makes Wikidata descriptions
>> redundant is the first sentence of every Wikipedia article which, on its
>> own, is intended to provide a concise description of the article (and many
>> articles already do this with rather good consistency). In fact, as we
>> speak, we're working on programmatically "cleaning up" the first sentence
>> to make it even more concise. Why not simply use this as the description?
>> >
>> > Is the first sentence sometimes too long to be a good description? No
>> problem: create a markup annotation that will denote the *portion* of the
>> first sentence that will serve as the description. In any case, making
>> users manually copy the content from the first sentence (which is from
>> where most

Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Magnus Manske]

As I have stated before, some items can benefit from a manual description,
but the vast majority could be described sufficiently by a machine, based
on the item's statements. Having people type in "German composer (X-Y)" is
a waste of time, and not scalable with 14M items times 300 or so languages,
even with our large volunteer base. Adding a single statement (e.g. "award
received") would instantly improve an automatic description in all
languages; but if we rely on manual descriptions alone, all descriptions in
all languages, would have to be updated manually. Descriptions will be
missing, incomplete, out of date, and full of vandalism on the "obscure"
languages. This is not Wikipedia, where Tanalog has 64K articles, but
Wikidata, where Tanalog has 15M items with few people to patrol them.

Automatic descriptions may not (yet!) be as eloquent as some humans, but in
most cases, they could be "good enough". Let machines do the grunt work
where they can, so humans can focus on the work only they can do.

On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 7:29 PM Jane Darnell  wrote:

> I agree with Monte Hurd and would add that my personal volunteer time on
> Wiki projects, though unique, is not irreplaceable, and the idea that I and
> others interested in my area of editing could be "overworked" by some new
> technology is just silly. I think you need to have a little faith in the
> whole concept of crowd-sourcing. It really does seem to work. Automated
> descriptions sounds like a terrible idea and I have seen time and again on
> all sorts of subjects that the main claim to fame switches across
> languages. An example is a language -pedia that has added a town because it
> is the location of a castle that is notable in that language -pedia for
> whatever reason, while in the language -pedia of the town itself, the town
> may be better known as a hub on a railway network or some such thing.
>
> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 8:08 PM, Monte Hurd  wrote:
>
>> Responses inline...
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Mar 22, 2015, at 8:57 AM, Dmitry Brant  wrote:
>> >
>> > In preparation for next week's quarterly planning, I'd like to restate
>> some of my concerns regarding Wikidata descriptions and flesh them out more
>> comprehensively, since we're featuring them more prominently in the
>> upcoming quarter.
>> > (n.b. These are more like "devil's advocate" thoughts, lest I make it
>> sound like the Apps team isn't unified in its vision, which it certainly
>> is.)
>> >
>> > My reservations fall under two categories:
>> >
>> > == Philosophical ==
>> >
>> > Wikidata is a superbly valuable repository of *data* -- data that a
>> machine can use to generate all kinds of results that us humans can
>> consume. The "description" field, on the other hand, is the only thing that
>> is *not* data, and is not usable by a machine in any way.
>> >
>> > To allow users to manually fill in the Wikidata description (i.e. to
>> manually duplicate the contents of Wikipedia) is to miss the point of the
>> true potential of Wikidata, which is to be able to *use* the data to
>> generate the description automatically!
>> >
>>
>>
>> I disagree with the premise that the description being "data" means it is
>> missing its promise if it is human curated. I am more concerned with the
>> quality of the description.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > Of course the counterargument to this is that the current state of
>> auto-generated descriptions is not quite good (they often sound strange or
>> nonsensical), but that's only because the tools we have at our disposal for
>> generating descriptions are still in their infancy. I don't deny that this
>> will be a hard problem to solve, but in my view, this is ultimately the
>> *correct* problem to solve.
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> It's surprisingly hard to create auto generated descriptions that rival
>> the quality of user generated descriptions.
>>
>> Deeply hard, in fact, because it's complicated not only by language
>> syntax and grammatical rules, but also by qualitative factors (readability,
>> meaning, context, relevance etc).
>>
>> This already complicated situation then becomes many orders of magnitude
>> more difficult because these qualitative factors can differ between
>> languages.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > The other thing (a more obvious one) that makes Wikidata descriptions
>> redundant is the first sentence of every Wikipedia article which, on its
>> own, is intended to provide a concise description of the article (and many
>> articles already do this with rather good consistency). In fact, as we
>> speak, we're working on programmatically "cleaning up" the first sentence
>> to make it even more concise. Why not simply use this as the description?
>> >
>> > Is the first sentence sometimes too long to be a good description? No
>> problem: create a markup annotation that will denote the *portion* of the
>> first sentence that will serve as the description. In any case, making
>> users manually copy the content from the first sentence (which is from
>> where most of 

Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Jane Darnell]

I agree with Monte Hurd and would add that my personal volunteer time on
Wiki projects, though unique, is not irreplaceable, and the idea that I and
others interested in my area of editing could be "overworked" by some new
technology is just silly. I think you need to have a little faith in the
whole concept of crowd-sourcing. It really does seem to work. Automated
descriptions sounds like a terrible idea and I have seen time and again on
all sorts of subjects that the main claim to fame switches across
languages. An example is a language -pedia that has added a town because it
is the location of a castle that is notable in that language -pedia for
whatever reason, while in the language -pedia of the town itself, the town
may be better known as a hub on a railway network or some such thing.

On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 8:08 PM, Monte Hurd  wrote:

> Responses inline...
>
>
>
> > On Mar 22, 2015, at 8:57 AM, Dmitry Brant  wrote:
> >
> > In preparation for next week's quarterly planning, I'd like to restate
> some of my concerns regarding Wikidata descriptions and flesh them out more
> comprehensively, since we're featuring them more prominently in the
> upcoming quarter.
> > (n.b. These are more like "devil's advocate" thoughts, lest I make it
> sound like the Apps team isn't unified in its vision, which it certainly
> is.)
> >
> > My reservations fall under two categories:
> >
> > == Philosophical ==
> >
> > Wikidata is a superbly valuable repository of *data* -- data that a
> machine can use to generate all kinds of results that us humans can
> consume. The "description" field, on the other hand, is the only thing that
> is *not* data, and is not usable by a machine in any way.
> >
> > To allow users to manually fill in the Wikidata description (i.e. to
> manually duplicate the contents of Wikipedia) is to miss the point of the
> true potential of Wikidata, which is to be able to *use* the data to
> generate the description automatically!
> >
>
>
> I disagree with the premise that the description being "data" means it is
> missing its promise if it is human curated. I am more concerned with the
> quality of the description.
>
>
>
>
> > Of course the counterargument to this is that the current state of
> auto-generated descriptions is not quite good (they often sound strange or
> nonsensical), but that's only because the tools we have at our disposal for
> generating descriptions are still in their infancy. I don't deny that this
> will be a hard problem to solve, but in my view, this is ultimately the
> *correct* problem to solve.
> >
>
>
>
> It's surprisingly hard to create auto generated descriptions that rival
> the quality of user generated descriptions.
>
> Deeply hard, in fact, because it's complicated not only by language syntax
> and grammatical rules, but also by qualitative factors (readability,
> meaning, context, relevance etc).
>
> This already complicated situation then becomes many orders of magnitude
> more difficult because these qualitative factors can differ between
> languages.
>
>
>
>
>
> > The other thing (a more obvious one) that makes Wikidata descriptions
> redundant is the first sentence of every Wikipedia article which, on its
> own, is intended to provide a concise description of the article (and many
> articles already do this with rather good consistency). In fact, as we
> speak, we're working on programmatically "cleaning up" the first sentence
> to make it even more concise. Why not simply use this as the description?
> >
> > Is the first sentence sometimes too long to be a good description? No
> problem: create a markup annotation that will denote the *portion* of the
> first sentence that will serve as the description. In any case, making
> users manually copy the content from the first sentence (which is from
> where most of the current Wikidata descriptions appear to be derived) seems
> extraordinarily unnecessary.
>
>
> The description needs to be able to be shorter than the first sentence in
> the article.
>
>
>
>
> > On top of all that, it creates an unnecessary synchronization cost,
> fulfillable only by a human contributor, between the two sources of data.
> >
> > So, what I mean to say is: every edit to the Wikidata description is a
> missed opportunity to edit the Wikipedia article in such a way that the
> description could be auto-generated correctly. (or, similarly, a missed
> opportunity to edit the *data* of the Wikidata entry in such a way that the
> description could be auto-generated correctly)
> >
> > == Practical ==
> >
> > If we open the floodgates to editing the Wikidata description (i.e. if
> we make it too easy to edit the description), I predict that we'll be very
> disappointed by the quality of the contributions we'll get. I can see it
> quickly devolving into a whole lot of noise, spam, and vandalism.
> >
>
>
>
> I predict this won't be any worse than what happened when we enabled
> section editing.
>
>
>
>
> > This means that we would need to implem

Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Monte Hurd]

Follow-up to my earlier comments:

What do you mean by this:

The "description" field, on the other hand, is the only thing that is *not* 
data, and is not usable by a machine in any way.

How is the description any less usable than any other field? 








> On Mar 22, 2015, at 8:57 AM, Dmitry Brant  wrote:
> 
> The "description" field, on the other hand, is the only thing that is *not* 
> data, and is not usable by a machine in any way.
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Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Monte Hurd]

Responses inline...



> On Mar 22, 2015, at 8:57 AM, Dmitry Brant  wrote:
> 
> In preparation for next week's quarterly planning, I'd like to restate some 
> of my concerns regarding Wikidata descriptions and flesh them out more 
> comprehensively, since we're featuring them more prominently in the upcoming 
> quarter.
> (n.b. These are more like "devil's advocate" thoughts, lest I make it sound 
> like the Apps team isn't unified in its vision, which it certainly is.)
> 
> My reservations fall under two categories:
> 
> == Philosophical ==
> 
> Wikidata is a superbly valuable repository of *data* -- data that a machine 
> can use to generate all kinds of results that us humans can consume. The 
> "description" field, on the other hand, is the only thing that is *not* data, 
> and is not usable by a machine in any way.
> 
> To allow users to manually fill in the Wikidata description (i.e. to manually 
> duplicate the contents of Wikipedia) is to miss the point of the true 
> potential of Wikidata, which is to be able to *use* the data to generate the 
> description automatically!
> 


I disagree with the premise that the description being "data" means it is 
missing its promise if it is human curated. I am more concerned with the 
quality of the description.




> Of course the counterargument to this is that the current state of 
> auto-generated descriptions is not quite good (they often sound strange or 
> nonsensical), but that's only because the tools we have at our disposal for 
> generating descriptions are still in their infancy. I don't deny that this 
> will be a hard problem to solve, but in my view, this is ultimately the 
> *correct* problem to solve.
> 



It's surprisingly hard to create auto generated descriptions that rival the 
quality of user generated descriptions. 

Deeply hard, in fact, because it's complicated not only by language syntax and 
grammatical rules, but also by qualitative factors (readability, meaning, 
context, relevance etc). 

This already complicated situation then becomes many orders of magnitude more 
difficult because these qualitative factors can differ between languages. 





> The other thing (a more obvious one) that makes Wikidata descriptions 
> redundant is the first sentence of every Wikipedia article which, on its own, 
> is intended to provide a concise description of the article (and many 
> articles already do this with rather good consistency). In fact, as we speak, 
> we're working on programmatically "cleaning up" the first sentence to make it 
> even more concise. Why not simply use this as the description?
> 
> Is the first sentence sometimes too long to be a good description? No 
> problem: create a markup annotation that will denote the *portion* of the 
> first sentence that will serve as the description. In any case, making users 
> manually copy the content from the first sentence (which is from where most 
> of the current Wikidata descriptions appear to be derived) seems 
> extraordinarily unnecessary. 


The description needs to be able to be shorter than the first sentence in the 
article. 




> On top of all that, it creates an unnecessary synchronization cost, 
> fulfillable only by a human contributor, between the two sources of data.
> 
> So, what I mean to say is: every edit to the Wikidata description is a missed 
> opportunity to edit the Wikipedia article in such a way that the description 
> could be auto-generated correctly. (or, similarly, a missed opportunity to 
> edit the *data* of the Wikidata entry in such a way that the description 
> could be auto-generated correctly)
> 
> == Practical ==
> 
> If we open the floodgates to editing the Wikidata description (i.e. if we 
> make it too easy to edit the description), I predict that we'll be very 
> disappointed by the quality of the contributions we'll get. I can see it 
> quickly devolving into a whole lot of noise, spam, and vandalism.
> 



I predict this won't be any worse than what happened when we enabled section 
editing. 




> This means that we would need to implement the same kind of 
> moderation/administration schemes that currently exist on Wikipedia itself.  
> I'm by no means qualified to speak for the Community, but I doubt that many 
> Wikipedians will want to double their workload by having to "watch" the 
> Wikidata description of their favorite articles, in addition to the articles 
> themselves.
> 
> I'll also point out that we do not yet expose any administrative mechanisms 
> in the mobile apps.  This means that users will routinely see their edits 
> disappear or be reverted without any notification or explanation.  This is 
> already the case for the general editing of article content in the apps, but 
> since the description is featured much more prominently, any edits (or 
> reverts) to it will be much more noticeable, and will surely add to the 
> confusion and frustration.




I've been editing descriptions from the Wikidata site directly for m

Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Dan Garry]

On 22 March 2015 at 09:53, Pine W  wrote:
>
> I am no expert on Wikidata so I'm unqualified to assess how much weight to
> give those concerns.
>
> I do wonder if it would be better to focus on encouraging more mobile app
> users to become Wikipedia and/or Commons contibutors instead of Wikidata
> contributors. Thoughts?
>
I've spun this off into a separate thread to keep this conversation
focussed: [Apps] Encouraging Wikipedia/Commons contributions (was: Wikidata
descriptions).

Dan

-- 
Dan Garry
Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps
Wikimedia Foundation
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[WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Encouraging Wikipedia/Commons contributions (was: Wikidata descriptions)

[Dan Garry]

I've split this off because it has the potential to derail the other
conversation about Wikidata descriptions.

On 22 March 2015 at 09:53, Pine W  wrote:
>
> I do wonder if it would be better to focus on encouraging more mobile app
> users to become Wikipedia and/or Commons contibutors instead of Wikidata
> contributors. Thoughts?
>
We've considered such problems at great length, and so far never actually
managed to succeed at drawing people in to editing on mobile devices. As
always, there are the obvious exceptions to that (people like you and me),
but we're by far the minority.

No other mobile app out there has the same kind of barrier to entry for a
contribution as Wikipedia. Some of that is a result of the core product
(contributing to an encyclopedia requires serious thought!), but some of it
is for no good reason (wikitext is scary to newbie).

On the other hand, the mobile uploads feature did draw a lot of people
in... to uploading selfies. So that was problematic from the other side: it
got a lot of engagement, but of the totally wrong kind. There was
considerable backlash, which naturally makes the team want to avoid trying
something similar again.

Do you have any specific suggestions?

Dan

-- 
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Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps
Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikidata description editing prototype

[Dan Garry]

On 22 March 2015 at 07:58, Amir E. Aharoni 
wrote:
>
> I would probably try to think a bit more about the message that explains
> what is the problem: there's no description, and there should be one. But
> go figure, maybe it's just me looking for too many explanation.
>

No, I think it's a valid point!

The answer to this question depends pretty heavily on who you're building
this for. If this feature is intended for the experienced, power
Wikipedian, then any information you give them will simply slow them down
unnecessarily; you just want to give them an empty text box, because
showing them dialogues with text in will just slow them down. If this
feature is for the totally new user, you need a bit more of a walkthrough,
but not too much otherwise people will disengage.

We're going to drill down into our personas for this feature next week.

Thanks,
Dan

-- 
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Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps
Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Pine W]

Both of those are very good points.

I am no expert on Wikidata so I'm unqualified to assess how much weight to
give those concerns.

I do wonder if it would be better to focus on encouraging more mobile app
users to become Wikipedia and/or Commons contibutors instead of Wikidata
contributors. Thoughts?

Pine
On Mar 22, 2015 8:57 AM, "Dmitry Brant"  wrote:

> In preparation for next week's quarterly planning, I'd like to restate
> some of my concerns regarding Wikidata descriptions and flesh them out more
> comprehensively, since we're featuring them more prominently in the
> upcoming quarter.
> (n.b. These are more like "devil's advocate" thoughts, lest I make it
> sound like the Apps team isn't unified in its vision, which it certainly
> is.)
>
> My reservations fall under two categories:
>
> == Philosophical ==
>
> Wikidata is a superbly valuable repository of *data* -- data that a
> machine can use to generate all kinds of results that us humans can
> consume. The "description" field, on the other hand, is the only thing that
> is *not* data, and is not usable by a machine in any way.
>
> To allow users to manually fill in the Wikidata description (i.e. to
> manually duplicate the contents of Wikipedia) is to miss the point of the
> true potential of Wikidata, which is to be able to *use* the data to
> generate the description automatically!
>
> Of course the counterargument to this is that the current state of
> auto-generated descriptions is not quite good (they often sound strange or
> nonsensical), but that's only because the tools we have at our disposal for
> generating descriptions are still in their infancy. I don't deny that this
> will be a hard problem to solve, but in my view, this is ultimately the
> *correct* problem to solve.
>
> The other thing (a more obvious one) that makes Wikidata descriptions
> redundant is the first sentence of every Wikipedia article which, on its
> own, is intended to provide a concise description of the article (and many
> articles already do this with rather good consistency). In fact, as we
> speak, we're working on programmatically "cleaning up" the first sentence
> to make it even more concise. Why not simply use this as the description?
>
> Is the first sentence sometimes too long to be a good description? No
> problem: create a markup annotation that will denote the *portion* of the
> first sentence that will serve as the description. In any case, making
> users manually copy the content from the first sentence (which is from
> where most of the current Wikidata descriptions appear to be derived) seems
> extraordinarily unnecessary.  On top of all that, it creates an unnecessary
> synchronization cost, fulfillable only by a human contributor, between the
> two sources of data.
>
> So, what I mean to say is: every edit to the Wikidata description is a
> missed opportunity to edit the Wikipedia article in such a way that the
> description could be auto-generated correctly. (or, similarly, a missed
> opportunity to edit the *data* of the Wikidata entry in such a way that the
> description could be auto-generated correctly)
>
> == Practical ==
>
> If we open the floodgates to editing the Wikidata description (i.e. if we
> make it too easy to edit the description), I predict that we'll be very
> disappointed by the quality of the contributions we'll get. I can see it
> quickly devolving into a whole lot of noise, spam, and vandalism.
>
> This means that we would need to implement the same kind of
> moderation/administration schemes that currently exist on Wikipedia
> itself.  I'm by no means qualified to speak for the Community, but I doubt
> that many Wikipedians will want to double their workload by having to
> "watch" the Wikidata description of their favorite articles, in addition to
> the articles themselves.
>
> I'll also point out that we do not yet expose any administrative
> mechanisms in the mobile apps.  This means that users will routinely see
> their edits disappear or be reverted without any notification or
> explanation.  This is already the case for the general editing of article
> content in the apps, but since the description is featured much more
> prominently, any edits (or reverts) to it will be much more noticeable, and
> will surely add to the confusion and frustration.
> If we really want to get it right, we have to figure this out before
> proceeding.
>
>
> -Dmitry
>
>
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[WikimediaMobile] Wikidata descriptions: ruminations

[Dmitry Brant]

In preparation for next week's quarterly planning, I'd like to restate some
of my concerns regarding Wikidata descriptions and flesh them out more
comprehensively, since we're featuring them more prominently in the
upcoming quarter.
(n.b. These are more like "devil's advocate" thoughts, lest I make it sound
like the Apps team isn't unified in its vision, which it certainly is.)

My reservations fall under two categories:

== Philosophical ==

Wikidata is a superbly valuable repository of *data* -- data that a machine
can use to generate all kinds of results that us humans can consume. The
"description" field, on the other hand, is the only thing that is *not*
data, and is not usable by a machine in any way.

To allow users to manually fill in the Wikidata description (i.e. to
manually duplicate the contents of Wikipedia) is to miss the point of the
true potential of Wikidata, which is to be able to *use* the data to
generate the description automatically!

Of course the counterargument to this is that the current state of
auto-generated descriptions is not quite good (they often sound strange or
nonsensical), but that's only because the tools we have at our disposal for
generating descriptions are still in their infancy. I don't deny that this
will be a hard problem to solve, but in my view, this is ultimately the
*correct* problem to solve.

The other thing (a more obvious one) that makes Wikidata descriptions
redundant is the first sentence of every Wikipedia article which, on its
own, is intended to provide a concise description of the article (and many
articles already do this with rather good consistency). In fact, as we
speak, we're working on programmatically "cleaning up" the first sentence
to make it even more concise. Why not simply use this as the description?

Is the first sentence sometimes too long to be a good description? No
problem: create a markup annotation that will denote the *portion* of the
first sentence that will serve as the description. In any case, making
users manually copy the content from the first sentence (which is from
where most of the current Wikidata descriptions appear to be derived) seems
extraordinarily unnecessary.  On top of all that, it creates an unnecessary
synchronization cost, fulfillable only by a human contributor, between the
two sources of data.

So, what I mean to say is: every edit to the Wikidata description is a
missed opportunity to edit the Wikipedia article in such a way that the
description could be auto-generated correctly. (or, similarly, a missed
opportunity to edit the *data* of the Wikidata entry in such a way that the
description could be auto-generated correctly)

== Practical ==

If we open the floodgates to editing the Wikidata description (i.e. if we
make it too easy to edit the description), I predict that we'll be very
disappointed by the quality of the contributions we'll get. I can see it
quickly devolving into a whole lot of noise, spam, and vandalism.

This means that we would need to implement the same kind of
moderation/administration schemes that currently exist on Wikipedia
itself.  I'm by no means qualified to speak for the Community, but I doubt
that many Wikipedians will want to double their workload by having to
"watch" the Wikidata description of their favorite articles, in addition to
the articles themselves.

I'll also point out that we do not yet expose any administrative mechanisms
in the mobile apps.  This means that users will routinely see their edits
disappear or be reverted without any notification or explanation.  This is
already the case for the general editing of article content in the apps,
but since the description is featured much more prominently, any edits (or
reverts) to it will be much more noticeable, and will surely add to the
confusion and frustration.
If we really want to get it right, we have to figure this out before
proceeding.


-Dmitry
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Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikidata description editing prototype

[Amir E. Aharoni]

Nice!

I would probably try to think a bit more about the message that explains
what is the problem: there's no description, and there should be one. But
go figure, maybe it's just me looking for too many explanation.

It would be nicer to upload videos to a site that doesn't require
Flash and doesn't show a confusing log-in box, like Commons or at least
YouTube.


--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬

2015-03-20 2:06 GMT+02:00 Dan Garry :

> To get the creative juices flowing for our upcoming discussion about our
> Q4 work, where I am proposing that we set our sights on getting in-line
> Wikidata description editing on the Wikipedia app
> ,
> I spent 30 minutes making a prototype of what I think it could look like to
> stimulate discussion.
>
> All the interactions are long-presses simply because it was quicker for me
> to do that, and the copy was written totally off the top of my head. When
> looking at it, don't think about the visuals or copy, but *do* think
> about how you think users would respond to it.
>
> Also, don't be afraid to play with the prototype. All of what's happening
> is only happening on your local device, it's not hitting any APIs to save
> the descriptions.
>
> If you're the a savvy Android engineer, check out the patch and build your
> own Wikipedia Alpha app to test it:
> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/197733/
>
> If you're not, watch a video of it in action:
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/nx7xmerlyelk963/wddedit.mp4?dl=0
>
> Feedback welcome!
>
> Thanks,
> Dan
>
> --
> Dan Garry
> Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
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