Thanks Mathias, I hadn't gone through the comments. On Apr 10, 2012, at 23:51, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schind...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 02:08, Dario Taraborelli > <dtarabore...@wikimedia.org> wrote: >> I very much look forward to a reply by the Wikidata team and hope the >> Atlantic will host it. >> > > file it under "been there, done that". Denny from Wikidata has written > a verbose reply right under the article. Just look in the > comments-section. > > Mathias > > > > Mark, > > thank you for your well-thought criticism. When we were thinking first > of adding structured data to Wikipedia, we were indeed thinking of > giving every language edition its own data space. This way the Arab > and the Hebrew Wikipedia community would not interfere with each > other, nor would the Estonian and the Russian communities interfere > with each other. Actually, they wouldn't even interact with each > other. They could happily build their niches and purport their own > points of view of the world, and then they would come together in the > English Wikipedia, where they would be forced either to abstain from > the conversation or to find a common ground and compromise. This would > not necessarily translate back in the language editions - they could > remain in their carefully crafted filter bubbles. Readers not able or > willing to read different languages on an article where they are not > even aware of the controversies would return from Wikipedia with the > satisfying feeling that they learned something about the world, and > would shake their heads about the ignorant inhabitants of the > neighbouring country who believe some obvious misconception about the > issue. > > We still opted for having one common data space for all language > editions. Does this mean we expect the whole world to agree on one > common set of true facts, saved and redistributed in Wikidata, the > perfect form of Wikiality, and everything else will be considered > falsehood and lies? Not in the least. > > First, Wikidata will not be about The Truth. I expect the Wikidata > community to follow the spirit of the Wikipedia community, and require > citations and references for the data. We do not expect the editors to > agree on the population of Israel, but we do expect them to agree on > what specific sources claim aboiut the population of Israel. They will > be able to gather several sources with their sometimes contradicting > data. So we might have the population according to the Israeli > statistics office, according to the Egyptian staistics office, > according to the CIA World Fact book, and according to even more > sources. Instead of hiding these differences in their respective > language editions, we can have one space to gather them all and > display them side by side, making the disagreement explicit and > visible. > > Second, Wikidata will not force anything into the Wikipedias. For > every step of the different possible ways the data can flow from > Wikidata to the Wikipedias, there will be ways to opt out for every > language edition. The language editions can choose to give preference > to certain sources. The language editions can opt out to use Wikidata > for a specific value, and replace it with a locally agreed fact. The > language editions can even ignore Wikidata entirely and just continue > as they had the last decade. Wikidata is an offer, and not a mandate. > > Third, Wikidata will have a different coverage than Wikipedia. A lot > of issues that you mentioned are far too nuanced to be expressed in > Wikidata. Let us take the example of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn > that you mentioned: whereas a text, featuring an intepretation of the > symbolism of the statue can lead to controversy and discussion, what > points of data about it would be? The material? The height? The date > of erection? Its current geolocation? None of these statements are > disputed, and they could be used in the Estonian, Russian, and English > version alike. What about your second example, the population of > Israel? Does it include Gaza or not? Well, this kind of information > can be made explicit in Wikidata. Our knowledge model will enable the > editors to state "The population of Israel in 2012, excluding Gaza, > was X, according to the following sources". I think that once you > consider the limits of what can be stated in Wikidata, and the > importance I expect to be given to properly referencing the sources, > the number of expected controversies will be much smaller than many > expect now. > > Fourth, you rightfully point out that the Wikipedias today are mostly > written by a specific contributor demographics. This is true, but it > glances over the fact that it used to be even more specific. With the > growth of Wikipedia the contributor demographics have expanded and > diversified - not yet as much as one might hope, but it is getting > better. One of your points raised was that Wikipedia has not many > contributors in Africa. We actually hope that Wikidata will improve > this situation: since all languages will work on the same data space, > contributions from Africa and from Europe will live side by side, and > the motivation for contributing to a common space that everyone will > benefit from - and not just the much smaller language community one > belongs to - might increase the number of contributions coming from > regions underrepresented today (compare this to the situation in > countries like Uzbekistan, where a language like Russian binds a lot > of the attention and possible contributions to the bigger and more > succesful Wikipedia language edition). > > Fifth, in your criticism you implicate the idea that languages are > good and valid borders for keeping knowledge diversity alive. If this > was true, how comes that English language articles, where communities > otherwise separated by language often come together and create article > of higher quality and reflecting a richer diversity than the > individual language articles? My own experiences are rooted in the > Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, etc. Wikipedias, all language editions of > their own. The richness of diversity that the English Wikipedia > article show on topics of the Yugoslav wars is not matched by any of > the native language editions. > > What is particularly interesting about your criticism is that Wikidata > was developed with support from the EU research project RENDER, which > has its main concern about knowledge diversity. We had discussions > about some of our research results in the past, especially the > Wikipedia map, not so unsimilar to some of your own results. In RENDER > we developed the requirements for a data model that is centred on the > ideas of being a possibly inconsistent, secondary data source, not > being about The Truth. > > Whereas I understand your concern from an abstract view on the issue, > I challenge you to point to the actual articles that you fear will get > poorer in their diversity once Wikidata will be operational. You cite > your own and your colleagues research on this issue, so I assume your > concerns are based on real use cases. > > I am sorry for this long answer, but since I consider your concerns > would be very valid if Wikidata was done in a more naive way, and > since I understand that many people will think that Wikidata is being > developed in such a naive way, I took the liberty to expand more on > our current thinking of how Wikidata could work, and some of the > design decisions in building Wikidata. > > Thank you for this opportunity! > Denny Vrandecic, project director Wikidata > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
