People keep mentioning VIAF in the context. VIAF is a federated service, using the content of its various repositories--and is therefore no more accurate than they are. For example, a major component in VIAF is the Library of Congress Authority File. That file has always used author or publisher statements as the evidence for birth dates without further verification; in recent years, it has been also using information from WP articles. (I suppose that's an improvement--we at least occasionally look beyond what the person says about himself.)
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 7:38 AM, Liam Wyatt <liamwy...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 26 January 2016 at 11:24, Magnus Manske <magnusman...@googlemail.com> > wrote: > > > On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 7:33 AM Pete Forsyth <petefors...@gmail.com> > > wrote: > > > > > (Note: I'm creating a new thread which references several old ones; in > > the > > > most recent, "Profile of Magnus Manske," the conversation has drifted > > back > > > to Wikidata, so that subject line is no longer applicable.) > > > > > > Andreas Kolbe has argued in multiple threads that Wikidata is > > fundamentally > > > problematic, on the basis that it does not require citations. (Please > > > correct me if I am mistaken about this core premise.) > > > > > > Every statement on Wikidata /should/ be referenced, unless the statement > > itself points to a reference (e.g. VIAF, images). However, at the moment, > > this is not a requirement, as Wikidata is still in a steep growth phase. > > Over the last few years, many statements were added by bots, which can > > process e.g. Wikipedia, but would be hard pressed to find the original > > reference for a statement. > > > To extend Magnus' point... > This is also the case on Wikipedia. Every Wikipedia sentence /should/ be > verified to a reliable source, and those without footnotes can be removed. > But, it is not a /requirement/ that every statement be verified. In short - > 'verifiable not verified' is the minimum standard for inclusion of a > sentence in Wikipedia. The ratio of footnotes-to-sentences in Wikipedia > articles is on average probably much lower than the ratio of > references-to-statements in Wikidata. It's just that we have more easily > available /quantitative/ statistics for Wikidata that we do for Wikipedia, > which makes it easy for Wikidata-critics to point to the number of > un-referenced statements in Wikidata as a simple measure of quality, even > though many of them DO meet the "verifiable, even if not yet verified" > minimum standard that we accept for "stubs" on Wikipedia. > > For example: even in a Feature Article Wikipedia biography, I've never seen > a footnote /specifically/ for the fact that the subject is "a human". That > reference is implied by other footnotes - citing for the birthdate, or > occupation for example. By comparison, in Wikidata, some people seem to be > a feeling that statements like "instance of -> human", "gender-> male" need > to be given a specific reference before they can be considered reliable. > This is even when there are other statements in the same Wikidata item that > reference biography-authority control numbers (e.g. VIAF). > > Yes, ideally, every statement could be given a reference in Wikidata, but > ideally so should every sentence in Wikipedia. In reality we do accept > "stub" Wikipedia articles that have 5 sentences and 1 Reliable Source > footnote. Furthermore, we also do also have Wikidata properties that are, > in effect, "self verifying": like the "VIAF identifier" property - which > links to that authority control database, or the "image" property - which > links directly to a file on Commons. So, simply counting the number of > statements vs. the number of references in those statements on Wikidata and > concluding that Wikidata is therefore inherently unreliable is both > simplistic and quite misleading. > > -Liam > > wittylama.com > Peace, love & metadata > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > -- David Goodman DGG at the enWP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
