Wikidata

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Wikidata aims to create a free knowledge base about the world that can be read and edited by humans and machines alike. It will provide data in all the languages of the Wikimedia projects, and allow for the central access to data in a similar vein as Wikimedia Commons does for multimedia files. Wikidata is proposed as a new Wikimedia hosted and maintained project.

This page is intended to provide the entry point for information and discussions about the Wikidata project proposal and the status of the project. The initial development of the project is funded with a generous donation by the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence [ai]², the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and Google, Inc.

Further information

• Introduction – offers a non-technical introduction to the goals of the Wikidata project proposal.
• FAQ – answers some of the most frequently asked questions.
• Glossary – is a list of terms used around Wikidata and their explanation.
• Technical proposal – describes the technical project proposal. This is the most detailed description of what the Wikidata project aims to achieve.
• Development – offers an overview of the current development work.
• Volunteers – who want to help.
• Notes – provides focused discussion of single issues, where input is specifically requested. Currently, all of these notes are technical.
• Archive – provides links to a number of previous efforts around similar topics and goals.

Communication

These are some of the places where you can discuss Wikidata and stay up-to-date on what is happening in the project:

• Wikidata mailing list is used for announcements, discussions, and input gathering about the project (threaded view)
• Wikidata IRC channel #wikimedia-wikidata^connect on freenode is used for real-time discussions about the project.
• @wikidata on Twitter and identi.ca for regular short project updates.
• Events keeps track of Wikidata-related events like conferences and IRC office hours.
• Press collects links to Wikidata in the press. blogs and co.
• Wikidata blog posts on WM-DE blog (some of them are in German) and WMF blog

Status and timeline

The current status and timeplan for Wikidata is:

• The Wikidata development team started working on the technical proposal in April 2012. Some had already started in March, preparing the work.
• The development team will present previews as soon as feasible to engage the community in the development; this might be May or June.
• The Wikidata development team aims to have a demo or more ready for Wikimania around language links.
• The Wikidata development team aims to have ways to input and browse data available for infoboxes by December 2012 / January 2013.
• The initial development for Wikidata is planned for one year: April 2012 – March 2013.

Regular summaries of the activities around Wikidata are posted on Status updates.