User:Alan Ang (WMDE)/How to: Wikidata/Basics
Basics[edit]
Welcome to the basics of Wikidata. This section aims to provide you with a brief understanding of how to get a basic understanding of Wikidata. Of course, I am assuming you are aware of what Linked Open Data already is, and also have a fundamental understanding of what CC0 means.
A basic knowledge of Wikidata will require you to understand the following:
- Knowing that Wikidata is a knowledge graph that lies in the heart of Linked Open Data web. If not, please take this quick course on Databases and Linked Data.
- Everything on Wikidata is published under CC0 license, meaning anyone and everyone is free to reuse the data on Wikidata.
- That the data on Wikidata is structured data in a Triple structure; namely Item, Properties and Values.
- Wikidata is multilingual and collaborative, and made for both humans and machines to read and access.
As a basic user, you should know how to:
- create an item on Wikidata.
- make edits to an existing item on Wikidata.
- create multiple items or make edits to multiple items on Wikidata via QuickStatements.
If you are ready, then let's begin!
Step 1: do this course.
- Introduction to Wikidata course on WMF Labs is a very useful page by page general training for beginners.
- Do sign up to the Wikidata Open Online Course for a complete Wikidata learning experience.
Step 2: check out these links to some basic training resources:
- User:Epìdosis/Wikidata-intro (collections of links as introduction to Wikidata). If this page looks overwhelming to you, there is a more familiar interface which you can also check out:
- Wikidata Tours- useful page for starters
If you are a French speaker, then this would be really useful for you:
- Wikidata MOOC- General training for French speakers
If you prefer to watch rather than read, then check out this YouTube playlist of Wikidata Tutorials (short bite size videos) for the busy folks contributed by User:Masssly
Creating Items[edit]
Not every item in the world should be on Wikidata. Wikidata, in its first phases, has two main goals, namely, to centralize interlanguage links across Wikimedia projects, and to serve as a general knowledge base for the world at large. An item is acceptable if and only if it fulfills at least one of these two goals.
See:
- Notability guidelines on what items to create on Wikidata
- Wikidata Humour on some interesting QIDs.
Understanding Properties[edit]
Knowing and understanding what "properties" mean in Wikidata is fundamental to help you navigate within the Wikidata knowledge graph. It would also inspire you to think about how to model your data later on.
- For an idea of what properties exist on Wikidata, see List of Properties on Wikidata
See also
Editing Items: OpenRefine[edit]
See OpenRefine course by the WMF