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Wikidata (integrations) for Wikimedia Projects

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State of Wikidata usage on other Wikis

Our UX researcher created a comprehensive foundational research plan (still ongoing). This review gave us a basic understanding of how Wikidata integrations are working and started to identify gaps or areas for potential improvement. Information gathered this way establishes a knowledge base we can expand and improve, onboard our future team members, and identify redundant or duplicate documentation to update for the community and reveal gaps or areas of opportunity.

Primary Goals

Phase 1: Gain and document a comprehensive, shared understanding of the current state of Wikidata integrations in the other Wikimedia projects and how the data flow works.

Phase 2: Learn about editor motivations, existing workflows, and problems encountered while using Wikidata’s data on Wikipedia and the sibling projects.

Supporting Goals

• Create a foundation and knowledge base the team will build on for the future
• Arm ourselves with the data to make project-wide scoping decisions and target user groups
• Identify first, small projects for onboarding developers

Methods (Phase 1)

Desk research and first steps

Q3 2023 - Ongoing

Status:    In progress

As a starting point to get an idea of the 'bigger picture' and understanding of how Wikidata integrations are currently working. We compiled comprehensive lists of documentation and help pages that reference the reuse of Wikidata across Wikimedia projects. Additionally, we collected the available community-created tools, gadgets, and user scripts. Our review also extended to Phabricator tickets, academic literature, and prior research, to ensure a well-rounded understanding.

Expert & Stakeholder Interviews

Status:    Concluded

Oct 2023 - Nov 2023
We conducted interviews with 9 editors that class themselves as expert editors. Notably, each interviewee has or is currently integrating Wikidata into another Wikimedia project.

Methods (Phase 2)

Community Interviews

Status:    Concluded

May 2024 - June 2024 In our second round of interviews, we wanted to hear from a wider-spectrum of editor. We felt it was important to hear from all levels of editor experience, whether beginner, intermediate and also further experts.

In this round, we interviewed:

• 14 Wikimedians: (11 experts, 3 intermediates)
• from 7 continents: Eur (4), Afr (3), Asia Occ. (1), E.Asia (2), S.Amer (1), N.Amer (1), Mid. East (1)
• edit in LTR (11), RTL (1) or Non-Latin (2) type-script.
• every editor includes Wikipedia as one of their projects, 16 language versions were represented.

*A note about experience level - this is self-classified by the editor and is also subjective to the Wikimedia project they work on. We talked to editors that both had a deep understanding of Wikidata and those that had only a surface or passing knowledge of it.

Survey signups closed (29.04.2024)
The interview sign-up survey at LamaPoll has ended. There was a lot of interest from a wide spectrum of Wikimedians and we thank everyone who registered. Interview candidates were contacted for their availability for an interview slot. Due to the high number of respondents, it wasn’t possible to interview everyone who registered interest.

Interview recruitment (Q3 2023 - Q2 2024)
We solicited Wikimedians from across the projects in community discussion forums (such as the Tea House, Scriptorium, Beer Parlour etc.) to participate in a survey which registered their interest to be interviewed.

Data Collection & Analysis

Status:    In progress

This is an ongoing phase of our foundational research work conducted in collaboration with a dedicated data scientist. It is necessary to understand how heavily or frequently the different Wikidata integrations are used. Insights gathered here contribute to the knowledge base established in the desk research component while also helping us make informed decisions on the best areas for improvement and, later, evaluate the impact of our work.

Goals of this research component are to learn more about the four types of transcluding data from Wikidata into Wikipedia article pages.

1. Collect numbers comparing the the relative frequency of use of:

• Parser functions (used within wikitext or templates)
• Lua functions (used within modules)
• Modules (usually used within templates)
• Templates (Intro to Wikipedia templates / Help: Templates)
  
  

2. Design and create a meaningful, comparable metric showing frequency of Wikidata usage across language versions and sibling projects. Be able to track changes in usage of the above functions.