Wikiarchives

This is a proposal for a new Wikimedia sister project.

WikiArchives
Status of the proposal
Status	under discussion
Details of the proposal
Project description	WikiArchives is a proposed Wikimedia sister project to host openly licensed or public domain structured datasets in machine-readable formats like .csv, .tsv, .json, .xml, and shapefiles. Unlike Wikimedia Commons (which stores media) and Wikidata (which stores granular facts), WikiArchives would preserve complete data tables — including scientific logs, historical records, geospatial boundaries, language data, and structured indices related to Wikipedia articles. It would benefit Wikimedia by providing a stable, citation-ready repository for structured open data, especially useful for research, journalism, civic technology, and education.
Proposed tagline	Open data logs for the public record
Proposed URL	wikiarchives.org (proposed)
Technical requirements
New features to require	Requires support for structured file uploads (.csv, .tsv, .json, .xml, .shp) and associated metadata. Dataset versioning, stable download URLs, and lightweight previews may require existing or adapted MediaWiki extensions (such as Data namespace support or Tabular Data Viewer). APIs for dataset discovery and citation could be desirable.
Development wiki	Not yet established
Interested participants
Wikideas1 (talk) 04:31, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

WikiArchives

WikiArchives is a proposed Wikimedia sister project for hosting and preserving openly licensed or public domain structured data files such as .csv, .tsv, .json, and shapefiles. Unlike Wikimedia Commons, which focuses on media files, or Wikidata, which stores granular facts in a knowledge graph, WikiArchives would serve as a durable repository for entire datasets — including academic data logs, historical tables, scientific field records, and geospatial files.

This project would help fill a critical gap in the Wikimedia ecosystem: a place for public-interest data that is too structured for Commons and too large or tabular for Wikidata. It would empower researchers, educators, journalists, and open data advocates to share, access, and cite valuable datasets connected to Wikimedia content.

Purpose

• Provide a permanent archive for structured data files relevant to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.
• Support academic, civic, and scientific communities by preserving data in open, machine-readable formats.
• Encourage citation and reuse of public domain and Creative Commons data through stable links and metadata.

File types

Primarily:

• .csv (Comma-Separated Values)
• .tsv (Tab-Separated Values)
• .json / .geojson
• .shp (Shapefiles, with .dbf and .prj)
• .xml (for structured data tables)

Examples of hosted data

• Historical census and population data
• Scientific archives
• Geospatial boundary data for countries, cities, districts
• Election results by region and year
• Public infrastructure or climate records
• Language family trees and dialect databases

How it's different

Feature	Wikidata	Wikimedia Commons	WikiArchives (proposed)
Structured knowledge graph	✓	✗	✗
Media hosting (images, audio, video)	✗	✓	✗
Full datasets (CSV, shapefiles)	✗	✗	✓
Tabular data storage	Partial	✗	✓
Public data logs	✗	✗	✓
Academic data support	Limited	✗	✓

Technical features

• Metadata for source, structure, and license
• Downloadable raw files
• Dataset versioning
• Stable citation URLs
• Optional linking to Wikidata items
• Optional API access for developers and researchers

Integration

• Wikipedia articles can link to datasets hosted on WikiArchives
• Wikidata items can include properties pointing to raw datasets in WikiArchives
• Wikimedia Commons can link maps or images to underlying data sources

See also

• Wikidata
• Wikimedia Commons
• Open data
• Linked open data
• Open science
• arXiv
• Zenodo
• Figshare
• Dryad (repository)

External discussions

• Concept discussed on Wikidata:Project chat and among open data contributors

Proposed by

Wikideas1 (talk) 04:31, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Alternative names

• WikiArchives