Wikidata For Wikimedia Projects/Research/Unlocking Wikidata
As part of our background and foundational research carried out in Q3/Q4, 2025, we gathered insights from a variety of Wikimedia community members on their usage and understanding of Wikidata usage in other Wikimedia projects.
The results and insights in this report are base don the following:
- Interviews with active members of Wikimedia projects. A total of 9 interviews were analysed from a diverse set of editors who use Wikidata in at least one other WM Project. We sought a diversity of editor across different experience levels, projects, gender and region.
Summary of Findings
[edit]- Wikidata-usage on Wikipedia can be unclear
- New editors struggle to understand Wikidata
- Unclear how to link Wikipedia pages to Wikidata items
- Wikidata item ontology / data model is confusing
- Wikidata-powered Infoboxes are intimidating and complex
Roadmap
[edit]A priority roadmap is then given to outline the potential initiatives and time-needed to implement the possible solutions.
Transparency First
[edit]Phase 1: (Month 0 - 6)
Wikidata usage in other Wikimedia projects usually requires data being stored in one location (Wikidata) is being quoted/displayed/reused in another (Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikivoyage etc.). One of the fundamental tenets of the Wikimedia Projects is to record any and all changes that occur to a pages content, for transparency, accountability, collaborative effort and speedy reversion to previous versions.
This should still apply when the changed content is hosted on a different Wiki, such as the case with Wikidata. Currently, edits on Wikidata that affect another Wiki pages content can be displayed in the Watchlist, Recent Changes and Related Changes pages, but this is not enabled by default and must be toggled on either in the preferences or by applying a filter on the Watchlist or Recent Changes and Related Changes pages.
Many Wikipedia editors:
- cannot easily recognise what content of a Wikipedia article is actually coming from Wikidata.
- don't know how to track Wikidata edits from the pages mentioned above: Watchlists, Recent Changes, Related Changes
- don't readily understand how Wikidata works and so, fail to comprehend what the Wikidata edit is telling them about the change that occurred and soak up a lot of time from experienced editors to onboard them.
More about this topic can be found on the dedicated project pages.
Strengthening Integration
[edit]Phase 2: Month 6 - 12
Sitelinks connect the Wikimedia Projects and the different language versions together, they are key to linking the same topic across languages and projects. Sitelinks are always stored on a Wikidata item corresponding to the article or page being viewed. When a new page or article is created, it is not inherently connected to a corresponding Wikidata item, in fact a relevant item might not even exist yet.
The process to link Wikipedia pages with the proper Wikidata Item is another area editor's struggle.
Automation
[edit]Phase 3: Month 24+
Infoboxes are boxed tables to summarise key facts about the article topic. An author's infobox will contain biographical facts such as date and place of birth, their works, awards, years active as a writer etc. whilst a cities infobox will contain details on the area, population demographics, coordinates and to which country it belongs to.
Creating and maintaining these Infoboxes can be time-consuming, complicated and prone to errors, and adding Wikidata facts to infoboxes introduces additional layers of complexity and chances for things to go wrong.
The full report is also available on Commons.