Project Proposal: Automated Irish Population Updates (CSO 2026)

Robert (Roy) Charles Geary was an Irish mathematician, statistician and founder of the Central Statistics Office

1. Executive Summary

This project, led by CSO and assisted by Wikimedia Community Ireland, aims to modernize the management of population statistics for Irish settlements. By leveraging the 2022 Central Statistics Office (CSO) census data, we will automate updates via Wikidata. This ensures that population figures are accurate, cited, and synchronized across all language versions of Wikipedia, significantly reducing manual maintenance for editors. This will give a structure to make global updates more efficiently when the 2027 Census population figures are released.

2. The Problem & Solution

The Problem: Population data is currently updated manually, leading to "data rot" where articles show conflicting figures from 2011, 2016, or 2022 census cycles.
The Solution: A "Linked Data" approach. We will import CSO 2026 data to Wikidata and update Wikipedia infoboxes to pull this data dynamically using the {{Wikidata}} template system.

3. Project Plan & Communication Strategy

To ensure transparency and community buy-in, this project will follow a structured approval process across four key venues, ranked by priority:

Phase 1: Local Consensus (The Community "Home")

Venue: This (current document) and associated talk page talk:Wikimedia_Community_Ireland/GearyBot
Objective: Engaging the most active editors of Irish content.
Why: To ensure the "human" editors who maintain these pages are comfortable with the data source and the transition from manual text to Wikidata-driven templates.

Phase 2: Policy Buy-In (The Policy Hub)

Venue: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)
Action: Post a formal Request for Comment (RfC) using the {{rfc}} tag.
Why: Since this project changes how data is fundamentally handled (manual vs. automated), community-wide consensus is required to prevent mass reverts and to establish this as a standard practice for Irish geography.

Phase 3: Technical Permission (The BRFA)

Venue: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval
Objective: Obtain official permission to run the automation script.
Why: This is a strict requirement. The Bot Approvals Group (BAG) must verify that the code is robust and will not accidentally delete or corrupt other parameters within the Infoboxes.

Phase 4: Data Modeling Standards (The Data Import Hub)

Venue: Wikidata:Requests for comment
Objective: Finalize the data schema for the import.
Why: Large-scale data imports must follow Wikidata’s import guidelines to ensure that Population (P1082) claims are correctly qualified with "Point in Time" and "CSO" as the stated source.

4. Implementation Roadmap

Stage	Activity	Status
Stage 1	Community Socialization & RfCs	🟡 in-progress
Stage 2	CSO Data Mapping (Matching CSO IDs to Wikidata Q-IDs)	⚪ Pending
Stage 3	Bot Development & Trial Runs (BRFA Trial)	⚪ Pending
Stage 4	Global Rollout (Updating Infoboxes)	⚪ Pending
Stage 5	Post-Import Audit & Cleanup	⚪ Pending

5. Project FAQ

Q: What happens if the CSO data on Wikidata is incorrect? A: Because the Wikipedia page pulls data directly from Wikidata, fixing the error on Wikidata once will automatically update the data across all language Wikipedias (English, Irish, etc.) simultaneously.

Q: Can I still manually override the population in an article? A: Yes. Most infoboxes are designed so that if a user manually enters a number in the population_total field, it will override the Wikidata value. However, we encourage using Wikidata to maintain synchronization.

Q: How does the bot handle "Census Town" vs. "Legal Town" boundaries? A: We will use specific qualifiers on Wikidata (e.g., "determination method") to distinguish between different boundary types. The bot will be programmed to pull the most relevant figure (usually "Census Town" or "Urban Area") as per existing WikiProject Ireland conventions.

Q: Is the CSO data license compatible with Wikimedia? A: Yes. Data from the CSO is typically released under CC-BY 4.0, which is compatible with Wikidata’s data import requirements, provided proper attribution is given.

Q: Will this bot affect non-English Wikipedias? A: Indirectly, yes. By updating the Wikidata item, any language version of Wikipedia that uses Wikidata-enabled infoboxes (like the French, German, or Irish Wikipedias) will see the new 2026 data immediately.

6. Community Solicitation & Feedback

We are actively looking for volunteers and feedback on the following:

Data Validation: Help matching CSO town names to their corresponding Wikidata items.
Template Experts: Help refining Infobox calls to ensure correct display on mobile.
Bot Mentors: Experienced Pywikibot users for code review.

Please leave your comments on the Talk Page or sign your name below to show support!

Supporters