Reasonator being added to profiles

+20 votes
676 views
Did I miss something?   A link called Reasonator is being added to several profiles, I am just trying to understand the use and the policy behind the use of this link.   It looks very interesting, but, without "instructions" for everyone, I am not sure what we are supposed to do with this link.
WikiTree profile: John McCain
in Policy and Style by US Presidents Project WikiTree G2G6 (8.7k points)
retagged by Living Sälgö
Hello John, I have similar questions and I've added the db_errors tag, because I think it might be related in someway?

2 Answers

+11 votes

Part 1 I created this template yesterday as a test and added a small about text today that should explain something...

Background: WikiData is a free knowledge base that can be read by both humans and computers. The focus is on structured data as birth date, birth locations, names etc   Some information is from Wikipedia, when an user updates a Wikipedia article (infobox) the data is moved down to WikiData direct....

In WikiData you have a lot of attributes for persons there is 100+ attributes and there are also external attributes

you can propose new attributes and then after some time you get it approved or not ==>  some external organizations has attributes that I have found can be good for genealogy....

  1. FindAGrave P535 +21000 people marked see map
  2. genealogics.org person ID P1819
  3. .....

Last week I got Property:P2949 approved ==> we can now store the WikiTreeID in WikiData. Example Obama has now WikiTree ID = Obama-2 

 

by Living Sälgö G2G6 Pilot (297k points)
edited by Living Sälgö

Part 2
This open up the following possibilities 

  1. a reader of an article in Wikipedia can check In WikiData and find out that there is a WikiTree profile related to this article
  2. In WikiData we can fast find links like FindAGrave ID for a person. Every person exists once and is unique in WikiData all different language versions of Wikipedia points on the same record in WikiData. Obama is e.g. Q76
  3. we can do SPARQL queries on all data in WikiData and
    1. Display on maps like birth death burial locations for all people
    2. Query and get pictures of all people belonging to e.g. the noble family House of Windsor or a just as a plain list and have a link to the WikiTree
    3. Search all people inside WikiData who has participated in the Olympics and has been marked to have a profile on WikiTree
    4. Send in a Query and generate timelines on the fly of the profiles marked with WikiTree or other queries etc...
    5. We can create links from Categories to check against Wikidata that we have found all people etc for a category
  4. In the future I also hope that we can extend the Database Error project to also quality assure the meta data with WikiData, FindAGrave..... and flag a warning if its an error.. as Wikipedia often updates meta data the same day of profiles it will make good for the quality of the data in WikiTree

 

Part 3

The Reasonator 
is a template I created yesterday as a Test to link to Reasonator. The concept behind Reasonator is to access WikiData and display it with all data, links etc. to easier consume. If it is good or bad will the future tell.....

My idea with this test

  1. Is linking to WikiData/Reasonator better than todays links to Wikipedia? My feeling just now is yes you get more information like links to FindAGrave etc....  and you can also easy go to the "normal" Wikipedia article.....
     
  2. Today when people link to Wikipedia we have no control of those links. By using a template you can always use the function Special:WhatLinksHere and find on what profile/categories its used.... ==> would have saved us a lot of time today when we should match WikiTree profiles with Wikipedia/WikiData now its guessing and check template Notables.....

End of a short background
 

Links

Thanks Magnus, I understand some of that, and I can perhaps see that it is useful being added to profiles.

However my concern is that it seems to be added as a source, and I query how adequate sites like Wikipedia, Find a grave and even the Genealogics database are as sources for some profiles.  For instance there are some fantastic well-researched and sourced Wikipedia articles but there are also some that are much less fantastic.

Should the reasonator be added as a 'see also' rather than a source?
@John for me it's see also or if we should have it just as a link to WikiData it could be hidden somewhere so just a computer in the Database Error project can read it....

it has nothing to do with primary sources......

I moved the template into stealth mode.... its there but no visible text is generated....
Thanks Magnus, although it's starting to sound like a spy movie :)

@John that was what people said in 1989 about hyperlinks and internet. Doing this connection between WikItree and WikiData/Wikipedia is a start linking on Data level something some people call WEB 3.0 

Listen to the father of Internet Tim Berner-Lee speaking at TED The Next WEB how he tell us to connect information like this link data as data 

Another name for this is the semantic WEB. We use technologies like 

Time will tell if everyone gets so enthusiastic about this as me ;-)

+6 votes

Example of WikiData shown for WikiTreeID: Rubens-1  and WikiData item Q5599 in Reasonator 

You find WikiTree at the end of the list to the right with external sources

Question: Does it add value to WikiTree to have a WikiReasonator template also connecting WikiTree with WikiData?

Record at Wikidata Q5599
Wikipedia en ja ....

Some external links from WikiData Q5599

Nota Bene: An end user who finds A wikipedia article can always find Wikidata ... and get the Wikidata ID = argument in the Reasonator template {{WikiReasonator|Q5599}} and all the references but the Reasonator is trying to make it easier. Hope it makes sense....
 

Big pic

 

by Living Sälgö G2G6 Pilot (297k points)
edited by Living Sälgö
@Danielle Good luck.... I move on...
Hi Magnus

I don't remember seeing it before, but I came across a profile that had a Wikidata template that said 'this profile was referenced from Wikidata' and to me that is very incorrect and misleading.

I'm not against adding Wikidata to the profile, but the template needs to be reworded, perhaps it should say something like - There is Wikidata information available for this profile

Thanks

@John

What I and mostly Aleš has done is created references from Wikidata/WIkipedia to WikiTree and we hope that Chris starts understanding the potential and will add a fixed field for all profiles in WikiTree with a connection to Wikidata - today we have +28 000 profiles connected.

Wordings

As english is not my native language I will do a try 

  1. this profile was referenced from Wikidata

    Explanation: When doing serious genealogy you should base all facts on good reliable sources.

    Today Wikipedia/WIkidata has a lot of facts but it could be better sourced so the questions is if a link to Wikipedia should be part of a good genealogy profile or not...

    What I did was that instead taking the debate if WIkipedia is good or bad I changed the perspective and said person A in Wikipedia is the same person as B in WIkiTree and added the link in Wikidata ==> WikiTree is not involved at all.

    This is OK for Wikidata as they believe that you get better quality with more links and if WikiTree has a good profile that adds value to the reader compared to the Wikipedia article it's a bonus.....

    The big winner in this connection is WikiTree as then we get a source that we can using machines compare the quality of some of the facts that also is in WikiTree using Aleš magic tool.... and if WikiTree improves in the future having more structured data and valid locations we will get even more benefits.... but if that should happen Chris need a vision of how WikiTree should be year 2020.

    Is the WikiTree vision moving in the direction of a more welcoming genealogy site or is quality the focus....
      
  2. There is Wikidata information available for this profile

    Sure that sentence could be used but then you regarding to my opinion tells the WikiTree reader that Wikidata/Wikipedia has something that adds quality and that you believe that Wikipedia adds value to genealogy.... 

    After what I have seen is that in 99.99% of the relations between WikiTree and Wikipedia the WikiTree profile adds no value and in the best case we have a link to Wikipedia or father/mother. 

    For me that is not genealogy and such a profiles in WikiTree I will say have a quality problem, but that is my opinion and right now that is not my focus...

Wikidata is the enabler of web 3.0

I was this weekend winning a competition in Sweden and got as a price to go to Helsinki Finland and be able to get the price of 40 000$ at slash 2016 see the myMuseum presentation how we connect visitors to a museum to use the structure Wikidata.... lesson learned is that structure is the enabler both for wikipedia but also for genealogy ==> WikiTree 2016 with nearly no structured info has a big problem to add value for people doing genealogy

The winning team and concept see 
http://mymuseumapp.blogspot.com

 

The winning app concept using Wikidata see blogpost

 

 

 

 

 

 


The team 

Thanks Magnus, as a native English speaker, I think saying

This Wikitree profile was referenced from Wikidata makes it sound like I have used the Wikidata as a source for the profile, and we both agree that generally sources like Wikipedia aren't always very good quality.

Does the template need to say anything?  Can it just be a link to the Wikidata?

Congratulations on the teams win, your app looks very good.

@John as a Semantic Web specialist ;-) 

>> it sound like I have used the Wikidata as a source for the profile

I assume that if you use a source for a fact then you connect the source to that fact using inline citations?!?!

The point is that we have a link between each other and the link was added from Wikidata to WikiTree ==> WikiTree is just a "passive receiver" of the link it's like a see also....

>> Does the template need to say anything?  Can it just be a link to the Wikidata?

Yes WikiTree has too many links you dont understand why they are in the profile.... now we just say the is a link from WikiData to WikiTree use it if you want.... links without Retrieval date and setting it in context with facts is a bad habit inside WikiTree.... and not good genealogy. I as a reader should understand why we have a born date on the profile and in what source I can check it 

>> both agree that generally sources like Wikipedia aren't always very good quality.

No I dont agree I feel WikiTree has a big problem with quality that we never address. Wikidata is much more professional working with it and they also point out that internet has a problem lacking sources

>> Congratulations on the teams win, your app looks very good.

Thanks its big excitement from people working in museums because this is what they want... and Wikidata/Semantic WEB makes it possible... and I put those things together in an easy way to understand... it's interesting to see that people working professional gets more enthusiastic than people in WikiTree are getting with the semantic WEB...  The future will tell if it will be as big as todays internet pages

Magnus, I always try to use the best sources possible for the biographies/profiles I work on, and I rarely use Wikipedia/Find a Grave etc.  I strongly object to a template that states I have used those sources.

>> it's like a see also....

Then that's what it needs to say not state that I have used Wikidata information as my source.

@John take it away if you don't like or you think has not the genealogy quality you have in your profiles....  

As you know the Database Error now checks WikiTree quality with WikiData for some facts but that is done using a search in Wikidata. 

The template is just to make it easier for a WikiTree reader to inform them that a connection is done and make it easier for a reader to find additional information using links in WikiData.... 

Some of the errors/mismatch found when comparing WikiTree and WikiData  

554 Wikidata - Imprecise birth date 3872   137 206 200 382 2922 25   925 27
555 Wikidata - Different birth date 3315   1652 730 357 438 137 1   3253 44
                       
557 Wikidata - Imprecise death date 1295 33 253 226 217 380 186     1110 18
558 Wikidata - Different death date 3683 70 2249 557 307 400 100     3638 52
559 Wikidata - Missing birth location 1863 43 238 413 389 591 189     1774 22
561 Wikidata - Missing death location 2296 76 409 421 439 711 240     2210 13

Magnus, I don't want to delete the template, but I still think it isn't worded correctly.

If you changed the template to read - 

This Wikitree profile is referenced in Wikidata ...

that would remove my objections, and I think better explain what you are trying to say.

Sorry I don't have privs to change I am on Chris black list ;-) 

Feels Chris is not an early adopter so now I try to convince Swedish museum jump on the semantic web train see http://mymuseumapp.blogspot.com   

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