Wikidata:Wikidata in Wikimedia projects

This page has been created to outline the benefits and challenges of using facts from Wikidata on other Wikimedia projects including how to avoid, improve or correct any issues and address common misunderstandings or concerns. It will also provide an overview of what is and isn’t currently possible when reusing data from Wikidata on other Wikimedia projects and improvements planned in the future. If you are new to Wikidata the following links may be helpful to you:

• Wikidata:Introduction: an introduction to Wikidata.
• Wikidata:Glossary: a glossary of terms used on Wikidata.
• Wikidata:Project chat: the main discussion space on Wikidata.
• Wikidata:Development plan: an outline of the development of Wikidata.

Centralising facts for Wikimedia projects on Wikidata will allow people across many different Wikimedia projects in many different languages to work together to collate information which has many benefits:

• Reduce duplicated effort: Wikidata is multilingual, meaning that if you contribute information to Wikidata for it to be used on your project is available for all other projects to use. This is a much more efficient than all Wikimedia projects compiling facts separately e.g. manually updating numbers of inhabitants of each country in the world on every different language Wikipedia.
• Reduce language barriers: Wikidata allows us to collate facts from sources in different languages and make them accessible to everyone, regardless of the language they speak. This concept also applies to barriers caused by lack of local and specialist knowledge about a subject.
• Bring together data from many sources: Wikidata allows us to systematically import large volumes of facts from external databases using bots and tools.
• More people working on error correction: By centralising facts we can centralise our efforts and resources to find and correct errors either through vandalism and good faith mistakes. Having a centralised database of facts means that errors only need to be corrected once, finding incorrect facts spread over several Wikipedia articles is harder to correct.

Wikidata is a young project that is growing quickly. Receiving contributions from users is essential to improving data quality. There are several ways data are added to and improved on Wikidata:

Individual users adding individual facts is the most common way users add data to Wikidata. Wikidata reuses data that has already been added to other Wikimedia projects, however this data is sometimes out of date, incomplete or incorrect.

Data is also added through importing large external datasets. Anyone can request that data is imported from an external source through the Wikidata:Data Import Hub.

There are several partnerships with external organisations to improve data quality including:

• Museums
• UNESCO

The Wikidata Query Service is one way that data can be checked for completeness and accuracy, you can request a query at Wikidata:Request a query.

In future Wikidata will be introducing new features including:

• More specific tracking of changes to Wikidata item pages that are used on other Wikimedia projects
• Property constraints are being developed as rules on properties that specify how properties should be used.
• Signed statements: to improve and maintain data quality.
• ORES: to automatically score the quality of an item.

Whilst Wikidata can be complex when adding a large quantity of data, adding single facts is a relatively simple process with a smaller learning curve than most other Wikimedia projects. The most common tasks on Wikidata are adding statements and adding references. Adding statements and references to Wikidata doesn't require a coding or markup knowledge. If you would like a larger amount of information from an external database added to Wikidata please make a request on the Wikidata:Data Import Hub.

The process of adding statements is quite simple and requires no coding skills, an overview can be found at Help:Statements#Adding statements.

Many facts on Wikidata do not yet have a reference or have a reference of being imported from another Wikimedia project. References are being added all the time both through individual contributions and planned, structured imports from external databases add 1000s or even 10,000 of referenced facts at a time. Adding a reference is a simple process:

1. Choose a statement you would like to add a reference to and click the +Add reference button
2. In the first box write reference URL if the information comes from an online source
3. Paste the URL of the reference into the box on the right
4. Click the Save button

For more in-depth instructions for adding references to statements please see Help:Sources.

It is important for Wikimedia project contributors using data from Wikidata on their pages to know if a change has been made on Wikidata that affects their pages. It is possible to keep track of changes made to Wikidata item pages which are being used to display facts on other Wikimedia projects. On your Wikimedia project (when logged in):

1. Go to your Special:Preferences page (link in the top right-hand corner of your screen).
2. Click on the Watchlist tab.
3. Tick the check-box next to 'Show Wikidata edits in your watchlist'.

NOTE: There is also a 'Watchlist' tab to the right of the 'Special:Preferences' tab. That's different. Going there will NOT allow you to 'Show Wikidata edits in your watchlist'.

Now when a change is made to a Wikidata item which is being on another Wikimedia project it will be displayed in your watchlist. Currently, the watchlist will not display what change has been made on the Wikidata page or if the statement appears on the article, although these are planned improvements. You can simply use the History tab on Wikidata to find this information like any other Wikimedia project. This is a much clearer and simpler process than transclusion of images from Commons where it is not possible to keep track of changes of an image on Commons from within another Wikimedia project.

There are many ways Wikidata is being used on other Wikimedia projects including:

• Wikidata fed infoboxes on Wikipedia
• Maps and graphs
• Mapping work on a subject
• Visualisations

It is possible for infoboxes on Wikipedia to use data directly from Wikidata.

The templates that display the data from Wikidata provide additional controls to the wiki so they can customise the data to their needs, this includes:

• Ability to override fields on the wiki
• Filter to only show data on Wikidata that has references
• Customise the parameters taken from Wikidata in the infobox
• Select formatting (e.g., date formatting can be displayed as mdy or dmy)

There are several examples of Wikidata fed infoboxes on Wikipedia, these include:

• World Heritage sites on English Wikipedia e.g. Giza pyramid complex
• Telescopes on English Wikipedia e.g. Telescope Array Project

Guides are available to help set up Wikidata fed infoboxes on Wikipedia

• User:Mike Peel/Wikidata infoboxes
• Wikidata and infoboxes workshop at Wikimania 2017
• Using Wikidata on Wikipedia infoboxes from Wikimania 2017

You can render Wikidata content as maps and graphs in Wikimedia projects, also see Wikidata:Geoshapes.

Graphs are temporarily unavailable due to technical issues.

Lakes with name "Long lake" in Sweden.
[ source data ]

Graphs are temporarily unavailable due to technical issues.

Country with regions and capitals

Graphs are temporarily unavailable due to technical issues.

Population of London.
[ source data ]

Graphs are temporarily unavailable due to technical issues.

World land area.
[ source data ]

It is possible to create lists of missing articles on any subject using Wikidata. This is done by creating a set of items on Wikidata and using a tool to see which articles do and do not exist on which Wikimedia projects:

• Wikiproject United Nations uses a tool to see which UNESCO World Heritage sites exist across several languages.
• English Wikipedia uses a tool to update list of today's birthdays.

There are many tools, both within Wikimedia projects and externally that reuse and combine Wikidata, Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and other projects. These tools allow people to explore the content in a new way and can also be used to visualise content to provide new ways to highlight issues and possble improvements.

• Histropedia: uses data from Wikipedia and Wikidata to automatically generate interactive timelines with events linked to Wikipedia articles. Example: The Apollo missions
• Monumental: a tool that allows you to explore built heritage and learn more about monuments by collating information Wikidata, Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. Example: Paris
• Scholia: a tool that creates scholarly profile pages constructed from queries to Wikidata Query Service. Example: Turing Award

Wikidata:How to use data on Wikimedia projects provides technical instructions on how to use Wikidata data on another Wikimedia project. You can also find help on the Wikidata:Project chat.