Wikidata
The next big thing for Wikipedia
SemTechBiz Berlin, February 2012
Denny Vrandečić
KIT Karlsruhe Institute of Technology / Wikimedia Deutschland
Institut AIFB – Angewandte Informatik und Formale Beschreibungsverfahren
KIT – University of the State of Baden-Württemberg and
National Large-scale Research Center of the Helmholtz Association www.kit.edu

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Imagine a world
in which
every single person
is given free access
to the sum of
all human knowledge.
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about 500 Million views per day
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Top 200 Website
12M+ media files
All free to use
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20M+ articles
1B+ edits
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280+ languages
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Coverage by language
English, German, French, Dutch: 1 Mio+
40 languages: 100,000+
107 languages: 10.000+
But what about other languages?
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English
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French
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Italian
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Catalan
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Greek
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Russian
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Chinese
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What Wikipedia knows
Wikipedia has articles about…
… all cities
… their populations
… their mayors
So can I ask for a list of the world’s ten largest
cities with a female mayor?
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Let’s see what happens…
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WIKIPEDIA’S ANSWER: LISTS
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COMPUTERS ARE STUPID
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What humans see
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What humans see
Berlin
... has a population of 3,490,445
... is located inGermany
... has mayorKlaus Wowereit
... has an area of 892 km2
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What computers see
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What computers see
Berlin
3,490,445
Germany
892 km2
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COMPUTERS DON‘T MAKE
CONNECTIONS
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COMPUTERS NEED OUR HELP
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Berlin edit
From Wikidata
Capital of Germany edit
Main page
Also known as: City of Berlin edit |x
Contents
Access the API
Random page Continent Europe [3 sources]
Donate to Wikidata
Country Germany [2 sources]
Interaction
Help Population 3,490,445 [1 source]
About Wikidata
Community portal
3,500,000 [2 sources]
Recent changes
[other values]
Languages
Catalá
Cesky Calling code 030 [2 sources]
Dansk
Deutsch Mayor Klaus W| [0 sources]
Eesti Klaus Wowereit
Español Vehicle registration BGerman politician [1 source]
Esperanto Klaus Wunderlich
Français German musician
Area 891.85km” [2 sources]
Hrvatski Klaus Waldeck
Italiano Austrian musician and former lawyer
O’zbek Twin city Los Angeles [3 sources]
Klaus Wagner
Complete list German mathematician
[new fact] Klaus Wagner
Stalker of the British Royal Family
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Berlin edit
From Wikidata
Hauptstadtvon Deutschland edit
Hauptseite
Auchbekanntals:Stadt Berlin edit |x
Inhalt
API
ZufälligeSeite Kontinent Europa [3 sources]
Spende an Wikidata
Land Deutschland [2 sources]
Interaktion
Hilfe Einwohner 3.490.445 [1 source]
ÜberWikidata
Benutzerportal
3.500.000 [2 sources]
LetzeÄnderungen
[weitereWerte]
Sprachen
Catalá
Cesky Telefonvorwahl 030 [2 sources]
Dansk
Eesti Bürgermeister Klaus Wowereit [2 sources]
English
Español AmtlichesKennzeichen B [1 source]
Esperanto
Français
Fläche 891,85 km” [2 sources]
Hrvatski
Italiano
O’zbek Parnerstadt Los Angeles [3 sources]
Complete list
[new fact]
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Berlin Continent Europe.
Berlin Country Germany.
Berlin Population 3490445.
Berlin Calling_code 030.
Berlin Vehicle_registration B.
Berlin Mayor Klaus_Wowereit.
Berlin Twin_cityLos_Angeles.
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Klaus
Wowereit
Mayor
Berlin
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WikiData
Provide a database of the world’s knowledge that anyone can edit
Collect references and quotes for millions of data items
Engage a sustainable community that collects data from everywhere in
a machine-readable way
Increase the quality and lower the maintenance costs of Wikipedia and
related projects
Deliver software and community best practices enabling others to
engage in projects of data collection and provisioning
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Extracts facts from Wikipedia infoboxes
Publishes them in RDF
Shows potential of machine-readable data
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WikiData
Provide a database of the world’s knowledge that anyone can edit
Collect references and quotes for millions of data items
Engage a sustainable community that collects data from everywhere in
a machine-readable way
Increase the quality and lower the maintenance costs of Wikipedia and
related projects
Deliver software and community best practices enabling others to
engage in projects of data collection and provisioning
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Secondary database
Sources for every fact
Reflect diversity
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WikiData
Provide a database of the world’s knowledge that anyone can edit
Collect references and quotes for millions of data items
Engage a sustainable community that collects data from everywhere in
a machine-readable way
Increase the quality and lower the maintenance costs of Wikipedia and
related projects
Deliver software and community best practices enabling others to
engage in projects of data collection and provisioning
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Project plan: 3 phases
Phase 1: Language links
Phase 2: Infobox augmentation
Phase 3: Inline queries
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Phase 1: Language links
Current: every language links to every other
In Wikidata: create one page for each entity,
list representations in each language
In Wikipedias: pull language links from
Wikidata
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Phase 2: Infobox augmentation
Current: each article calls an infobox with
values
In Wikidata: centralize the values
In Wikipedias: just call the infobox and
populate it with values from Wikidata
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Phase 3: Inline queries
Enable inline queries in Wikipedias
With several formats
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Open source project
400+ users
NASA, Europeana, Deut
sche Telekom, …
20+ languages
World-wide community
Commercial support
Many extensions
semantic-mediawiki.org
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Conclusions
Editable, common resource for data
Enables much smaller contribution size
Freely reusable, machine-readable data
Able to answer question
Available in 280+ languages
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Imagine a world
in which
every single person
is given free access
to the sum of
all human knowledge.
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Thank you!
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikidata_WMDE
Institut AIFB – Angewandte Informatik und Formale Beschreibungsverfahren
presenting work done by Markus Krötzsch, YaronKoren, Daniel Kinzler,
QamarnisoIsmoilova, Sergey Chernishev, Max Völkel, Heiko Haller,
Sebastian Blohm, Philipp Sorg, Peter Haase, Than Tran, Basil Ell, Daniel
Herzig, BenediktKämpgen, Elena Simperl, Delia Rusu, Marko Grobelnik,
Michael Cariaso, AmélieCordier, Jean Lieber, Emmanuel Nauer, Yannick
Toussaint, Pascal Molli, HalaSkaf-Molli, Joel Natividad, Daniel Hansch
and the Ontoprise team, and many others
KIT – University of the State of Baden-Württemberg and
National Large-scale Research Center of the Helmholtz Association www.kit.edu