Friday, July 08, 2016

#Wikidata - making a statement

#Statistics are powerful particularly when they tell the whole story like the ones produced by Magnus. They are a set of statistics and they indicate the progress of Wikidata. The most relevant statistics are included; they indicate the number of statements, the number of labels and the number of links over time.

There is more to the statistics. For some references or better still, the lack of references is why some people oppose the use of Wikidata. Specially for them there are five statistics that indicate progress made. The good news is that more and more items have referenced statements (62.64%). This growth can be understood because a lot of effort has been going into providing tools to add sources and many people do add them.

Improving the quality of Wikidata is complex. There are many factors that make a difference. Personally I care most about rich annotations with statements for each and every item. Others care more about references. It is important that improvements are made in every way. This is why Wikidata becomes increasingly relevant and why new ways open up to improve its quality even further.

As Wikidata matures, its quality becomes increasingly obvious. When more Wikimedia projects use its data, it will grow the number of people who are involved and Wikidata will evolve into a rich and trustworthy source of data.
Thanks,
       GerardM

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