User talk:Rdicerb (WMF)

Flow
I am very experienced and busy with talk pages, but I am interested how Flow will replace them. --DThomsen8 (talk) 21:16, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Ping me if you get to DC
It was a pleasure meeting you at Wikimania. I'd be glad to dicsuss disambiguation and other community issues with you further. Ping me if you get to the DC area. Cheers! bd2412 T 12:43, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Structured Data on Commons update
Greetings,

After a delay in updates to the Structured data on Commons project, I wanted to catch you up with what has been going on over the past three months. In short: The project is on hold, but that doesn't mean nothing is happening.

The meeting in Berlin in October provided the engineering teams with a lot to start on. Unfortunately the Structured Data on Commons project was put on hold not too long after this meeting. Development of the actual Structured data system for Commons will not begin until more resources can be allocated to it.

The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Germany have been working to improve the Wikidata query process on the back-end. This is designed to be a production-grade replacement of WikidataQuery integrated with search. The full project is described at Mediawiki.org.This will benefit the structured data project greatly since developing a high-level search for Commons is a desired goal of this project.

The Wikidata development team is working on the arbitrary access feature. Currently it's only possible to access items that are connected to the current page. So for example on Vincent van Gogh you can access the statements on Q5582, but you can't access these statements on Category:Vincent van Gogh or Creator:Vincent van Gogh. With arbitrary access enabled on Commons we no longer have this limitation. This opens up the possibility to use Wikidata data on Creator, Institution, Authority control and other templates instead of duplicating the data (what we do now). This will greatly enhance the usefulness of Wikidata for Commons.

To use the full potential of arbitrary access the Commons community needs to reimplement several templates in LUA. In LUA it's possible to use the local fields and fallback to Wikidata if it's not locally available. Help with this conversion is greatly appreciated. The different tasks are tracked in phabricator, see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T89594.

Volunteers are continuing to add data about artworks to Wikidata. Sometimes an institution website is used and sometimes data is being transfered from Commons to Wikidata. Wikidata now has almost 35.000 items about paintings. This is done as part of the WikiProject sum of all paintings. This helps us to learn how to d:Wikidata:WikiProject Visual arts/Item structuremodel and refine metadata about artworks. Experience that will of course be very useful for Commons too.

Additionally, the metadata cleanup drive continues to produce results. The drive, which is intended to identify files missing information or the like structured data fields and to add such fields when absent, has reduced the number of files missing information by almost 100,000 on Commons. You can help by looking for files with similarly-formatted description pages, and listing them at Bots/Work requests so that a bot can add the information template on them.

At the Amsterdam Hackathon in November 2014, a couple of different models were developed about how artwork can be viewed on the web using structured data from Wikidata. You can browse two examples here and here. These examples can give you an idea of the kind of data that file pages have the potential to display on-wiki in the future.

The Structured Data project is a long-term one, and the volunteers and staff will continue working together to provide the structure and support in the back-end toward front-end development. There are still many things to do to help advance the project, and I hope to have more news for you in the near future. Contact me any time with questions, comments, concerns.

-- User:Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:46, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Umbrellas?
Hello Rachel, my wife has asked whether we can get a Wikipedia-branded umbrella. The shop doesn't seem to carry them, but I say that's a great idea. Let me know what you think. Cheers! bd2412 T 02:31, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I think you're looking for VShchepakina (WMF). --Jeremyb (talk) 04:38, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * That's correct, Jeremyb - BD2412, you might want to ping her. I'm not certain why they are not in the store right now, but it's good to ask! I'll also reach out to let her know you're asking. Cheers, Rdicerb (WMF) (talk) 16:35, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks - note that when you link to another editor in a comment, that pings them automatically. I will now demonstrate. bd2412  T 17:36, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * On second thought, now I suspect you mean "ping" as in "send a short e-mail". bd2412  T 17:38, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Depending on the user's prefs email and talk page messages can both be more visible than mentions. --Jeremyb (talk) 17:42, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Season's Greetings
To You and Yours! FWiW  Bzuk (talk) 13:47, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Bzuk :) Hope your holidays were also lovely, and happy new year to you. -Rdicerb (WMF) (talk) 23:11, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Merry, merry!
From the icy Canajian north; to you and yours! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 18:55, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Structured Data on Commons Newsletter, July 19, 2017
Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!

Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons?
The millions of files on Wikimedia Commons are described with a lot of information or (meta)data. With the project Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons, this data is structured more, and is made machine-readable. This will make it easier to view, search (also multilingually), edit, organize and re-use the files on Commons.

In early 2017, the Sloan Foundation funded this project (see documentation). Development takes place in 2017–2020. It involves staff from the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE) and many volunteers. To achieve this, Wikibase support is added to Wikimedia Commons. Wikibase is the technology that is also used for Wikidata.

Recent developments: groundwork

 * A new and crucial technical step (federation) now makes it possible to reference data from one Wikibase website in another. Because of this, it will be possible to use Wikidata's items and properties to describe media files on Commons.
 * Another important piece of groundwork is under development: so-called Multi-Content Revisions. This feature allows structured data to be stored alongside wiki text, so that one wiki page can contain several types of content.

Team updates

 * Amanda Bittaker was hired as Program Manager for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons. Amanda will take care of the overall management of the project.
 * Sandra Fauconnier (known as Spinster in her volunteer capacity) is the new Community Liaison. She will support the collaboration between the communities (Commons, Wikidata, GLAM) and the product development teams at the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland.
 * We have open positions for a UX designer and a Product Manager!

Talking with communities and allies

 * Long-term feedback from GLAMs. Besides the Wikimedia community, many external cultural and knowledge institutions (GLAMs - Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) are interested in Structured Data on Commons and are willing to provide feedback on the long-term plans for the project. Alex Stinson, GLAM strategist at the Wikimedia Foundation, is currently in contact with Europeana, DPLA, the Smithsonian and the National Archives of the United States. Alex is also looking for other GLAM institutions who might be able to advise on the long term. If you know of an institution or partner that may be appropriate for consultation, do get in touch with Alex.
 * Jonathan Morgan, design researcher, is starting to work on two projects:
 * Researching batch upload workflows by interviewing GLAM institutions
 * Researching the enrichment, organization and improvement tasks on already uploaded media files by engaging with active Commons contributors. This research follows up on existing research by Wikimedia Deutschland on heavy Commons users.

What comes next?

 * The Structured Data on Commons team meets in the week after Wikimania to lay the groundwork for the next steps. This includes new backend development and design work, for better and more clear integration of the structured data in pages on Wikimedia Commons.
 * The project's information pages on Wikimedia Commons will receive a long overdue update in the upcoming months. The team will also work on more and better communication channels. Feedback, wishes and tips are welcome at the project's general talk page.

Get involved

 * Join us at Wikimania! We are present at the hackathon, and there will be a session on Saturday, August 12: Structured Commons: what changes are coming?
 * Follow the Structured Data on Commons project on Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/34/
 * Subscribe to this newsletter to receive it on a talk page of your own choice.
 * Do you want to help out translating messages about Structured Data on Commons from English to your own language? Sign up on the translators page.
 * Stay tuned for requests for input, discussion and participation as soon as the info portal is refreshed (see above). These will also be announced via this newsletter.

Many greetings from SandraF (WMF) (talk), Community Liaison for this project! 13:55, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Seasons' Greetings
...to you and yours, from the Great White North! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 17:35, 24 December 2017 (UTC)