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This Month in GLAM: April 2017





Headlines
  • Argentina report: End of contest, new heritaged donated and digitizing workshop
  • Basque Country report: Students working on literature with new Wikipedian in Residence
  • Belgium report: Brussels writing weeks; Dutch Language Union workshop; Civic Lab Brussels start; Edit-a-thon Leuven
  • Brazil report: Wikimedia Conference, gender and International collaboration
  • Germany report: You may only harvest after putting a grain
  • Ghana report: GLAM Ghana duly launched
  • Italy report: Open Data for Cultural Heritage
  • Macedonia report: 12 Peaks hiking challenge
  • Netherlands report: The Netherlands and the World: Photo hunt Chinsurah; Photohunt public library Tilburg; Wikipedian in Residence for UNESCO's Memory of the World programme in the Netherlands; Picture books from Koninklijke Bibliotheek
  • Spain report: Management and dissemination of cultural heritage
  • Sweden report: GLAM-EduWiki collaboration awarded Pedagogy Award of the year at Swedish museums; Connected Open Heritage
  • UK report: Bio-Medical History Residences
  • USA report: New connections at the Library of Congress and Smithsonian
  • Wikipedia Library report: Books & Bytes
  • Wikidata report: Federation and new datatypes
  • WMF GLAM report: DPLAFest and Beyond
  • Calendar: May's GLAM events

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Your GA nomination of Water in Africa

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Water in Africa you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Lovinne -- Lovinne (talk) 03:01, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Stats of UNESCO Challenge

Dear John Cummings,

Thank you for your interest is the statistics tool. The tool can be extended to use in multiple languages as I used that on odia wiki also. About multiproject results I am not sure may be there is a way. I never met a requirement. Also the core idea behind working of this tool is it is picking the list of article based on a category. We are adding a temple on the talk page of the article to include that into a category. A parser query is running based on the category (like the query in petscan tool).

Running the parser on another language is a matter of changing language variable only. Also picking the article is depend on a category like (Article created/expanded as a part of competetion).

To use this tool as an evaluation tool of UNESCO challenge we will face some difficulty. Because people are editing in multiple languages, article expansion mechanism and image adding mechanism are a little bit complex to calculate. I will try to find a way to execute upon. If any more plans please update.

--Ranjithsiji (talk) 02:41, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Water in Africa

The article Water in Africa you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:Water in Africa for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Lovinne -- Lovinne (talk) 17:01, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Military in Gibraltar

Template:Military in Gibraltar has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ten Pound Hammer(What did I screw up now?) 04:25, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: May 2017





Headlines

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Wiki Loves Biosphere Reserves

Hi John!

Is wikilovesearth.bio/ running this year? Just asking because the dates are all still set to 2016. Cheers, Braveheart (talk) 08:37, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi Braveheart, yes indeed, I need to fix the dates today. Thanks for asking :) --John Cummings (talk) 11:03, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
Great, thanks :-) Braveheart (talk) 19:39, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi John! Sorry for bothering you again, but how does picking the best picture work in this contest? Is every country supposed to pick the 10 best ones or is there an international jury doing that? Braveheart (talk) 10:11, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi Braveheart, basically it will work as if the Biosphere Reserves competition was the same as national competition, with its own jury and 10 winning images going through to the international competition. Thanks, --John Cummings (talk) 22:16, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Ok, great, thanks! Braveheart (talk) 22:28, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi John! Since the contest is over now, where should we submit the pictures for the international jury? Best, Braveheart (talk) 12:55, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi Braveheart, I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean, the competition deadline has passed. --John Cummings (talk) 14:20, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes - I was rather asking how you will pick the 10 pictures that will then be used by UNESCO? Braveheart (talk) 14:51, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Ah, I understand, we have a jury to select them like the other competitions. --John Cummings (talk) 15:43, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Out of all 1700+ pictures? Braveheart (talk) 18:31, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
I see only 441 pictures. But: In Germany there was an Election for the members of the Jury. What about Wiki Loves Biosphere Reserves? Please give more Informations and the name of the members of the jury, and who selected or certained they. Gruss --Nightflyer (talk) 21:32, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: June 2017





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This Month in GLAM: July 2017





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You've got mail!

Hello, John Cummings. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 21:24, 4 September 2017 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Cordless Larry (talk) 21:24, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi John. Do you plan to reply to my e-mail? I see that the user is continuing to create articles by copying text from the single UNESCO source. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:56, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
Hi Cordless Larry, I can't find a mail from you, I looked in spam also but nothing. It may be easier to post it here instead.
Thanks
--John Cummings (talk) 14:15, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
That's strange. I sent it last Friday using the "Email this user" link. Anyway, it concerns the discussion at User talk:Susan Schneegans#Science and technology in Cambodia. I note that this user has been creating a large number of articles by simply copying material from a single UNESCO source to Wikipedia, which is a violation of WP:NPOV and also against the spirit of Wikipedia:Do not include the full text of lengthy primary sources. Cordless Larry (talk) 14:27, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
Hi Cordless Larry
I don't know what happened, I usually get those messages..... I will keep looking, it makes me think I may have missed others.
The reports are not primary sources, they are tertiary sources, I find this explanation helpful to understand the difference.
Copying text from an external source in itself does not violate NPOV, UNESCO quite is a neutral source of information but obviously these articles are simply a start and can always be expanded. One of the issues we've had in this project is there is very little guidance on transforming text to fit within the writing style of Wikipedia, a symptom of there not being a clear process to add open license text to Wikipedia until I created one recently.
A simple way you could help with this is to alter grammar you don't think fits with the voice of Wikipedia. Susan is extremely knowledgeable about science, being the senior editor for the main UN science report, but she hasn't been a Wikipedia editor very long, I'm sure she would appreciate your help.
Thanks
--John Cummings (talk) 16:58, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
I'm not sure that the UNESCO report meets the criteria at WP:TERTIARY, but point taken that it shouldn't be regarded as primary. Nonetheless, Wikipedia shouldn't act as a mirror for UNESCO. Susan is importing unattributed POV into articles, such as here: "In manufacturing, Viet Nam is expected to lose some of its current comparative advantage in low wages in the near future. It will need to compensate for this loss with productivity gains, if it is to sustain high growth rates...Viet Nam will need to implement strategies that increase the potential for enhancing technology and skills currently present in large multinational firms to smaller-scale domestic firms". It's alright telling me that I could help by fixing the grammar, but Susan's contributions are extensive and it is unfair to expect other editors to fix all of these problems. A better approach would be to get Susan to understand our policies and guidelines better, and for her to use the UNESCO report as one of a number of sources, rather than simply copying huge amounts of text from it into article after article. I have not had much response from her on her talk page, though. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:13, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: August 2017





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Hey, you might want to check into: Child mortality in Ghana. Sadads (talk) 03:01, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: September 2017





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Facto Post – Issue 5 – 17 October 2017

Facto Post – Issue 5 – 17 October 2017

Editorial: Annotations

Annotation is nothing new. The glossators of medieval Europe annotated between the lines, or in the margins of legal manuscripts of texts going back to Roman times, and created a new discipline. In the form of web annotation, the idea is back, with texts being marked up inline, or with a stand-off system. Where could it lead?

1495 print version of the Digesta of Justinian, with the annotations of the glossator Accursius from the 13th century

ContentMine operates in the field of text and data mining (TDM), where annotation, simply put, can add value to mined text. It now sees annotation as a possible advance in semi-automation, the use of human judgement assisted by bot editing, which now plays a large part in Wikidata tools. While a human judgement call of yes/no, on the addition of a statement to Wikidata, is usually taken as decisive, it need not be. The human assent may be passed into an annotation system, and stored: this idea is standard on Wikisource, for example, where text is considered "validated" only when two different accounts have stated that the proof-reading is correct. A typical application would be to require more than one person to agree that what is said in the reference translates correctly into the formal Wikidata statement. Rejections are also potentially useful to record, for machine learning.

As a contribution to data integrity on Wikidata, annotation has much to offer. Some "hard cases" on importing data are much more difficult than average. There are for example biographical puzzles: whether person A in one context is really identical with person B, of the same name, in another context. In science, clinical medicine require special attention to sourcing (WP:MEDRS), and is challenging in terms of connecting findings with the methodology employed. Currently decisions in areas such as these, on Wikipedia and Wikidata, are often made ad hoc. In particular there may be no audit trail for those who want to check what is decided.

Annotations are subject to a World Wide Web Consortium standard, and behind the terminology constitute a simple JSON data structure. What WikiFactMine proposes to do with them is to implement the MEDRS guideline, as a formal algorithm, on bibliographical and methodological data. The structure will integrate with those inputs the human decisions on the interpretation of scientific papers that underlie claims on Wikidata. What is added to Wikidata will therefore be supported by a transparent and rigorous system that documents decisions.

An example of the possible future scope of annotation, for medical content, is in the first link below. That sort of detailed abstract of a publication can be a target for TDM, adds great value, and could be presented in machine-readable form. You are invited to discuss the detailed proposal on Wikidata, via its talk page.

Editor Charles Matthews. Please leave feedback for him.

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:46, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Women in Red November contest open to all


Announcing Women in Red's November 2017 prize-winning world contest

Contest details: create biographical articles for women of any country or occupation in the world: November 2017 WiR Contest

Read more about how Women in Red is overcoming the gender gap: WikiProject Women in Red

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list)

--Ipigott (talk) 09:49, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: October 2017





Headlines
  • Australia and New Zealand report: Adding Australian women in research to Wikipedia
  • Brazil report: Integrating Wikimedia projects into the Brazilian National Archives GLAM
  • Bulgaria report: Botevgrad became the first wikitown in Bulgaria
  • France report: Wiki Loves Monuments; Opérations Libres
  • Germany report: GLAMorous activities in October
  • Italy report: Experts training on GLAM projects
  • Serbia report: Wikipedian in residence at Historical Archives of Subotica; Model of a grain of wheat exlusivly digitized for Wikimedia Commons; Cooperation of the Ministry of Culture and Information and Wikimedia Serbia - GLAM presentations and workshops for museums, archives and libraries
  • Spain report: Women Writers Day
  • Sweden report: Swedish Performing Arts Agency; Connected Open Heritage; Internetmuseum; More Working life museums
  • UK report: Scotland's Libraries & Hidden Gems
  • Ukraine report: Wikitraining for Librarians; Library Donation
  • USA report: trick or treat
  • Wikidata report: WikidataCon & Birthday
  • WMF GLAM report: News about Structured Commons!
  • Calendar: November's GLAM events
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Facto Post – Issue 6 – 15 November 2017

Facto Post – Issue 6 – 15 November 2017

WikidataCon Berlin 28–9 October 2017

WikidataCon 2017 group photo

Under the heading rerum causas cognescere, the first ever Wikidata conference got under way in the Tagesspiegel building with two keynotes, One was on YAGO, about how a knowledge base conceived ten years ago if you assume automatic compilation from Wikipedia. The other was from manager Lydia Pintscher, on the "state of the data". Interesting rumours flourished: the mix'n'match tool and its 600+ datasets, mostly in digital humanities, to be taken off the hands of its author Magnus Manske by the WMF; a Wikibase incubator site is on its way. Announcements came in talks: structured data on Wikimedia Commons is scheduled to make substantive progress by 2019. The lexeme development on Wikidata is now not expected to make the Wiktionary sites redundant, but may facilitate automated compilation of dictionaries.

WD-FIST explained

And so it went, with five strands of talks and workshops, through to 11 pm on Saturday. Wikidata applies to GLAM work via metadata. It may be used in education, raises issues such as author disambiguation, and lends itself to different types of graphical display and reuse. Many millions of SPARQL queries are run on the site every day. Over the summer a large open science bibliography has come into existence there.

Wikidata's fifth birthday party on the Sunday brought matters to a close. See a dozen and more reports by other hands.

Editor Charles Matthews. Please leave feedback for him.

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:02, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, John Cummings. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: November 2017





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Facto Post – Issue 7 – 15 December 2017

Facto Post – Issue 7 – 15 December 2017

A new bibliographical landscape

At the beginning of December, Wikidata items on individual scientific articles passed the 10 million mark. This figure contrasts with the state of play in early summer, when there were around half a million. In the big picture, Wikidata is now documenting the scientific literature at a rate that is about eight times as fast as papers are published. As 2017 ends, progress is quite evident.

Behind this achievement are a technical advance (fatameh), and bots that do the lifting. Much more than dry migration of metadata is potentially involved, however. If paper A cites paper B, both papers having an item, a link can be created on Wikidata, and the information presented to both human readers, and machines. This cross-linking is one of the most significant aspects of the scientific literature, and now a long-sought open version is rapidly being built up.

The effort for the lifting of copyright restrictions on citation data of this kind has had real momentum behind it during 2017. WikiCite and the I4OC have been pushing hard, with the result that on CrossRef over 50% of the citation data is open. Now the holdout publishers are being lobbied to release rights on citations.

But all that is just the beginning. Topics of papers are identified, authors disambiguated, with significant progress on the use of the four million ORCID IDs for researchers, and proposals formulated to identify methodology in a machine-readable way. P4510 on Wikidata has been introduced so that methodology can sit comfortably on items about papers.

More is on the way. OABot applies the unpaywall principle to Wikipedia referencing. It has been proposed that Wikidata could assist WorldCat in compiling the global history of book translation. Watch this space.

And make promoting #1lib1ref one of your New Year's resolutions. Happy holidays, all!

November 2017 map of geolocated Wikidata items, made by Addshore

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Reminder: WikiFactMine pages on Wikidata are at WD:WFM.

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:54, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: December 2017





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Facto Post – Issue 8 – 15 January 2018

Facto Post – Issue 8 – 15 January 2018

Metadata on the March

From the days of hard-copy liner notes on music albums, metadata have stood outside a piece or file, while adding to understanding of where it comes from, and some of what needs to be appreciated about its content. In the GLAM sector, the accumulation of accurate metadata for objects is key to the mission of an institution, and its presentation in cataloguing.

Today Wikipedia turns 17, with worlds still to conquer. Zooming out from the individual GLAM object to the ontology in which it is set, one such world becomes apparent: GLAMs use custom ontologies, and those introduce massive incompatibilities. From a recent article by sadads, we quote the observation that "vocabularies needed for many collections, topics and intellectual spaces defy the expectations of the larger professional communities." A job for the encyclopedist, certainly. But the data-minded Wikimedian has the advantages of Wikidata, starting with its multilingual data, and facility with aliases. The controlled vocabulary — sometimes referred to as a "thesaurus" as term of art — simplifies search: if a "spade" must be called that, rather than "shovel", it is easier to find all spade references. That control comes at a cost.

SVG pedestrian crosses road
Zebra crossing/crosswalk, Singapore

Case studies in that article show what can lie ahead. The schema crosswalk, in jargon, is a potential answer to the GLAM Babel of proliferating and expanding vocabularies. Even if you have no interest in Wikidata as such, simply vocabularies V and W, if both V and W are matched to Wikidata, then a "crosswalk" arises from term v in V to w in W, whenever v and w both match to the same item d in Wikidata.

For metadata mobility, match to Wikidata. It's apparently that simple: infrastructure requirements have turned out, so far, to be challenges that can be met.


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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:38, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks sorry good job :)

Hey John, thanks for the message about water articles, way back, and sorry for never replying. I've been mainly occupied with other things (including Appropedia, which includes a lot of water stuff but with a broader scope). But it looks like you're doing awesome stuff, so good job and I hope your work goes well. --Chriswaterguy talk 09:11, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Chriswaterguy:, no problem, thanks :). John Cummings (talk) 10:00, 16 January 2018 (UTC)