[Wikidata] Semantic annotation of red links on Wikipedia

Discussion:

Maarten Dammers

2018-09-24 17:48:47 UTC

Hi everyone,

According to

: "Semantic
annotation is the process of attaching additional information to various
concepts (e.g. people, things, places, organizations etc) in a given
text or any other content. Unlike classic text annotations for reader's
reference, semantic annotations are used by machines to refer to."
(more at
https://ontotext.com/knowledgehub/fundamentals/semantic-annotation/ )

On Wikipedia a red link is a link to an article that hasn't been created
(yet) in that language. Often another language does have an article
about the subject or at least we have a Wikidata item about the subject.
Take for example
https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Friedrich_Ris . It has over
250 incoming links, but the person doesn't have an article in Dutch. We
have a Wikidata item with links to 7 Wikipedia's at
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q116510 , but no way to relate
https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Friedrich_Ris with
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q116510 .

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to make a connection between the red link
on Wikipedia and the Wikidata item?

Let's assume we have this list somewhere. We would be able to offer all
sorts of nice features to our users like:
* Hover of the link to get a hovercard in your favorite backup language
* Generate an article placeholder for the user with basic information in
the local language
* Pre-populate the translate extension so you can translate the article
from another language
(probably plenty of other good uses)

Where to store this link? I'm not sure about that. On some Wikipedia's
people have tested with local templates around the red links. That's not
structured data, clutters up the Wikitext, it doesn't scale and the
local communities generally don't seem to like the approach. That's not
the way to go. Maybe a better option would be to create a new property
on Wikidata to store the name of the future article. Something like
Q116510: Pxxx -> (nl)"Friedrich Ris". Would be easiest because the
infrastructure is there and you can just build tools on top of it, but
I'm afraid this will cause a lot of noise on items. A couple of
suggestions wouldn't be a problem, but what is keeping people from
adding the suggestion in 100 languages? Or maybe restrict the usage that
a Wikipedia must have at least 1 (or n) incoming links before people are
allowed to add it?
We could create a new projects on the Wikimedia Cloud to store the
links, but that would be quite the extra time investment setting up
everything.

What do you think?

Maarten

James Heald

2018-09-24 18:08:45 UTC

Permalink

The problem, if you don't put something on the wikipage itself, is how
then do you determine which [[John A. Smith]] a redlink was intended to
refer to, if there is more than one possibility.

But Maarten is right, that at least on en-wiki, the suggestion of adding
templates to link to Wikidata content has met with considerable
hostility, expressed in two recent RfCs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_202#RfC:_Linking_to_wikidata

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_204#New_RFC_on_linking_to_Wikidata

-- James.

Post by Maarten Dammers
Hi everyone,
According to http://youtu.be/TLuM4E6IE5U : "Semantic
annotation is the process of attaching additional information to various
concepts (e.g. people, things, places, organizations etc) in a given
text or any other content. Unlike classic text annotations for reader's
reference, semantic annotations are used by machines to refer to."
(more at
https://ontotext.com/knowledgehub/fundamentals/semantic-annotation/ )
On Wikipedia a red link is a link to an article that hasn't been created
(yet) in that language. Often another language does have an article
about the subject or at least we have a Wikidata item about the subject.
Take for example
https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Friedrich_Ris . It has over
250 incoming links, but the person doesn't have an article in Dutch. We
have a Wikidata item with links to 7 Wikipedia's at
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q116510 , but no way to relate
https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Friedrich_Ris with
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q116510 .
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to make a connection between the red link
on Wikipedia and the Wikidata item?
Let's assume we have this list somewhere. We would be able to offer all
* Hover of the link to get a hovercard in your favorite backup language
* Generate an article placeholder for the user with basic information in
the local language
* Pre-populate the translate extension so you can translate the article
from another language
(probably plenty of other good uses)
Where to store this link? I'm not sure about that. On some Wikipedia's
people have tested with local templates around the red links. That's not
structured data, clutters up the Wikitext, it doesn't scale and the
local communities generally don't seem to like the approach. That's not
the way to go. Maybe a better option would be to create a new property
on Wikidata to store the name of the future article. Something like
Q116510: Pxxx -> (nl)"Friedrich Ris". Would be easiest because the
infrastructure is there and you can just build tools on top of it, but
I'm afraid this will cause a lot of noise on items. A couple of
suggestions wouldn't be a problem, but what is keeping people from
adding the suggestion in 100 languages? Or maybe restrict the usage that
a Wikipedia must have at least 1 (or n) incoming links before people are
allowed to add it?
We could create a new projects on the Wikimedia Cloud to store the
links, but that would be quite the extra time investment setting up
everything.
What do you think?
Maarten
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata

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Maarten Dammers

2018-09-24 18:23:56 UTC

Permalink

Hi James,

Post by James Heald
The problem, if you don't put something on the wikipage itself, is how
then do you determine which [[John A. Smith]] a redlink was intended
to refer to, if there is more than one possibility.

That's a classic disambiguation problem. Most Wikipedia's seem to be
pretty good at dealing with these. At least for the Dutch Wikipedia I
know people working on disambiguation are quite active and I encounter
quite a few disambiguated red links. If this would really become an
issue, a qualifier could be used to track based on what article (it's
linked item) the link was made. So in the case of Friedrich Ris, that
would be https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1624113
(https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aethriamanta_aethra).

Maarten

Post by James Heald
But Maarten is right, that at least on en-wiki, the suggestion of
adding templates to link to Wikidata content has met with considerable
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_202#RfC:_Linking_to_wikidata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_204#New_RFC_on_linking_to_Wikidata
-- James.

Post by Maarten Dammers
Hi everyone,
According to http://youtu.be/TLuM4E6IE5U : "Semantic
annotation is the process of attaching additional information to
various concepts (e.g. people, things, places, organizations etc) in
a given text or any other content. Unlike classic text annotations
for reader's reference, semantic annotations are used by machines to
refer to."
(more at
https://ontotext.com/knowledgehub/fundamentals/semantic-annotation/ )
On Wikipedia a red link is a link to an article that hasn't been
created (yet) in that language. Often another language does have an
article about the subject or at least we have a Wikidata item about
the subject. Take for example
https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Friedrich_Ris . It has
over 250 incoming links, but the person doesn't have an article in
Dutch. We have a Wikidata item with links to 7 Wikipedia's at
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q116510 , but no way to relate
https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Friedrich_Ris with
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q116510 .
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to make a connection between the red
link on Wikipedia and the Wikidata item?
Let's assume we have this list somewhere. We would be able to offer
* Hover of the link to get a hovercard in your favorite backup language
* Generate an article placeholder for the user with basic information
in the local language
* Pre-populate the translate extension so you can translate the
article from another language
(probably plenty of other good uses)
Where to store this link? I'm not sure about that. On some
Wikipedia's people have tested with local templates around the red
links. That's not structured data, clutters up the Wikitext, it
doesn't scale and the local communities generally don't seem to like
the approach. That's not the way to go. Maybe a better option would
be to create a new property on Wikidata to store the name of the
future article. Something like Q116510: Pxxx -> (nl)"Friedrich Ris".
Would be easiest because the infrastructure is there and you can just
build tools on top of it, but I'm afraid this will cause a lot of
noise on items. A couple of suggestions wouldn't be a problem, but
what is keeping people from adding the suggestion in 100 languages?
Or maybe restrict the usage that a Wikipedia must have at least 1 (or
n) incoming links before people are allowed to add it?
We could create a new projects on the Wikimedia Cloud to store the
links, but that would be quite the extra time investment setting up
everything.
What do you think?
Maarten
_______________________________________________
Wikidata mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata

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_______________________________________________
Wikidata mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata

Sergey Leschina

2018-09-24 22:10:36 UTC

Permalink

I want to draw your attention to the problem from the other side. On the
newly created page, which can be opened by the red link, there is no
binding to the Wikidata. This means that after the creation, the page will
not automatically be linked to the Wikidata. And if the project has
templates that can use information from the Wikidata, they will not fully
work until the page will be saved at least once and linked to an item. I
already suggested to add the parameter for this:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T178249

If something like this will be implemented, then it will be possible to
make a template for the red links (with Lua and TemplateStyles) that will
be connected to the Wikidata. Although I agree that it is better to have a
syntax that will allow to make links without such difficulties.

--
Sergey Leschina

8***@bk.ru

2018-09-25 13:40:06 UTC

Permalink

All that red makes the page look bad, and i would like to point out the abuse factor here, all those red links start edit wars,
Â
and should be put there if any by people,

The creation of the wikidata page also creats a problem, because it does not establis a lable which should be mandatory
Â
and in english,Â
in the save proses. Â

and this problem *Â https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Labels_and_descriptions#List_of_items_without_labels_and/or_descriptions Â

I want to draw your attention to the problem from the other side. On the newly created page,Â which can be opened by the red link, there is no binding to the Wikidata. This means that after the creation, the page will not automatically be linked to the Wikidata. And if the project has templates that can use information from the Wikidata, they will not fully work until the page will be saved at least once and linked to an item. I already suggested to add the parameter for this: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T178249
If something like this will be implemented, then it will be possible to make a template for the red links (with Lua and TemplateStyles) that will be connected to the Wikidata. Although I agree that it is better to have a syntax that will allow to make links without such difficulties.

--
Sergey Leschina
_______________________________________________
Wikidata mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata

Andy Mabbett

2018-09-26 23:16:41 UTC

Permalink

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to make a connection between the red link on
Wikipedia and the Wikidata item?

This facility already exists:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Interlanguage_link#Link_to_Reasonator_and_Wikidata

--
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

Maarten Dammers

2018-09-27 20:06:07 UTC

Permalink

Hello,

Post by Andy Mabbett

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to make a connection between the red link on
Wikipedia and the Wikidata item?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Interlanguage_link#Link_to_Reasonator_and_Wikidata

You seem to have done some selective quoting and selective reading. I

Post by Andy Mabbett
Where to store this link? I'm not sure about that. On some Wikipedia's
people have tested with local templates around the red links. That's
not structured data, clutters up the Wikitext, it doesn't scale and
the local communities generally don't seem to like the approach.
That's not the way to go.

James also shared some links related to this.

Maarten

Lucie-Aimée Kaffee

2018-09-28 09:27:50 UTC

Permalink

The idea of linking red links is very interesting, I believe, especially as
we have Wikidata items to many of the missing articles.
We discussed the concept of "smart red links" (linking to the
ArticlePlaceholder pages, as someone pointed out before) a while ago,
documented at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ArticlePlaceholder/Smart_red_links

I believe it's a very interesting direction to explore, especially for
Wikipedias with a smaller amount of articles and therefore naturally a
higher amount of red links.

Post by Maarten Dammers
Hello,

Post by Maarten Dammers

Post by Maarten Dammers
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to make a connection between the red

link on

Post by Maarten Dammers

Post by Maarten Dammers
Wikipedia and the Wikidata item?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Interlanguage_link#Link_to_Reasonator_and_Wikidata
You seem to have done some selective quoting and selective reading. I

Post by Maarten Dammers
Where to store this link? I'm not sure about that. On some Wikipedia's
people have tested with local templates around the red links. That's
not structured data, clutters up the Wikitext, it doesn't scale and
the local communities generally don't seem to like the approach.
That's not the way to go.

James also shared some links related to this.
Maarten
_______________________________________________
Wikidata mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata

--
Lucie-AimÃ©e Kaffee
Web and Internet Science Group
School of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton

Maarten Dammers

2018-09-29 18:13:11 UTC

Permalink

New property proposed at
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Property_proposal/Wikipedia_suggested_article_name

Post by Lucie-AimÃ©e Kaffee
The idea of linking red links is very interesting, I believe,
especially as we have Wikidata items to many of the missing articles.
We discussed the concept of "smart red links" (linking to the
ArticlePlaceholder pages, as someone pointed out before) a while ago,
documented at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ArticlePlaceholder/Smart_red_links
I believe it's a very interesting direction to explore, especially for
Wikipedias with a smaller amount of articles and therefore naturally a
higher amount of red links.
Hello,

On 24 September 2018 at 18:48, Maarten Dammers

Post by Maarten Dammers
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to make a connection between the

red link on

Post by Maarten Dammers
Wikipedia and the Wikidata item?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Interlanguage_link#Link_to_Reasonator_and_Wikidata
You seem to have done some selective quoting and selective reading. I

Where to store this link? I'm not sure about that. On some

Wikipedia's

people have tested with local templates around the red links.

That's

not structured data, clutters up the Wikitext, it doesn't scale and
the local communities generally don't seem to like the approach.
That's not the way to go.

James also shared some links related to this.
Maarten
_______________________________________________
Wikidata mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
--
Lucie-AimÃ©e Kaffee
Web and Internet Science Group
School of Electronics and ComputerÂ Science
University of Southampton
_______________________________________________
Wikidata mailing list
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