Hello all,
If you want to follow the progress of the development team on the first version of the Wikidata Bridge, you can have a look at the test system.
First of all, a disclaimer: this is a live test environment, and the developers are working in real time on it, which means:
- it is not the final version that you will see onwiki
- some features are missing
- it may be broken or behaving weird sometimes
- the test wikis are almost empty and plenty of data is not there or needs to be created (items, properties)
This being said, here are the links that you can look at:
- https://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Wikidata_Bridge_Showcase is the showcase article on a Beta Wikipedia site, with a basic infobox where you can try the Bridge
- On https://wikidata.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Q540739 is the test item that is connected to the showcase page
Feel free to try it and click on the pen icon to open the Bridge pop-up. Please note that in order to be able to edit data, you need to be logged-in on Beta: for this you will need to use or create a dedicated account, that is not connected to centralized Wikimedia account.
To go more into details, here’s an overview of what features are already working on the test system, which ones are not working yet, and which one will not be present in the first version of the Bridge.
What’s already working:
- When clicking on the edit pen, instead of going to the Wikidata item, the Bridge pop-up opens
- When the editor opens the Wikidata Bridge for a value with datatype string, they can edit it from the Bridge pop-up. For all others datatypes, the editor is told that it is not possible yet and offered to go to Wikidata.
- For a value with datatype string, the editor can make an edit and save it, the change takes place on the Wikidata item. However, the new value is not immediately displayed (we’re working on caching issues), you will have to refresh the page to see the new value.
- It is only possible to edit statements having one value. When trying to edit a statement with several values, an error message appears.
- All edits made through the Bridge are tagged on Wikidata with the tag “Data Bridge” so they can be easily spotted in Recent Changes, etc. The edit summary is not very descriptive for now.
- References can be displayed but the format is ugly for now
- Template editors can adapt an infobox to add the “Bridge layer”. A draft of documentation is available here.
- Permissions: when the page is protected, the edit pen will not be shown. For all the other situations where editing should not be allowed (user blocked, etc.), an error message will be shown.
What we are currently working on in order to be ready for the first version:
- Ask the editor if they are updating or fixing a value and make the edit accordingly (for an update, a new value will be added and the rank will be changed; for a fix, the value will be overwritten).
- Inform editors that they are editing a different project under a different license.
- When trying to edit multiple values, special values (novalue and somevalue) or deprecated values, we will show editors an explanation and send them to the Wikidata item.
- Fix caching issues (update the page immediately with the new value).
- Link to the revision history of the Item to give editors a path to check and revert vandalism.
- Support for datatypes external ID and URL.
- Offer a way to Wikidata for adding and editing references on Wikidata.
- Better edit summary
- Better formatting of references
What will not be included in the first version, but potentially later:
- Editing of datatypes other than string, URL and external ID
- Editing of qualifiers
- Editing of special values (no value / some value)
- Reference editing/adding/deleting of existing references
- Adding a reference to new values
- Multi-value editing and viewing
The development will continue over the next few months, as well as discussions here to gather feedback. We will also update you about the wikis where we plan to roll-out the first version of the feature, if these communities volunteer to try it. See also: how to get involved.
Cheers, Léa