MaiaCWilliams

I am new to editing Wikipedia and Wikidata. My professional life is all about spatial data analysis using open tools, and I am interested in open and linked data across all contexts. I am interested in the workflows and tools that facilitate connections between projects and beyond to external datasets/sources.

Some of the work I do is described here.

In 2022 I worked on the PopulationFromWikidata project - all about using data from Wikidata in Wikipedia place article infoboxes.

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About the PopulationFromWikidata Module

In March 2022 I started contributing to a Census Tool Development initiative being run by Wikimedia Australia. The aim was to review existing workflows and templates, and propose an updated robust method for keeping population values up-to-date and correctly referenced in Wikipedia articles. The intention was to use Wikidata items as a part of this methodology.

As at 29 June 2022, we have added a Lua module (PopulationFromWikidata) to the Infobox Australian place template. The module brings in population values from the linked Wikidata item if the pop field of the template has not been manually filled. Check out the module documentation to read about the filtering and decisions made in population value selection and presentation. It is an ongoing project so check out the section on next steps to be tackled.

Look at this project page to see a summary of place articles using the module and presenting population figures from Wikidata. And check out this tracking category to see the list of those articles.

Head to the PopulationFromWikidata talk page to contribute to work on the module!