Wikibase/FAQ

General

What is the difference between Wikibase and Wikidata?

Wikibase is a suite of knowledge-base software for managing linked open data, originally written for and still used by the Wikidata project.

Wikidata is the largest instance of Wikibase, a free knowledge base that anyone can edit. Its data is used by Wikipedia, by its sister projects and by anyone else who wants to make use of a large amount of open general-purpose data.

Is there a list of Wikibase instances?

Although there’s no single canonical list, on our Showcase page we highlight several notable instances. For more comprehensive information you can check out the voluntary Wikibase registry and this list of federated query endpoints.

Software and functionality

How can I install Wikibase on my own system?

There are currently two options for installing Wikibase.

• To install using our preconfigured Docker images, see Wikibase/Docker .
  • For more information you can consult our Docker repository, or check out the containers themselves at the Docker hub.
• You can find detailed manual installation instructions here: Wikibase/Suite

Where can I find more info about the query service?

Here’s Wikidata’s query service manual and some SPARQL examples.

How does federation work?

Check out our federation page.

How can I get data into Wikibase?

Check out our import tools page.

Does Wikibase ship with a web API (like api.php) for remote access?

Wikibase extends the standard MediaWiki action API with modules such as action=wbsetsitelink and query modules such as action=query&prop=pageterms. You access these modules via api.php like the rest of the API and you can use d:Special:ApiSandbox to explore the API. Some Wikimedia wikis run only the Wikibase client, while wikidata.org runs the full software.

Where can I find the source code?

Check out our developer resources. An updated programmer's guide and coding conventions are in the works!

Technical issues

We cover many technical topics in our maintenance guide, the GitHub repository for our Docker images and our manual install documentation. Below you'll find help on some specific issues reported by users of Wikibase.

Docker

View open issues in our issue tracker:

• Phabricator issues for wikibase-docker

Query service

Why doesn't the query service update?

If you find yourself re-importing RDF files to make items show up in the query service, even when your updater is running correctly, you're probably suffering from the MAX_DAYS issue.

Try running your updater with the following option, setting "DAYS" higher than 30: -DwikibaseMaxDaysBack=DAYS

See this Blazegraph thread for more detail.

What measures can I take to protect my Wikibase instance against spam?

• Manual:Combating spam - The MediaWiki manual for combating spam

In particular:

• Manual:$wgRateLimits - The rate limits setting
• Extension:AbuseFilter
• Patrolling

Further help

How can I ask more detailed questions about Wikibase?

Join the mailing list!

Where can I report issues or problems with Wikibase?

You’re welcome to raise an issue on our Phabricator instance, where you can log in with your Wikimedia unified account or a Wikitech developer account.

Before you do, you may want to review the bug report guidelines.

How can I get third-party technical support for my Wikibase instance?

Take a look at the third-party consultants list. (This is a public wiki page; inclusion of a given provider doesn’t constitute an official endorsement by the Wikibase team.)