Wikibase/What is Wikibase

What is Wikibase?

Wikibase is software that lets you store information in a highly structured way.

There's plenty of software out there that lets you store information. A "notes" app on a mobile phone stores information; so does a text editor, a spreadsheet, or a contacts database.

Wikibase is different. It lets you store information that's meant to be consumed and thoroughly digested by computers, connected to other information systems, collaboratively edited, and shared, shared, shared.

What kind of data is there that someone might want to structure and share like that?

Examples include:

• Archives & collections (Rhizome Artbase)
• Language data (Qichwabase)
• Library catalogues (German National Library)
• Bodies of research data (Factgrid)
• Eventually, all the information in the world (Wikidata)

Wikibase is a database designed to hold Linked Open Data (LOD). To understand Wikibase, it helps to understand LOD in terms of the five-star-data model.

Finally, here's a more formal explanation of Wikibase (with links to our glossary):

Wikibase is an extension to MediaWiki that lets you use the wiki to store structured data, mainly in the form of items and properties that combine to help form statements.