Techrecipe

Wikipedia launches language barrier overcoming project

Abstract Wikipedia is a new project undertaken by the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Announced that the board has unanimously approved, the project will allow Wikipedia information to be shared in more languages.

Abstrakt Wikipedia is a project proposed by one of Wikipedia’s co-founders (Denny Vrandečić) in May. For the Wikimedia Foundation, it is also a large project in 7 years. The goal is to allow more people to share more knowledge in more languages. Specifically, it aims to expand the wiki data and apply it to Wikipedia to create or manage Wikipedia documents in a language-independent manner.

When you open a Wikipedia article, you’ll find links to pages in up to 171 languages, including English. Language-specific pages are written or translated by voluntary wiki project participants. However, since Wikipedia is highly dependent on language due to its nature as an encyclopedia, information that can be obtained from a specific language version cannot be obtained from other language versions. There is also a problem that even if it has been translated, it cannot be said that it is properly translated.

Started in 2016, Wiki Data is a joint database provided by the Wikimedia Foundation. The concept of unifying links between languages from the beginning. Wiki data is basically identified to be shared by item ID that contains information in the form of giving values for parameters. For example, a page about 17th-century musician Bach can be given the ID Q1339 and the page can be shared in multiple languages.

If you look at the Bach Wikidata page, values are set for each item such as date of death, place of death, situation of death, sign of death, and store location. In other words, Bach is expressing information that he was buried in St. Thomas Church after a stroke in Leipzig on July 28, 1750, without using a specific language grammar. Clicking on St. Thomas Church takes you to the wiki data page. The ID was assigned to this place, called Q170402.

The basic part of Wikipedia content is described by the method used in Wikidata. It is expected that a document model with universal value can be created in any language as a wiki language independent model. The Wikimedia Foundation says that volunteers can use programs to translate these abstract documents into their own language. Hopefully, people will be able to read documents written using Wikidata in their own language.

Of course, more cooperation and software development are needed for Abstrakt Wikipedia to progress. The Foundation is pleased that Abstract Wikipedia is an experimental project to the very end and that it can promote fairness of knowledge, and said that this project provides important questions as to how and with whom to build knowledge. He said he expects to ponder these questions with the community. Related information can be found here .

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lswcap

Through the monthly AHC PC and HowPC magazine era, he has watched 'technology age' in online IT media such as ZDNet, electronic newspaper Internet manager, editor of Consumer Journal Ivers, TechHolic publisher, and editor of Venture Square. I am curious about this market that is still full of vitality.

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