Submissions/A New Kind of Flexibility - Fighting Redundant Article Text Based On Semantic Data

This is a rejected submission for Wikimania 2012.

Submission no.: 644

Title of the submission: A New Kind of Flexibility - Fighting Redundant Article Text Based On Semantic Data

Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, panel, presentation): Presentation

Author of the submission: Daniel Werner

E-mail address: DanWeEtz@web.de

Username: Danwe

Country of origin: Germany

Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.): Wikimedia Germany

Personal homepage or blog: mw:User:Danwe

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal): With the usage of Semantic MediaWiki the way and need of reusing information within the wiki has already changed fundamentally. Instead of assembling huge reference lists giving an overview about certain articles, we can simply generate them with the help of the articles semantic data and powerful inline queries. These lists are fully automated; they basically update themselves whenever information within related articles has changed.

Even though this has been well-established for huge wiki-wide querying of information, there often is a huge amount of redundant information left within the actual wiki articles. Pretend you have a semantic wiki for handling huge events just like Wikimania. You will have several articles representing events such as presentations, tutorials or panels, each with information about the events name, type, main speaker and duration. Most likely all of these information would be passed on to a template generating some consistent presentation and declaring the semantic data.

But further down in the same article or on other articles the need might rise to use some of the above information within the running text. So the same information will be put in several places all over the article or the entire wiki and whenever the information changes, e.g. if the speaker or the events name changes, the information has to be updated within infobox template but also all over the article and perhaps even on other articles. Wouldn’t it be much more efficient for authors to simply use some wiki markup to declare that in this place a certain information should appear? Of course, we have inline queries, but yet, they seem a little complicated and massive to be put all over the articles text.

This presentation will focus on this idea to use some new markup to re-use already declared semantic data rather than having authors writing and updating the same text over and over again. It will also explore related problems and introduce some best practice and other important aspects on how this kind of flexibility can be maintained and supported throughout the wiki. The Semantic MediaWiki and Semantic Expressiveness extensions will play an important role in this.

Track: Technology and Infrastructure

Length of presentation/talk: 25 Minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Maybe

Slides or further information (optional)

Special request as to time of presentations: Not during this WikiData panel, preferably after my first submission.

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Léna (talk) 00:10, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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