It's hardly new... it's been a non starter for about 5 years: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata-l/
Wikidata: The first new project from Wikimedia Foundation since 2006
41–50 of 51 posts
Re: Wikidata: The first new project from Wikimedia Foundation since 2006
#42One area I really want to see this take off in is Medicine.
As someone who had suffered from an unknown illness (no doctor could figure it out), I can rationalize how such a system would have been helpful. You see a bit of this with WebMD's Symptom Checker, but I feel tools like that aren't comprehensive enough and we end up with a lot of cyberchondria. You can't rely on co-relation to find absolute answers, but helping map out symptoms, lifestyle choices may be a tool to finding solutions faster.
It took about a year to resolve my illness. Going to the doctor 2-4 times a week for 10-20 minutes isn't enough to work with when you have no clear-cut diagnosis.
Now, to be clear, I am not talking about replacing doctors or devaluing doctors by allowing everyone to be an expert.
Re: Wikidata: The first new project from Wikimedia Foundation since 2006
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
It looks like the main difference is two-way integration: instead of just scraping data from Wikipedia dumps to produce a structured database (like Freebase and dbpedia do), it's going to store the canonical version of some of the information there, and pull from it to populate the infoboxes. One of the motivations seems to be to keep the data in sync across Wikipedia languages, so an addition or fix propagates to th…
So they are adding an extra layer?...Who said that CS is the science where everything is solved with an extra level of indirection?
Who said that CS is the science where everything is solved with an extra level of indirection?
Looks like David Wheeler made the statement that I think you're referring to:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2057503/does-anybody-know...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wheeler_%28computer_scien...
Re: Wikidata: The first new project from Wikimedia Foundation since 2006
#44Like others here, it's something I've been thinking about for a number of years. This is an important project, with the potential to eclipse wikipedia, maybe even growing to be the saviour of free software? My reasoning follows. Currently we program computers by giving them a set of instructions on how to achieve a goal. As computers grow more powerful, we will stop giving detailed instructions. Instead, we will writ…
The way I read this it looks like you are placing the data part as more difficult? Although the system you speak about sounds like it is AI Complete. Figuring out how the human mind manages to maneuver combinatorial explosions in interesting search spaces is a very hard problem.
The field is very exciting but not without grave risks. I am of the opinion that The final key breakthrough(s) in Artificial Intelligence will be raced and not collaborated towards. The advantages the possessor of such a system would have would be enough to test the purest of saints. Also, Computational Ethics lags far behind even current primitive attempts at AGI. Furthermore, there are insentives to leave off the moral breaks since the consequences seem ephemeral, burdening your system with ethics would further increase the search space - doing the right thing is computationally harder than doing what is best for just yourself. The future: step carefully.
For what it is worth, you can merge large data sources with automatic program construction today. I recently started a project in this area. ConceptNet has an excellent API. Then look at Genetic Programming, Markov Logic Networks, inductive logic programming, each with its own strength and weaknesses. Program Transformation is a related area where it deduces programs from formal specifications that are unoptimized or non polynonmial in time or space. The most interesting take on this I have seen: http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~kahl/HOPS/ANIM/index.html.
Re: Wikidata: The first new project from Wikimedia Foundation since 2006
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
RDF has been adopted by some pretty big data websites, and apparently that's one of the formats they plan to support: The data will be exported in different formats, especially RDF, SKOS, and JSON. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/Technical_proposal
Technically unsound: RDF is a relationship model and a meta-model (think XML Infoset), SKOS is a vocabulary (think XHTML) and JSON is a serialization format (think XML or RDF/N3). The question is which schema, ontology or vocabulary will they use to express their data? Who will develop it? Or will they reuse other vocabularies? How do they intend to extend them? If they are RDF based, how will they project to JSON gi…
I found the mix of different kinds of technologies odd too, but I assumed it's just a draft, not the final spec.
Re: Wikidata: The first new project from Wikimedia Foundation since 2006
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+heavy+is+earth Click "Source information."
That isn't a list of references, that's just a list of suggested reading. In fact it's not even guaranteed that the any of the facts on that page come from any of those sources. It's basically just showing a list of books that come up when you Google for the question.
This link here lists exactly what their sources for AstronomicalData are: http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/note/AstronomicalDa...
Re: Wikidata: The first new project from Wikimedia Foundation since 2006
#47Re: Wikidata: The first new project from Wikimedia Foundation since 2006
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
But being able to legally take all the data out and making your own database (or other thing) with it (which you state is fine) is exactly what makes CC-BY-SA pointless/inapplicable to databases of open data. See this discussion of why CC-BY-SA is unsuitable for OpenStreetMap (which mentions the case law on phone books you refer to): http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/Why_CC_BY-SA_is_Un... Wikipedia says this…
It seems to me the confusion is over what OpenStreetMap wants to control and what copyright allows them to control. The 'shortcomings' of CC-BY-SA noted in your first link seem to boil down to use cases involving chunks of data that simply do not qualify for copyright. Thus, by definition, no copyright license could behave any differently than any other in determining what can and can't be done with those chunks of d…
The ODbL isn't (just) a copyright licence, for exactly those reasons.
Re: Wikidata: The first new project from Wikimedia Foundation since 2006
#49tl;dr: spin-off Wikipedia infoboxes into a seperate project with an API, and then use that data to bootstrap an open data project with broader goals. In theory, it's a good idea. It takes an existing useful data source and puts in a form that encourages reuse, and since it solves the bootstrapping problem then it's not obviously doomed to failure like the Semantic Web. I see two potential downsides. My first concern…
What editing interface could possibly be more complex than the current system of Infobox "markup"? If Wikidata does nothing besides make it easier to edit those infoboxen, it will be a success.
Re: Wikidata: The first new project from Wikimedia Foundation since 2006
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
That isn't a list of references, that's just a list of suggested reading. In fact it's not even guaranteed that the any of the facts on that page come from any of those sources. It's basically just showing a list of books that come up when you Google for the question.
This link here lists exactly what their sources for AstronomicalData are: http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/note/AstronomicalDa...
But it doesn't tell you which source a specific fact comes from. You can't verify it or check if there are more recent sources with better values--relevant if you need good accuracy for a specific value.