Grants:IEG/Global Economic Map

status: not selected

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project:

Global Economic Map

project contact:

Mcnabber091 (Alex Peek alexpeek1gmail.com)

participants:

join this idea!

grantees: Alex Peek, Amir Sarabadani

advisors: Ilario

summary:

Create bots that automatically update economic statistics into Wikidata. The Wikidata statistics will be linked to Wikipedia and the Global Economic Map.

engagement target:

Wikidata, Editors of 'Economy of _____' articles in Wikipedia, Editors of economic lists in Wikipedia (example: List of countries by GDP)

strategic priority:

Improving Quality

total amount requested:

4,250 USD

2014 round 1

Project idea

New hopepage: Econ Factbook

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

Economic data should be easier to access and more transparent for citizens/economists. Currently economic data is dispersed in a variety of databases and this project aims to consolidate these databases into a single location. Wikidata also needs a bot that can automatically retrieve economic and corporate data.

What is your solution?

The goal of the Global Economic Map is to create a standardized economic article (data set) for every country, region and city in the world. There will be a bot that automatically updates the project and uploads data into Wikidata. We plan to launch this project as it's own page within Meta-Wiki. The format of each country/region/city article can be seen in this sample article: United States

Proposed bot: Global Economic Map Bot; Request Page

Task force: Wikidata:Global Economic Map task force

Project goals

Increase economic data transparency.
Consolidate economic data into a single location thus increasing access.
Strengthen Wikidata with economic data as a test case which is minimally controversial. For example, World Bank data sets ought not be too controversial.

Project plan

Scope

Activities

Find programmers to create bots for uploading economic statistics into Wikidata. I will talk with economists about optimal statistics for the project. I will have to monitor the creation of the bots and make sure everything is working properly.

An example of a bot which updates infoboxes is en:User:OKBot. This bot gets a dataset about website rankings and regularly makes changes when it has new data. Economic data can be analogously managed, but in the long term, this kind of data ought to be managed on Wikidata.

Budget:

Total amount requested

$4,250

Budget breakdown

Software Development (Amir Sarabadani) $2250 (112.5 hours over 6 months, $20 per hour)
- Building the Global Economic Map bot $1500
- Drafting code specifications $250
- Usability testing $250
- Community engagement $250
Project Management (Alex Peek) $2000 (100 hours over 6 months, $20 per hour)
- Determining the finalized format for the Global Economic Map $250
- Planning $250
- Outreach $500
- Creation of the Meta-Wiki Global Economic Map webpage $500
- Community engagement $500

Intended impact

Increase economic data transparency. Consolidate economic data from various sources on the internet to a single location. Strengthen Wikidata.

"This project provides a valuable one-stop source of freely-available data for a large number of countries as well as for regions and cities. These data should be of use to researchers, teachers, and students." - Paul Storer, Professor of Economics at the Western Washington University

"This project would be useful additional resource as it would bring together data that people could also find themselves by an appropriate search, therefore saving some time." - Panu Poutvaara, Professor of Economics at the University of Munich and Head of the Department of International Institutional Comparisons at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research

Target audience

Economic students using Wikipedia

Community engagement

Target editors: Wikidata, Editors of 'Economy of _____' articles in Wikipedia, Editors of economic lists in Wikipedia (example: List of countries by GDP)

Fit with strategy

Improving Quality: Improve Wikimedia's coverage of economic data. Improve the Wikidata project.

Sustainability

Bots will automatically upload/update economic data into Wikidata and update the Global Economic Map using Wikidata statistics.

Measures of success

The project will be successful if:

The Global Economic Map has an article for all 193 UN recognized countriesies that outlines the needed statistics
There is a bot that automatically uploads statstics listed in the on the Wikidata task force page.
All statistics needed for the Global Economic Map are implemented into Wikidata
At least 5 other wiki-editors who would join the check of uploads' completeness and would correct mistakes if any after 6 months of creation. Target editors: Wikipedia editors of 'Economy of _____' articles and economic list articles (example: 'GDP by country' article)
Publication of the Global Economic Map Bot (open source, on github probably or gerrit as a branch of pywikibot)
The Global Economic Map becomes one of he most visited websites for economic data after 6 months of creation

Participant(s)

Grantees:

Alex Peek: Project Manager

Amir Sarabadani: Bot programmer

(Other interested participants are recommended to sign their name on the Global Economic Map Wikidata taskforce)

G.E.M. data sources and wikidata properties

For G.E.M. data sources and wikidata properties go to: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Global_Economic_Map_task_force/Properties

Upon initial publication of the Global Economic Map, not all articles will be 100% complete. The Global Economic Map will provide the structure for economic data to be presented. There will be gaps in the articles for where data is either unavailable or hard to automate. In the future, as more reliable economic data becomes available and easily automated, we plan that the Global Economic Map will be 100% complete for every country. Obtaining data for every region and city will take more time but we plan someday this data will be available. Below is each section of the Global Economic Map and the sources of their data. All sources must be accepted as 'highly reliable' to the community.

Project timeline

June 15th: Start of Global Economic Map Bot (open source, on github probably or gerrit as a branch of pywikibot)
June 30th: Global Economic Map Meta-Wiki website created and basic layout is determined
June 30th: Contest for logo starts
July 1st: Unit quantity properties implemented on Wikidata (estimated date, could take longer)
July 25th: Completion of Global Economic Map Bot
July 30th: Global Economic Map logo created and used in the Meta-Wiki website
August 1st: Testing of the bot begins
August 10th: Bot begins creating Global Economic Map items and uploading data into the articles

Related projects

Wirschaft: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Wirtschaft

Wikiproject Business: Business https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Business

Wikiproject Companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Companies

Wikiproject Economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Economics

Wikiproject Finance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Finance

Project Economie: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:%C3%89conomie

Progetto Economia: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progetto:Economia

Discussion

Community Notification:

Please paste a link below to where the relevant communities have been notified of this proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?

IdeaLab: Grants:IdeaLab/Global Economic Map

Sister Project Proposal: Global Economic Map

Wikidata task force: wikidata:Wikidata:Global Economic Map task force

Endorsements:

Do you think this project should be selected for an Individual Engagement Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

Community member: add your name and rationale here.
I think this project would be useful for economic data and just as this can be done for United Nations data on economies, this same model could share with the same process United Nations health statistics. Probably also this could be used for many other data sets. I see this as an exploration for radically expanding Wikidata to meet its potential, and even though Wikidata is not set up to host datasets yet, when it does, it would be nice to already have though put into it from projects like this one. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:05, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Economy rule the world. "Imagine a world where each single human have free and clear access to the most relevant aspects of economy by area", that would make informed citizens, and better decisions. Yug (talk) 19:05, 6 December 2013 (UTC) (Wikimaps, Map workshop cartographer, D3js map maker.)
Endorse - This bot would do what I have been trying to do manually for the last couple of years and what I have been pushing at cultural events for the last year. If Wikipedia can increase the accuracy and timeliness of data in the infoboxes about any economic activity, no matter how small, then do it because it would increase the reputation of Wikipedia which in turn will increase eyeballs, stickiness, and recruitment of new editors. Geraldshields11 (talk) 22:11, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Strong Support This is a great idea to collect and organise some really great data. It stands directly in line with our mission of providing freely reusable educational resources. Zellfaze (talk) 13:57, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
Endorse; I think this is a great idea, and would improve the quality of large quantities of high-impact content. bobrayner (talk) 16:31, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
Support Helps give wikidata a face of its own, which could be available in many languages. I can help; I am familiar with some of the sources and classifications professionally. -- econterms (talk) 16:23, 31 May 2014 (UTC)