Movement Strategy/Recommendations/Iteration 2/Partnerships/4

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FAQ

This is an archive for draft recommendations. Visit Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Recommendations to read the final recommendations.

Recommendation 4: Data partnerships approach to fulfill the vision of knowledge as a service for our partners

Q 1 What is your Recommendation?

The movement should continue to pursue data partnerships with large knowledge holding organizations such as libraries, archives, government bodies and research institutes. We recommend prioritising working to bring them into the use of linked data and our software, with a longer term goal of them integrating more into our projects. Wikimedia, when working with data, should encourage the use of linked data, not just our specific linked data projects. This is a wider contribution to creating a semantic web that benefits all - and one that is crucial for attaining the strategic direction of knowledge as a service.

Q 2-1 What assumptions are you making about the future context that led you to make this Recommendation?

Linked data and projects such as Wikidata will continue to be important to our movement and the work of partner organizations.

This will require more data infrastructure and support for users of our linked data models and software.

Q 2-2 What is your thinking and logic behind this recommendation?

Not all data holding partner organizations have the same skills, resources and content. Approaching our movement’s data partnerships will require a broader approach beyond projects such as Wikidata. Encouraging organizations to think about linked data before they decide how they interface with projects such as Wikidata will help manage and distribute capacity (on both sides) and encourage technological innovations in terms of linking the data of knowledge holders and our projects.

Q 3-1 What will change because of the Recommendation?

Our involvement in data will be less focused on our own, single, linked data project, and spread to the many linked data projects of our partners, connecting them together. This will be based on a strategy of engaging in linked data projects that goes beyond developing the Wikidata project.

Q 3-2 Who specifically will be influenced by this recommendation?

Anyone participating in data partnerships, but also third parties and audiences who may benefit from a larger, Wikimedia movement-driven linked data infrastructure. Corporate players that already today make use of Wikidata, and will continue so in the future.

Q 5 How does this Recommendation relate to the current structural reality?

Our current structural reality is that we try and fit content to our projects (licensing, formatting) and then make that content available via our projects. This moves us slightly away from our project focus to a methodology focus that fits our projects in a less specific way but has wider benefits.