Training modules/dashboard/slides/12408-and-important-to-wikipedia
...and important to Wikipedia
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Wikipedia exists in more than 300 languages, each with its own unique articles.
There are countless articles that exist in one language, but not another.
Wikidata, on the other hand, is language-agnostic.
For example the University of South Africa has individual Wikipedia articles in more than 20 languages. As enrollment changes from year to year, information needs to be updated on each Wikipedia language version or it will quickly go out of date. If each Wikipedia language version pulls information from a single Wikidata item, the data needs to be updated only once, and the person updating it doesn't need to be comfortable with all — or any — of the languages used in the various Wikipedia language versions where the article appears. If all the versions pulled enrollment data from the same place, then all the versions would be up-to-date (as long as Wikidata's values are up-to-date).
The structure of Wikidata also makes it easier to identify gaps in certain language Wikipedias and allows the article-creation process to happen faster by calling data from a central location.
Since data on Wikidata is centralized, users from any language can add to and access it. This has implications for equity, collaboration, and access on a global scale.