Netart repository

Welcome to Wikibase Cloud!

This is your main page. For the start we have assembled some information for you that we think might be useful. This page is supposed to work for you. Feel free to change it to whatever you would like it to be. You can always copy its content to another place or just remove it entirely whenever you're ready.
We'd also be happy to hear if this page was helpful for you and/or what we could improve via our contact form. Thanks!

Where to start

Have a look at some possible first steps you could take after creating your new wikibase.

What do i need to know about how Wikibase works?

Wikibase ecosystem

There are many Wikibases in the ecosystem. The community around Wikibase includes Wikibase users, partners, volunteer developers and tool builders, forming the vibrant and diverse Wikibase Ecosystem. In this ecosystem, we imagine that one day all the Wikibase instances will be connected between themselves and back to Wikidata.

How is information structured?

Data is stored in Wikibase in the shape of Items. Each item is accorded its own page. Items are used to represent all the things in human knowledge, including topics, concepts, and objects. For example, the "1988 Summer Olympics", "love", "Elvis Presley", and "gorilla" can all be items. Items are made up of Statements that describe detailed characteristics of an Item. A statement (graph format: Subject-Predicate-Object) is how the information we know about an item - the data we have about it - gets recorded in your Wikibase instance. This happens by pairing a property with at least one value; this pair is at the heart of a statement. Statements also serve to connect items to each other, resulting in a linked data structure.

Check out this visualization of the linked data structure

The property in a statement describes the data value, and can be thought of as a category of data like "color", "population," or "Commons media" (files hosted on Wikimedia Commons). The value in the statement is the actual piece of data that describes the item. Each property has a data type which defines the kind of values allowed in statements with that property. For example, the property “date of birth” will only accept data in the format of a date.

Check out this visualisation of the structure of an item

Example In order to record information about the occupation of Marie Curie, you would need to add a statement to the item for Marie Curie (Q7186). Using the property, occupation (P106), you could then add the value physicist (Q169470). You could also add the value chemist (Q593644). Note how both chemist and physicist are each their own item, thereby allowing Marie Curie to be linked to these items.

How to create items + properties + (what is a good property)

Create a new Item with Special:NewItem on the menu to the left. You will be taken to a page that asks you to give the new item a label and a description. When you're done, click "Create".

Create the property with Special:NewProperty. Property entities can be edited like item entities with labels, descriptions, aliases, and statements. Property labels should be as unambiguous as possible so that it is clear to a user which property is the correct one to use when editing items and adding statements. Properties rarely refer to commonly known concepts but they are more constructs of the Wikidata with specific meanings. Unlike items, property labels must be unique. Property descriptions are less relevant for disambiguation but they should provide enough information about the scope and context of the property so that users understand appropriate usage of the property without having to consult additional help. Property aliases should include all alternative ways of referring to the property.

Example: property: P161 label: cast member description: actor performing live for a camera or audience aliases: film starring; actor; actress; starring

To create and delete data using tools, have a look at this list in the documentation.

Another way is via the Wikibase API that allows querying, adding, removing and editing information on Wikidata or any other Wikibase instance. A new version of the API is in the works with the REST API.

Don’t panic -> links to help

This is a lot of information and possibilities and might seem daunting. Don’t panic. There’s a lot of documentation for you to read, many other Wikibases you can look at to get inspired, a community that is happy to help out with any questions, and the development team who’s happy to support you where needed.

Last but not least

To edit this page, make sure you are logged in and click on -edit- on the top right of this page to change or remove the content.

Joachim Blank