Wikibase Community User Group/Reports/2022

In 2022 the Wikibase Community User Group continued its primary activity of supporting Wikibase users through its mailing list and Wikibase Community on Telegram - the busiest venue of discussion outside of meetings.

Many members started joining the group to discuss Wikibase.cloud in a separate mailing list and Telegram channel (established for the earlier WBStack), although conversations frequently spilt between them.

No grants were solicited from WMF for the activities of the group, though the possibility was discussed.

Meetings

Seven hour-long videoconferencing meetings were held with varying topics; attendance varied from 4-10 (~8):

• January - 2021 annual report, pending Wikibase.cloud launch (mailing list), WMDE survey on Wikibase and alternatives, ARM64 build (email)
• February - WBStack to Wikibase.cloud migration and new user signup, profiling and fast bulk import, use of Cradle and Shape Expressions
• March - LexBib presentation, discussion of PhiloBiblon migration requirements and issues, SPARQL property paths for reciprocal relationships
• April - Wikimedia Hackathon (Wikibase and Wikidata room), presenting Wikibase Integrator, Wikibase.cloud migration batches (from WBStack)
• June - WB.Cloud product manager, QuickStatements and integration with Scholia, federated queries, WMF funding for WB extension development, external URI links (formatterUrlProperty)
• October - More WMDE WB "Suite" staff, lexical and bibliographical data using Wikibase, reasons for using Wikibase, institutional requirements (formal guarantees for Cloud service with research data management plan), slow Cloud SPARQL/WDQS response times (task T317203)
• November - planning for the future, discussion of Wikibase Registry (migrated in mid-2023) and Q&A knowledgebase and venues for discussion, personal institutional case-studies (why/when use Cloud vs. Suite vs. Wikidata)

Selected mailing list threads

While the majority of issues were discussed on Telegram, the mailing list remained a useful venue for longer questions and explanations.

• May 1: Wikibase relational schema
• May 5: Automate values in your Wikibase (Extension:AutomatedValues)
• June 14: Using a wikibase.cloud instance through Javascript
• June 30: Getting the formatter URL to work for external IDs in a Wikibase
• July 4: Changing URIs and doubts about $wgServer
• July 29: Understanding and manipulating the WDQS and its updater - Some items not deleted from the index
• August 1: Creating more documentation on 'statement Sections'
• August 1: use cases for bots
• October 4: reset a Wikibase.cloud instance to empty (deleted instances don't count for Wikibase.cloud limit)
• December 15: Postdoc, PhDs, and technician opportunities related to Wikibase project
• December 22: proof of concept of a Wikibase "fast import" API

Administrative control of the mailing list was assumed by the new primary contacts in August (task T321090); WMDE controls the Wikibase.cloud list.