Wikinotebooks
| Wikinotebooks | |
|---|---|
| Status of the proposal | |
| Status | under discussion |
| Details of the proposal | |
| Project description | A Wikinotebooks project would enable new, wiki-style, multi-user collaboration scenarios with respect to notebook-based computing in a way tightly integrated with the Wikimedia software ecosystem. |
| Is it a multilingual wiki? | Many language versions |
| Potential number of languages | Many |
| Proposed tagline | A Wiki for Computational Notebooks |
| Technical requirements | |
| New features to require | Coming soon |
Introduction
editA Wikinotebooks project would enable new, wiki-style, multi-user collaboration scenarios with respect to notebook-based computing in a way tightly integrated with the Wikimedia software ecosystem.
Use cases
editScience and mathematics
editComputational notebooks can be tools for scientific and mathematical research and development.
Education
editComputational notebooks can have educational applications.
Data analysis and visualization
editComputational notebooks can be tools for data analysis and visualization.
Interactive dashboards
editComputational notebooks can be used to create and share interactive dashboards.
Artificial intelligence
editComputational notebooks can be used to create and interact with large language models, intelligent agents, and multi-agent systems.
Multimedia generation
editWith notebook-based computing, multimedia resources could be generated by both people and AI systems, including: 3D graphics, animations, audio, charts, diagrams, figures, graphs, images, infographics, maps, mathematical expressions, pictures, tables, text, and video.
Editors would be able to log on to Wikinotebooks, create a new notebook, query data from Wikidata, run some program logic (e.g., JavaScript, Lua, or Python) on that data to generate a chart or infographic, save it to Commons, and then add it to a Wikipedia article.
Computational notebooks would be stored on Wikinotebooks, generated multimedia resources would be stored on Commons, and these notebooks and multimedia resources would remain interconnected.
Persisted interconnectivity between data, structured queries, computational notebooks, and multimedia resources would allow features including data-binding, where updates to backing data on Wikidata would result in automatic updates to multimedia resources, e.g., charts or infographics, and/or in notifications to interested editors that new revisions or versions were available.
Discussion
editBring your own computing
editSome notebooks will be able to be processed in a Web browser (see also: Jupyter Lite). Others will require a cloud computing service provider and, perhaps, the configuration of other services.
As envisioned, users will be able to process notebooks on the cloud computing resources of their choice. Instead of having to utilize Wikimedia Cloud Services (see also: PAWS: A Web Shell (PAWS)), users will be able to configure their accounts so as to utilize their preferred cloud-computing service providers and those other services required by notebooks.
Wiki-related features
editComputational notebooks, having both document and code cells, could:
- be edited, revised, and improved.
- have revision histories or changelogs.
- have accompanying talk pages, discussion pages, or structured forums for collaboration.
- be categorized and organized.
- be searched for, retrieved, and reused.
- hyperlink to one another and to other Wikimedia content.
- be invoked or consumed through wiki-templates with and without input parameters; output cells of computational notebooks could be included or transcluded into other wiki content, e.g., Wikipedia articles.
Other features
editComputational notebooks could:
- be created using task-specific boilerplates or input forms.
- be forked, cloned, or copied.
- be imported from popular formats, e.g., the Jupyter notebooks format.
- be exported to popular formats, e.g., the Jupyter notebook format, to be downloaded by users.
Related projects
edit- Jupyter is "a large umbrella project that covers many different software offerings and tools, including the popular Jupyter Notebook and JupyterLab web-based notebook authoring and editing applications. The Jupyter project and its subprojects all center around providing tools (and standards) for interactive computing with computational notebooks."
- Jupyter AI "brings generative AI to Jupyter. Jupyter AI provides a user-friendly and powerful way to explore generative AI models in notebooks and improve your productivity".
- JupyterHub "brings the power of notebooks to groups of users. It gives users access to computational environments and resources without burdening the users with installation and maintenance tasks."
- Jupyter Lite is "a JupyterLab distribution that runs entirely in the browser built from the ground-up using JupyterLab components and extensions."
- PAWS: A Web Shell (PAWS) is "a Jupyter notebook deployment hosted by Wikimedia."
- Differences between PAWS and the proposed Wikinotebooks project include, but are not limited to:
- intended userbase – PAWS is intended for users contributing to Wikimedia's technical projects and Wikinotebooks would be intended for a broader userbase contributing to its growing collection of computational notebooks.
- bring your own computing – as envisioned, Wikinotebooks users would be able to configure, connect to, and utilize remote cloud-computing resources and other services utilized by notebooks.
- wiki integration – Wikinotebooks would be a wiki, integrated into wiki technologies, as mentioned above in the Discussion section.
- frontend concepts – Wikinotebooks' Web frontend would match other Wikimedia websites, being themeable and styleable.
- Differences between PAWS and the proposed Wikinotebooks project include, but are not limited to: