Friday, March 17, 2017

#Wikimedia - Professor Chuck Stone, Tuskegee airman and member of Alpha Phi Alpha

Professor Stone is the founding NABJ President, he was included in the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame in 2004 and he received the Congressional Gold Medal from President Bush.

The description for the Wikidata item for Mr Stone is "American air force officer". This will not change; it is based on a bot that at one time decided that this would do. The automated description is: "US-American journalist (1924–2014); National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame and Congressional Gold Medal; member of Tuskegee AirmenAlpha Phi Alpha, and World Policy Council ♂" and the beauty is that this is updated as more information becomes available.

When you consider the quality of the information for Mr Stone in Wikidata, today 10 statements were added to the item. He has been added to the hall of fame with many others including some people Wikipedia does not know about. The World Policy Council is connected to Alpha Phi Alpha. The data is not complete; there is more to add.

When we consider quality, most of the data was added thanks to information available in the English article of Wikipedia. Yet there is information available that could find its way from Wikidata; how do we inform Wikipedia about the people who became part of the hall of fame for instance. Quality for Wikidata is not in single items, it is in how it connects and how it is used. With this realisation we learn from where some say Wikidata and Wikipedia fails and achieve the success that our combined data offers.
Thanks,
      GerardM

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