cdn.media.ccc.de/.../wikidatacon2019-1051-eng-Surviving_marriage_using_Wikidata_hd.mp4

(moderator) Alright. Hello everyone,
thank you for being here for this session.

We're going to hear
from Nicolás and Ivana Giorgetti

on surviving marriage using Wikidata,

I'm sure an applicable topic for all.

I'd also just like to remind
everyone before we start,

I know we get excited,

it's the end of the day,
it's the end of the conference.

Please do not speak
until a microphone comes to you.

If you have something to say,
it's not good for the live stream

or anyone who has
any hearing complications.

So with that note, I will let you begin.

(Nicolás) Okay. Thank you very much.

Well, thank you for coming,
we are Ivana and Nicolás.

We are from Argentina.

So, well, the topic of this talk is
a funny way to say this,

surviving marriage,
because we are married.

We started our relationship
almost in 2005.

I started editing a joke encyclopedia
called Uncyclopedia, way, way back.

It's an encyclopedia
full of memes right now.

And she started doing a talk
about Wikipedia in 2005.

I went to that talk
and it started from there.

After a few years,
with a couple of friends

we started Wikimedia Argentina,
the local chapter,

one of the biggest chapters
in Latin America right now.

She's a founding member,
I joined a few days later.

And then, we married in 2014.

It's like a very nice relationship

- because...
- Is it?

I think...
(laughing)

I'd like to think so.

We are not the only married couple
in Wikimedia Argentina.

Our current president, Ivana--
she's named exactly like her--

- is also married to a Wikipedian...
- But we're the oldest.

...but we are the oldest couple.

So, after a few years we started
not only doing events

about using Wikipedia
and Wikimedia Commons

on public institutions and schools,

like one of the main objectives
in our local chapter,

we have started getting this Wikidata,

or Wikidata--depending
how you like to identify it--

we started using it
and we fell in love with the project.

(Ivana) So, a little context
since we come from Argentina,

and it's a big place.

I know that many of you
are from Europe.

So, we decided to compare
the size of Argentina into Europe.

To give an example,
we're in Buenos Aires...

- Something like...
- Yeah, like this.

And the second biggest city
in Argentina is Córdoba

and it's 700 kilometers away.

It would be like from here,
Amsterdam or Brussels,

so it's a lot of territory.

- It's a very big country.
- Yeah.

So, mostly our big events
happen in Buenos Aires,

and we try to have some events
in different provinces,

but maybe they are not
that big of an event.

Also, open data
is not very open or very data-ish,

because many institutions
don't have--they don't use databases,

are mostly paper lists
or they don't know how to do this.

Something I remember,

that many institutions do have databases,
but they have multiple databases

because one employee got tired
of using the same Access database

or the same Excel spreadsheet
and they started their own

and there is duplicated content.

So, many employees use one database,
many other employees--

or the official one
is another altogether completely.

Also, Wikidata is not very known,

Wikipedia is the biggest one
and it's not that very known,

and also it's quite a lot of work to--

"Oh, this comes from Wikimedia Argentina."
"No, we're not Wikimedia Argentina."

So, imagine the difference
between Wikimedia, Wikipedia,

and now Wikidata?

No way.

Also, we are a developing country.

Actually, tomorrow
is the presidential election.

We thought this would be
a fun thing to say, but then,

see the things happening in Chile and--

(Nicolás) You can see
the situation in Latin America...

- is very peaceful right now.
- Yeah.

So, other type of context--

it's a very interesting place

to try to understand
how the Wikimedia movement

improves and grows very differently
in the developing countries

like Argetina, Chile,
Uruguay, Brazil even,

or even in Africa,

if we compare with European countries
and, especially in GLAM events

or open knowledge situations.

For example, if we're trying to make
some event or some agreement,

many institutions may say, "You know what?
The government is about to change.

So, why don't we try
after the elections have passed?"

Yeah, many things fall apart
between elections,

because, okay, the government
is about to change,

so a lot of employees move away
from their current jobs,

many institutions have become leaderless,

so we have to wait a few years
or months to re-institutionalize

and start our negotiations again.

- Okay...
- It's very frustrating, yeah.

How can we approach people
about Wikidata, Ivana?

(Ivana) It would depend
if we are talking about "Editors"

or people that are not editors yet.

Because if people use Wikipedia,

it's much easier, they already
know how to work with it

but maybe they don't know
about Wikidata yet.

We started with this, what, two years ago.

We started with, "Okay, what is this?
It's a database on what, Wikidata?"

and then we fell in love with it.

So, we started with the editors

and we tried to integrate Wikidata
in all the events we do.

If we are going to do an edit-a-thon,

we try to have a track where we can edit
the Wikidata about the topic.

And, if there is no formal event inside,
we tried to start something,

at least something small,
just to introduce the topic of Wikidata.

(Nicolás) Yeah.

Thankfully, thanks to the new integrations
with Wikidata and Commons like depict

it will become very much easier
to do the job because--

Okay, we have many events
like edit-a-thons,

like we start with people
and edit Wikipedia articles.

We take photos
and upload them in Commons.

We try to integrate
Wikidata with that.

With non users,
people that only read Wikidata

or never knew Wikipedia
or don't trust Wikipedia at all,

we try to do almost the same approach,

but we try to approach people
that already work with databases

or we don't know any yet
maybe because

like librarians...

or people that work with maps,
teachers, students,

we try to approach those people
on their own events

like OpenStreetMap groups
doing their events

or free software events.

In Latin America we have
something like FLISoL,

these events that you go
with your computer

and you get installed
free software in your computer.

We have gone to some presentations there

and introduced them about Wikidata
on other projects too.

(Ivana) Okay. So, we started
by building the small community

because we had some data to start,

but someone had to start uploading it
so that's where we came in.

We started making
small meetings monthly

like the people in Wikimedia France
started on the Atelier,

something like that
but in a smaller scale.

We tried to be regular,
we sometimes get the same people,

new people, people who don't return,
it's a mixed batch of people.

Many people didn't know
about Toolforge and any of those tools,

so we started using Mix 'n' Match,
OpenRefine...

- Especially, OpenRefine.
- Yeah, we did one on depicts.

And sometimes, when we are many
and we have many newcomers,

we split in two,

so one of us will go and do a small talk

about, "Okay, this is Wikidata,
this is the basics,"

and the other part will do
something more advanced.

Yeah. More advanced or more technical

because one thing that--personally,

I want to attract
more technical people on Wikidata.

In our local community,
the technical people

like developers or people that know
how to code is very small,

so I want to attract them
and teach them like,

"Okay, do you know Python?

I can teach you
about how to use Pywikibot,

how to use then to get
to the API for Wikidata

and do some queries there,
so you can use it on your program.

Or you want to do a Telegram bot
or a Whatsapp bot?

You can do that
with the documentation you have.

So, we try to integrate that
and some events too.

Bueno.

Well, sorry.

How about institutions?
GLAM and beyond.

So this is a very old joke,
I know we get that, right, but--

especially in Latin America,
GLAM is not just GLAM,

maybe it's Death Metal too
and other metal genres.

I really like Black Metal--

but not all databases
come from galleries,

libraries, museums--

What does the A stand for?

- Museums.
- Archives, sorry.

I just want to say
that was a terrible joke.

Yeah. Thank you.
(laughing)

So, the data comes in mysterious ways.

We try to locate people

that are not identified
by GLAM standard,

like many NGO's
or small groups of people

who have a common goal
or a common hobby, like--

Latin America have something
like friends of the tram,

something like that.

We have archives.

They have all the archive of old books.

Yeah. Let me [explain this].

We haven't had a tram system
like for 50 years,

so it's something historical,

and there's a group of people
who have a library

about the history of the tram
in Buenos Aires,

they even have an old tram
that they restored.

Well, once we did articles on there,
and it was super useful--

but there wasn't Wikidata back then,
or we didn't know obout Wikidata.

Yeah. We had to maybe try
to go back for them again,

but many, many institutions--

right now it's
in the middle of the elections.

There are many NGO's that track
politician information

in our local government,
nationally or in provinces,

the open data is not very open.

So, if you want to know when
is the birth date of a certain politician,

the first source is Wikipedia,
for example.

So, they try to get their own databases,

so we try to talk to them
about liberating that database in CC0,

and we can also upload them
to Commons, or Wikidata, sorry.

I especially talk to communities about

we share some similar goals
like open knowledge,

open and free knowledge.

The simpler way to find things
is free software community, maybe,

and OpenStreetMap groups
and other examples.

So, what are we hoping to do next?

We have many steps ahead.

We are still a small community

but we want to make
more technical events,

more events dedicated
to how to use ToolForge.

I already talked to many people
in Argentina or in Chile

that didn't know about the existence
of many of the tools like,

"Okay, I kind of upload a database
using OpenRefine

and maybe use Mix 'n' Match
to use some alternative control."

And it was, "Mix 'n' what?"

So many, many tools--

many of the content
of the technical documents

about Wikidata and other projects
are very hard to find

in some respect
to the less technical community,

especially in countries

with English as a non natural language,

like in the Spanish world.

Our country mainly uses
Spanish or Portuguese.

It's very hard to find information
in our language.

So thankfully, the people in Brazil
are doing an excellent job

with the Wikidata labs.

We are going to try to imitate that,

doing it in Spanish
for the rest of Latin America.

Doing something like a Women Tech Storm.

Yeah, for those
who don't know in the Netherlands,

they have resorted to some kind
of smaller events called tech storms.

For just chance, I happened to be
in one and I liked the format.

And I think it's something
that we can replicate in a smaller scale

because it was an event
of 30 or some people.

We have the capacity to do that
and maybe we don't need a huge event.

We just need one day or just a weekend.

And I think that would be
an important contribution

if we could just gather people.

Maybe have a speaker from Chile
or Brazil or something more regional.

We think it's a good start.

Yeah, especially in countries
like Argentina,

where not many people know
and don't understand English,

especially because it's not
an obligatory second language.

So, if you go into a school
that doesn't have a second language,

you are busted.

But we try.

(laughing)
We're going to try.

So, how can I start
or more exactly can we start?

So, the best thing we have
is building a community,

maybe building from scrap,
maybe the community is already built--

we've got to detect that
and formalize in a way about that.

So, about approaching people
from other projects.

Again, free software.

Or, just like we have in 2007
started a community

because a bunch of nerds
liked to edit Wikipedia.

So, it would be funny to start
a non-government organization

to propose to use Wikipedia
in schools, for example.

- And now we have an office.
- And now we have an office...

- And some staff.
- ...and people and staff.

- So it's very--
- It happens.

I'm the treasurer there.

I pay people's salaries. It's crazy.

So then we go to many--

all the events that began,
maybe not Wikimedia-related,

maybe like a bunch of librarians

get together to talk about improvements.

We go there and propose,
"Okay, you can use Wikidata

or you can use Wikipedia
in your day-to-day life."

We go to schools,
we go to public institutions,

or the all the GLAM of the public sector,

- like archives...
- Libraries.

...museums, libraries, especially.

We go there and say,
"Okay, Wikidata exists,

you can improve your life,
we can improve our content,

we need to work together on all that."

There are many stones in our way,

especially with the government changes
and all that jazz,

but maybe it starts very small,

like a bunch of--

okay, five people have a common goal,
like we like to take photos.

In our town, there are ten statues,
go there and take photos.

And those photos,
you can upload them in Commons,

and you can do the pics
about that.

Not exactly because another thing
if we don't have freedom of panorama,

- that's another thing.
- Ok, that...

- But you get the idea.
- We don't talk about that,

but especially in Argentina,
we did a very huge event,

like the sum of our small communities
in Buenos Aires.

There were many hundreds
of small cities or towns

that didn't have their own article
or their own Wikidata element

and no multimedia content at all.

We go there, we take pictures,

we talk about people
who live in that town,

and start making history in a way,

preserving all that exists
in our huge country.

So, on other things that we learned,
that we started--

Okay, we maybe started doing
discourse servers

or something like that,
like the digital community, and it works

until a point.

It's very interesting to have
a person face-to-face meeting,

maybe monthly or however you can,
to improve the relationships.

(Ivana) I think that was
of our first meetup.

- Yeah.
- We were a bunch of people.

Yeah. We were a huge bunch.

There are people
from the government there too,

that work on
the cartographical institution,

who works on all the maps in the country.

It wasn't from the OpenStreetMap
community

and they fell in love with Wikidata,
so that's a win.

But in person is better
than online in many ways.

We try to make...

...make that community
a reality in person.

It's a huge gap, it's a huge...

(speaking in spanish)

- ...a challenge. Thank you.
- Challenge.

it's a huge challenge
because it's a big country,

but we are working on it.

What about funding?

We are many institutions,
not many people know how to get funds.

Wikimedia Foundation has ways
to make grants about events.

If you have a working group,
you can propose to get a small grant to--

"We need to start a organization
and we want to do that,

we got to liberate the contents
of this library database."

It's going to take work.

I don't mean to say

that I need the Wikimedia Foundation
to pay me a salary to do that.

No, that's not the case,
I'm against that exactly.

But it's like I need money
to go to that town and take pictures.

I need money to create a small event
or rent a small space,

to get WiFi and create an event

to talk to 50 people
about how to use Wikipedia...

- With food.
- ...with food.

- Food is so special.
- Very important.

Very important in all events
is the food and drinks.

Especially alcoholic drinks,
but that comes after.

A lot of people,
especially in our countries,

didn't know about--

many people speak about Wikipedia
and say Wikipedia Argentina

or Wikipedia Chile, for example,
Wikipedia Uruguay,

about that P...
just the encyclopedia,

and the Wikimedia Foundation
does not exist.

It's like a big mist that shows
the money after a few years.

It's really hard to find people to know

that Wikipedia is founded
by the Wikimedia Foundation

and several other local institutions,

like local chapters and user groups
that promote the use.

We need to evangelize people about that.

The most important thing
is that it started slow and steady,

especially steady, like monthly meetups,

it goes a long way.

- Yep.
- The perseverance [inaudible].

So, why don't we start?

So, how to survive marriage?

This is the last part, but--

once Johnny Cash said that the secret
of a perfect marriage and a long marriage

is separate bathrooms...

- And he was right.
- ...and he was totally right,

but maybe too is open data,
because we are working

under the same goal like promoting
and using open knowledge

like Wikidata and other things
and I love her for it.

So, thank you for listening to us.

(applause)

Forgive me in advance for my bad English.

(moderator) Oh, we got two minutes left.

How about we have a couple
of very small questions for...

- Just tiny questions, tiny questions.
- Anyone has questions?

(moderator) Yeah. Just a moment.

(person 1) Thank you a lot for your talk.

One thing I noticed is--
in the Netherlands

I started out with GLAM
volunteer work as well 15 years ago--

I feel very old now--

and one thing I really noticed is,

to make sure that you get
many GLAMs on board,

it really helps if you get one
that's pretty big.

So, I could maybe give it
as a kind of suggestion

that if you try to find like
a very prestigious museum--

I mean, it's probably harder to do that--

but if you get one museum
with one person

who is sympathetic to the cause,

and you get them over and like--

we did one project in Netherlands
called Wiki Loves Art

that we started out with maybe
two or three museums

and then suddenly,
the Van Gogh Museum participated

and then, also that we got like 30 calls
from museums like,

"I want to be part of this too."

Yeah, the domino effect of...

- The domino effect, yeah.
- Yeah. We are starting to go into museums

talking about, "Do you know
about what the Met does with Wikidata?

Here's a few links."

So after that, the people are like,

"Oh, we can start doing something similar,

and you can come here
and teach me how to do it?"

It's like, "Yes, if you give me the data,
that sweet, sweet data."

But it's a very interesting topic
because not only in the GLAMS,

in public institutions too,

like many public institutions
have a dream

about getting all the data in one place
and in a structured way.

It's a long project,
but many people are starting

to go, okay, using Wikibase
as a start-up, we can--

okay, local governments,
then talk with the nation about--

Okay, or cadastre, like city information
is in a database that is open

to the public and to the government.

We are starting to teach them
about these tools too,

but the domino effect is very important.

But thank you.

(person 2) Hello, I was just going to say
that it's a good thing in your case

is that the government did not think
that this data will be sold

and they gave it to them.

Because, in my case, I think
they will hold on onto the data

until they find some commercial way
to get profit out of it.

(person 3) Hi, it's [inaudible],
from Palestine.

Thank you for your session
and your presentation.

- The subject is cool
- Thank you.

I just want to say
that we are in the Levant area.

As you know, the Levant area
consists of four countries,

Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

We face the same problems that you face.

We are far apart--I know some users
from more than five years,

but I saw them one time.

Also, a lot of Wikimedians in Palestine
do not use Wikidata and that's a problem.

I just want to say the difference
between Wikimedia and Wikipedia.

When I traveled into this conference,

the Palestinian police stopped me
and arrested me for 40 minutes.

They asked me where I'm going to travel
and who gave me the scholarship.

I answered all these questions
in one minute

and I spent the rest 39 minutes

just explaining the difference
between Wikimedia and Wikipedia.

They didn't understand;
they just got bored and told me just go.

And I face these problems too.

Thank you for your presentation
and I wish you the best.

Thank you.

(person 4) Just a quick note on that.

It happened to me kind of twice
at the U.S. customs.

Yeah, we got attacked in Kuwait,
the local chapter...

- Oh, yeah.
- ...about a few days ago by the media,

about how Wikipedia Argentina
is a political statement

about the opposition,
the current opposition.

The current relation is like
our current government and the opposition.

Like the Kirchnerismo
and Wikipedia is written with a K,

so we are the opposition.

And we got to talking about it

and in a 25-minute sermon in prime time

talking about how our local chapter
works to promote and define

the current government in Argentina.

And especially that Wikipedia with a P,
Argentina like...

We are not Wikipedia.
We're going to tattoo this like...

I need a T-shirt with that.

(moderator) Any other questions?

So we run into it.

(person 5) Yeah, I'll be quick,
it's not really a question is just a--

First of all, thank you so much.

I'm [Han], I'm the conference grant
program officer for the foundations.

So, I just wanted to use this platform,
as you just mentioned,

that we provide grants,
all kinds of grants.

So I really encourage you to submit
a proposal for small grants,

rapid grants, projects,

but I specifically support
conference grants,

and I just wanted to say
that we're very much looking

to fund Wikidata conferences,
especially in emerging communities,

but in general--

So, I really encourage you,

everyone here going back
to their local communities.

A conference doesn't have to be
like this huge conference.

A conference can be smaller

with 20, 30, whatever, participants,
just as long as it has an impact,

and I know that gathering
around such an issue

has a lot of impact.

So, I'm really encouraging you
to submit and to talk to me

if you have any questions.

Not only the money is part of things.

You go and they know
how to organize an event.

Like, we hope to rent a place
or to set up the audio, the video...

- WiFi is very important.
- ...WiFi is very important.

(laughter)

(moderator) I think we should close,

- so thank you very much for attending...
- Thank you.

...and thank you
for presenting your speech,

you did it well,

and enjoy the break!

(applause)
Thank you.