Jump to content

Wikidata:Development plan

Shortcuts: WD:DP, WD:DEVPLAN
From Wikidata
Development plan Usability and usefulness Status updates Development input Contact the development team


You will find below the roadmap of the software development team (Wikimedia Deutschland) for Wikidata and Wikibase for 2025. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to use the talk page or write on Wikidata:Report a technical problem. Please note that the roadmap presents the main projects that the development team will work on during 2025. Development may continue for some of these projects beyond that period. At the beginning of each quarter, this page will be updated to include the development estimates for that quarter. Required tasks such as maintenance and bug fixes are not mentioned in the roadmap, but will be included in the workflow over the year. The roadmap is based on estimations and will evolve during the year. The roadmap doesn't contain all the events we're attending or organizing.

Wikidata as a platform

Empower the community to increase data quality

We must ensure that our socio-technical system helps editors increase the quality of Wikidata’s existing data and contribute new high-quality data.

Entity Schema build-out and integration

Objective:

Wikidata editors have better support for data quality and modelling work.

Description:

In 2024 we deployed the EntitySchema datatype so that classes of Items are connected to the EntitySchemas they are governed by. In 2025 we will continue our work through increased visibility, outreach and education to see the larger impact we want EntitySchemas to have.

Upcoming Activities:
  • Finalise the last pieces of EntitySchema v2 and integration of EntitySchemas into the Wikidata ecosystem (Q1)
  • Focus on outreach, helping editors understand how EntitySchemas can be used in their workflows and in their day-to-day editing (Q2)
  • We will continue our outreach to tool builders on ways they can utilise EntitySchemas in their tools (Q3) (Q4)
  • We will continue outreach to identify key tool builders to discuss building tools utilising EntitySchemas. Eg. So9q created SPARQL Recent Changes 2 that validates recent changes made on Wikidata against an EntitySchema (Q4)

WikiProjects

Objective:

Grow and sustain engagement within the core Wikidata editing community, eespecially around shared interest areas.

Description:

Currently, WikiProjects for Wikidata are a little neglected and don’t have any visibility on Wikidata. We would like to bring more awareness to the WikiProject communities and help editors become more connected around their areas of interest.

Upcoming Activities:
  • Begin research and conducted interviews with editors. We're looking into what drives and blocks engagement on Wiki Projects and where we can make a difference (Q1)
  • Continue this research and conversations with editors to find opportunities to support and highlight Wiki Projects (Q2)
  • Work on ways we can bring more visibility and engagement on Wiki Projects (Q3)
  • Run a WikiProject awareness campaign (Q4)
  • Create a new Wikidata onboarding homepage that will also feature WikiProjects (Q4)

Facilitate equity in decision-making

We want to ensure that diverse perspectives come into play as fundamental decisions are made for and about Wikidata. By doing so we can better support knowledge often underrepresented in knowledge graphs.

Events

Objective:

Foster connections among editors through both virtual and in-person gatherings.

Description:

We will organize events to bring the Wikidata community together and enable people to move closer into the core of the community.

Upcoming Activities:
  • Host the Data Reuse Days to share knowledge on reusing Wikidata’s data. The event will showcass access methods, how to use them, and connect reusers and editors to discuss challenges and how their needs can be better supported (Q1)
  • Host the virtual WikidataCon 2025 conference (Q4)
  • Host a call to celebrate Wikidata's 13th birthday and support satellite events globally (Q4)

Partnerships

Objective:

Support at least two communities or institutions outside of North America and Western Europe in growing their Wikidata activities.

Description:

To ensure increased participation and contributions on Wikidata from underrepresented parts of the world, we will empower existing contributors to organise events and to utilise and integrate Wikidata into their work.

Upcoming Activities:
  • Facilitate workshop for Latin American librarians at WikiLibCon (Q1)
  • Engage with the Climate Justice Working Group in Latin America to support their increased use of Wikidata (Q1)
  • Reach out to local Wikimedia communities in East Africa to explore editor challenges and discuss potential solutions (Q1)
  • Organise Wikidata train-the-trainer workshops with the local usergroups across East Africa to train them on a variety of Wikidata topics including lexicographical data, use of mass editing tools, and improving data quality on Wikidata (Q2)

Groundwork

We need to invest time and effort into some core parts of Wikidata.

Item editing experience improvements

Objective:

Make improvements to the manual editing of Items (focused on mobile editing).

Description:

We will improve a part of how Items are edited manually.

Upcoming Activities:
  • Develop prototype to test statement editing on Items for mobile and have it finalized and ready for user testing (Q1)
  • Introduce project to the community and gather a number of sign ups for the user testing (Q1)
  • We have selected six editors who would like to expand their editing on Wikidata, but are limited by the current functionality on mobile. We will be setting up user tests with this group in April (Q1)
  • Conduct mobile editing prototype tests and iterate based on editor feedback (Q2)
  • Share updated prototypes with the wider community for feedback (Q2)
  • Begin technical exploration of implementation approaches (Q2)
  • Finalise designs and start development on the improved mobile editing flow (Q2)
  • Finalise new Item statement UI (Q3)
  • Enable editing statements on Items on mobile (Q3)
  • Continue testing mobile editing of statements on Beta and prepare for a limited feature-flag rollout on Wikidata (Q4)

Enable Wikimedia Projects to share their workload

The Wikimedia Projects should be able to rely on Wikidata to share their workload across language and project family boundaries.

Objective:
  • Increase awareness and understanding of Wikidata integrations across Wikimedia projects.
  • Make it easier for Wikipedia editors to monitor and act on Wikidata changes relevant to their work.
Description:

We are integrating Wikidata edits directly into Wikipedia's Watchlists and recent Changes in a clear, human-readable format. By making these changes more transparent, editors can better understand changes affecting the articles and content they care about, and take action when needed.

Upcoming activities:
  • Complete background research and user-interviews and begin refinement of key technical work-areas
  • Host a Wikidata-days style online event with a focus on Wikidata's use within the Wikimedia Projects Wikidata and Sister Projects (Q2)

Strengthen underrepresented languages

More people need access to knowledge and technology presented in their own language, and content in that language should be accessible to all. Language data is a fundamental building block in reaching that goal.

Wikidata Software Collaboration

Objective:

We have trusting and sustainable relationships with our partners.

Description:

We want our partners, the Software Team in Indonesia, the Igbo Wikimedians User Group, and Wikimedia Brazil, to have everything they need to implement their projects.

Upcoming Activities:
  • Wikidata Software Collaboration Indonesia
    • Implemented accessibility improvements for Wikidata:Lexica, their micro-contribution tool for editing lexicographical data on Wikidata, including keyboard navigation for cards and dialogs, adding ARIA labeling for icon-only buttons and other. (Q1)
    • Implemented and deployed hyphenation activity (Q1)
    • Added support for showing Senses written in non-English languages (Q1)
    • Improved Sense display logic for better clarity (Q1)
    • Completed accessibility feature and UX improvements (Q2)
    • Expanded multilingual support and finalized RTL implementation (Q2)
    • Enabled support for 25+ languages (Q2)
    • Prepared backend and API docs (Q2)
    • Organize for sustainability including (Q3)
      • extensive technical documentation including architecture decision records
      • Documentation on how to add new languages to Lexica (Lexeme + display), and how to change UI sections (About, header/footer, card)
    • Shipping of minor features and polish existing interface of Lexica, including implementation of snap scrolling vibration for hyphenation activity (Q3)
    • Maintenance of Lexica, including keeping translations up to date via translatewiki settings (Q3)
  • Igbo Wikimedia User Group
  • Wikimedia Brasil
    • Deployment of 6 of the most desired functionalities in QuickStatements 3.0, including (Q1)
      • Add or remove qualifiers and references preserving the rest of the statement
      • Add multiple statements with different qualifiers;
      • Set and edit ranks for statements;
      • Aggregate set of commands of the same item in one unique edit;
      • Improve error report before running the batches;
      • Report of the batches (items edited, created and errors).
    • Publication of the related user stories (Q2)
    • Further updates of QuickStatements 3.0, including (Q2)
      • implementation of the rerun button,
      • allowing multiple Wikibase URLs,
      • implementations of statistics page for the tool,
      • changes in the interface to display localized values,
      • qualifiers and references,
      • specification of calendar for date values,
      • specification of precision and globe for coordinated values

Wikibase Cloud

As part of Wikimedia’s commitment to free, accessible, and educational content, we’ll ensure that the data hosted in Wikibase Cloud’s infrastructure reflects Wikimedia’s mission and is compliant with the law. In order to do this, we must better understand the intended purpose of each instance permanently running in our infrastructure (see Wiki Segmentation). At the same time, we want to make sure that Cloud remains an inclusive space for marginalized knowledge (see DEI).

We realize that successful migration of data within the ecosystem would only be possible if the communities had the same capabilities as they do in their current home. We will make sure that all of our platforms are similar to each other in terms of installed software and features (see Interoperability). We will also improve on the interconnectedness of the data within the Wikibase ecosystem, so that even after migration communities could benefit from ontologies of Wikidata and other Wikibases. Specifically, the Wikibase Cloud team will be responsible for improvements of UX with federated queries for all products in the ecosystem (see Query Federation).

Once all prerequisites are met, the data governance policies will be enforced and data within the ecosystem will be migrated to appropriate platforms (see Data Redistribution).

Data Governance Policies

Objective:

Wikidata and Wikibase communities have clarity about the future social and technical boundaries and scope of Wikidata and the Wikibase Ecosystem, allowing them to make informed decisions on where and how to host their data.

Q1:
  • Anounce initiative to establish data governance
Q2:
  • Announce about our new strategy and the data governance initiative.
  • Facilitate community-centered discussions and decision-making processes around data governance policies.
Q3:
  • Complete and synthesize the community conversations around the acceptable use policy (to be continued in Q4)
Q4:
  • Re-synthesize the insights from the data governance conversations.
  • Create the first draft of Cloud’s acceptable use policy and share internally for feedback.
  • Decide on how users will declare their contribution to knowledge equity in the ecosystem as part of the policy implementation process.

Wiki Segmentation

Objective:

WMDE is able to differentiate between the instances intended to be used to contribute knowledge to the Wikibase ecosystem and the temporary instances used for experimentation and data staging.

Q1:

Users must specify intended purpose, lifespan and target audience when they create a new instance.

Q2:
  • Users can specify/update intended purpose, lifespan and target audience for existing instances in the wiki profile.
  • We explored ways to encourage the managers of existing active instances to fill out the wiki profile.
Q3:

Requested managers of active instances to fill out missing information about their intended purpose.

Q4:

Achieve understanding of the purposes of at least 90% of active instances.

Data Redistribution

Objective:

The Wikibase Cloud infrastructure provides hosting for instances with knowledge that meets the criteria described in the data governance policies for Wikidata and the Wikibase ecosystem.

Q1:

We drafted a first proposal for how the process of evaluation of compliance with the data governance policies could look like.

Q2:
  • We gathered feedback and ideas for the process as part of community-centered conversations around data governance policies.(planned but not achieved)
  • Users can specify metadata that will allow us to evaluate potential compliance with the policies (such as short description and licensing info). (planned but not achieved).
Q3:

Not pursued.

Q4:

Not pursued.

DEI

Objective:

Users holding and contributing marginalized knowledge find Wikibase Cloud attractive for their use cases and are accepted into the Cloud infrastructure.

Q1

Not pursued.

Q2:
  • Users can specify whether their instance holds marginalized knowledge to support their case when the data governance policies are established. (planned but not achieved)
  • We discovered what informational support we can provide to holders of marginalized knowledge and made a plan for guides/examples.
  • We started a series of publications with stories about holders of marginalized knowledge using Wikibase Cloud.
Q3:

No new guides published.

Q4:

Prepare 2 more examples/guides and submit them for review to relevant communities.

Query Federation

Objective:

The ability to federate knowledge across instances has improved, creating a viable path for taking load off Wikidata. Specifically, interconnectedness between Wikibase instances increases through query federation.

Q1:

The team had an introduction to SPARQL and query federation.

Q2:'
  • Establish definitions and common vocabulary regarding federation.
  • Defined logic for measuring query federation across the ecosystem (including Wikidata and Suite)
  • Improved query analytics on Wikidata and focused on expanding the Wikidata Allowlist.
Q3:
  • Arrived at a baseline for the federation metric (investigated, later de-prioritized).
  • Delivered 13 new endpoints added to the Wikidata Allowlist; 14 more to be requested.
  • Hiring of contractor for analytics infrastructure — not pursued.
Q4:
  • Expose the Wikidata Allowlist via API.
  • Sync Cloud Allowlist with Wikidata Allowlist.
  • Update documentation for nominating endpoints to the Wikidata Allowlist.
  • Request addition of endpoints discovered in the previous quarter to the Allowlist.


Interoperability

Objective:

Ensure interoperability of the ecosystem to enable migration of users away from Wikidata to Cloud and facilitate federation.

Q1:

Updated Cradle and Quick Statements; initiated upgrade to MW 1.43.

Q2:

Not pursued.

Q3:

Upgrade to MW 1.43 in progress.

Q4:

Complete upgrade to MW 1.43.

Viability

Objective:

We ensure Wikibase Cloud is a viable product.

Q1:

Not specified.

Q2:
  • Implemented the logic of metrics to measure our success and health of the product.
  • Started implementation of the workflow for users to report illegal content on the platform to make it compliant with the Digital Services Act.
Q3:
  • Completed implementation of missing health metrics.
  • Optimized metric dashboards to prevent timeouts.
  • Finished workflow for illegal content reports (DSA).
  • Updated Terms of Use in progress.
  • Deflected AI scraper attacks via Anubis setup.
  • Overcame deprecation of upstream supplier (Bitnami) with a temporary solution.
Q4:
  • Update Terms of Use for full DSA compliance.
  • Migrate Google ReCaptcha codes.
  • Update Bitnami sourced components.
  • Update Laravel framework.


Wikibase Suite

Grow a diverse and connected ecosystem of Wikibases

We aim to significantly increase adoption of the latest software versions across self-hosted Wikibases while expanding our ecosystem through enhanced federation capabilities. We will focus on streamlining the user experience for both administrators and end-users to drive broader participation in the Linked Open Data community.

Improving Self Hosting

Objective:

We have retained new and existing users by making self-hosting operations more robust and easier to manage, fostering project success.

Q1:
  • Streamlined maintenance by supporting only current MediaWiki versions and simplifying installations.
Q2:
  • Activated multimedia extensions; researched hosting providers for easier self-hosting.
Q3:
  • Researched barriers to self-hosting (complex setup, legacy versions, large data uploads, hosting costs, extension management).
  • Mapped user journeys from setup to operation.
  • Began building measurement foundations for tracking self-hosting experience.
Q4:
  • Establish a baseline measurement system for self-hosting experience.
  • Prioritize barriers for future improvements.

Ease of Adoption

Objective:

We have grown a diverse self-hosted user base by making it easier to adopt Wikibase Suite.

Q1:
  • Initial groundwork for discovery and adoption improvements.
Q2:
  • Released discovery feature to identify new Wikibase instances and collect metadata.
  • Expanded metadata collection to include languages and knowledge categories.
Q3:
  • Conducted comprehensive documentation review.
  • Identified key improvement areas: scattered info and incomplete installation guidance.
Q4:
  • Launch at least one major documentation enhancement.
  • Begin comprehensive update of installation guides for accessibility.


Ontology Federation

Objective:

The ability to federate knowledge across instances has improved, creating a viable path for taking load off Wikidata.

Q1:
  • Not pursued.
Q2:

Established definitions of metrics to measure ontology federation.

Q3:
  • Revived the “Federated Properties” prototype.
  • Validated through internal testing and planned improvements.
Q4:
  • Beta launch of the new federation feature on at least one live instance.
  • Expand community testing and collect feedback.


Community Engagement

Objective:

Strengthen the Wikibase Suite community through collaboration and governance.

Q1:
  • Held consultations with self-hosting communities to identify their challenges.
Q2:
  • Organized office hours and roadmap transparency updates.
Q3:
  • Held workshops and began community-driven working groups (e.g., federation, UX).
Q4:
  • Continue workshops; expand community feedback loops and finalize working group structures.

Long-Term Vision

Objective:

Position Wikibase Suite as the foundation for a sustainable, federated, global Linked Open Data network.

2025 Outlook:
  • Strengthen alignment with Wikidata and Wikibase Cloud for smooth interoperability.
  • Expand support for marginalized and underrepresented knowledge within the ecosystem.
  • Build stronger collaboration between Wikimedia communities and external partners.


See also

Retrieved from "https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Wikidata:Development_plan&oldid=2419128748"