Skybristol

Who I am

I'm a biologist by training and a data scientist by accident and interest. I'm passionate about open linked data in the Global Knowledge Commons and its application to addressing societal challenges related to global change (of all kinds). I'm a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and of the United States. I've been a scientist with the U.S. government for many years; my work and contributions here are my own and not from the organization I work for.

Projects

Wikidata projects I'm working on:

Indigenous peoples of North America
- My focus here is on ensuring at least a foundational representation of the Tribes that exist in the U.S. today as Sovereign Nations with government-to-government relationships with U.S. and other governments
Heads of state/government
- I'm working on developing this concept in relation to Tribal Governments in the U.S. where it is applicable while recognizing that this is a colonialist/imperialist concept to a great extent. Many Native American Tribes have developed and adopted governance structures such as constitutional governments where both of these concepts apply, but others have followed a different path. I'm exploring this dynamic through the 574 Federally recognized Tribal Governments in the U.S. along with the State-recognized Tribes and other seeking recognition.
Every politician
- Many politicians with positions in Tribal Governments are already in Wikidata though often incompletely documented. I'm working to better understand and develop an appropriate schema that reflects the unique ways in which Tribal politics play out and are continuing to evolve. Tribal governance presents a unique context in the U.S. and other parts of the world that needs to blend together with other representative governments in Wikidata. On the one hand, we want to understand that there is a certain parity between elected officials in Tribes and those in other sovereign states within larger states. On the other hand, we need to document the unique role these political representatives often take on within their communities.
My own project notes on this work

After working through these projects to develop design patterns and conventions for items related to Tribal Governments, I need to dig further into work going on to document legislation and judicial findings from Tribes where these are applicable. Many Tribes have incredibly rich and interesting histories in this area and very important current events and actions. It is important to get these represented in the commons to increase awareness and understanding of the complexities in "Indian Law" - both as it relates to struggles with U.S. Federal and State law and within Tribal jurisdictions.

I'm also engaged in the wikibase.cloud beta and am working on how we can develop wikibases focused on and owned by specific domains and organizations that are then federated with/linked to the Wikidata and associated Wikimedia platforms.

Technology

I mostly work with LeMyst's WikibaseIntegrator package for code-based work with wikibases. After trying other approaches, I find it to be the most usable framework for building entities and claims with qualifiers and references. I'm routinely frustrated by confusing semantics in Wikidata and am working on ways to bring clarity in areas I have knowledge about. Sometimes, I think we've leaped too quickly to loading a bunch of claims without considering the implications, so I'm moving slower in learning what debates have already occurred on property definitions and entity schemas. You'll find projects in my GitHub using WikibaseIntegrator on wikibase.cloud instances where I'm both building what we need for particular work but also experimenting with different (hopefully improved) models for how certain reference sources should be represented in Wikidata.

Note

If you follow or come across any of my work in places like https://geokb.wikibase.cloud, you'll probably figure out that I do some of my work in the public space as part of my official role as a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. That's separate from anything I do with this account or my Skybristol bot account in the Wikiverse. These contributions are my own. They may stem from knowledge gained while working in the U.S. Government but do not, in any way, serve as official contributions from my institution.