You will find below the roadmap of the software development team (Wikimedia Deutschland) for Wikidata and Wikibase for 2024. 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 the first and second quarters of 2024. 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 (development)

Objective:

We want to better integrate the existing Entity Schemas so that they become more central to data maintenance processes and can codify modeling decisions.

Description:

We have Entity Schemas on Wikidata that are not well integrated into existing workflows and community processes. We want to change that and make them a more useful data quality tool.

Upcoming Activities:

Continue development of new datatype to link to EntitySchemas in statements (Q1) (Q2)

Feedback loops with data re-users (support)

Objective:

We want to build out feedback loops with data re-users to get them more actively involved in improving the data on Wikidata.

Description:

We have developed the Mismatch Finder as a base for setting up these feedback loops. Now we need to help reusers find their way and understand their potential contributions.

Upcoming Activities:

Partnership with Purdue University to have students compare Wikidata’s data to more external sources and generate more mismatches for the Mismatch Finder (Q1)

Increase re-use for increased impact

We want to make sure that anyone can use the data in Wikidata to make the world a better place. While everyone can re-use our data, we give priority to organizations and projects that align with our values and have a high impact.

REST API

Objective:

We want to improve our APIs to make it easier for programmers to access our data.

Description:

We will release and improve the Wikibase REST API.

Upcoming Activities:

Finish remaining operations for reading and editing Items and Properties (Q1) (Q2)
Discuss next steps for the REST API and get feedback at for example the Wikimedia Hackathon (Q2)

Developer advocacy

Objective:

We want to empower and encourage more people to develop applications using Wikidata’s data.

Description:

We will improve documentation and other material for a developer audience.

Upcoming Activities:

Improve documentation and draft landing page for developers (Q1) (Q2)

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:

Organize events for the Wikidata community.

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:

Leveling Up Days preparation (Q1)
Running the Leveling Up Days (Q2)
Planning and preparing for the next event centered around lexicographical data (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:

Settle on a focus for the initiative and start research (Q1)
Research and design to decide how we can make editing of statements from mobile devices better (Q2)

Improve underlying technology

Objective:

Reduce technical debt and maintenance burden.

Description:

We will deprecate WiKit, the design system, in favor of the new Wikimedia design system Codex.

Upcoming Activities:

Migrate Mismatch Finder to Codex (Q1)
Migrate Query Builder to Codex (Q2)
Polishing and rollout of mul language code (Q2)

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.

Wikidata Integrations Team (formerly Wikidata and the Wikimedia Projects)

Objective:

We want Wikidata and the other Wikimedia projects to increase their collaboration for mutual benefit

Description:

We establish structures to support the collaboration between Wikidata and the other Wikimedia projects sustainably.

Upcoming Activities:

Hire Senior and Mid-level Software Engineers to join the team (Q1)
Map out the current Wikidata integrations with other Wikimedia projects and examine data to compare the scale of existing integrations (Q1)
We’ve given offers to two Engineers and will continue Hiring for two more Engineers (Q2)
We will onboard one of our Engineers (Q2)
We will be present at Leveling Up Days and facilitate a few sessions (Q2)
We will reach out to community members who signed up to our user pool and schedule interviews with them to learn more about how we can solve their Wikidata Integration issues (Q2)
We will reach out to community members who signed up to our user pool and schedule interviews with them to learn more about how we can solve their Wikidata Integration issues (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 at Wikimedia Indonesia and the Igbo Wikimedians User Group to have everything they need to implement their projects.

Upcoming Activities:

Software Team Indonesia
- Hiring a programming agency to develop the MVP of the micro contribution tool for lexicographical data the team has prototyped (Q1)
- Starting the user testing with the MVP (Q1)
- Hosting monthly activities about lexicographical data for the local communities (Q1) (Q2)
- Co-hosting Lexicodays together with WMDE (Q2)
- Develop MVP of the micro contribution tool (Q2)
Igbo Wikimedia User Group:
- Hosting activities for the local communities (Q1) (Q2)

Wikibase Ecosystem

Wikibase Cloud

Enabling new users to thrive in a growing ecosystem.

We are aiming to grow our user base by enabling new joiners to more easily start their first Wikibase project, lowering the barrier to entry and continuing to enable a diverse ecosystem.

Objective:

Wikibase.cloud expands its user base with an improved experience for new joiners and continuous learning to suit their needs while increasing infrastructure reliability.

Description:

We continue to learn how to make it easier for our users to start their first projects. This will help us grow sustainably and retain users just starting out in our ecosystem. For that to succeed, we need to conduct further research into achieving a higher level of Knowledge equity. Additionally, we want to increase our infrastructure reliability to allow for stable growth of our ecosystem

Upcoming Activities:

Reusing data models - Based on research, we identified the need for new users to reuse existing data models. We expect this to improve onboarding and reduce drop-off rates while upholding data quality. (continuing in Q2)
Default main page - Guidance & instructions can help new users start their project. We plan to improve the main page in order to lower the barrier to entry for first time users of our service (continuing in Q2)
New user research - Identify further areas of improvement for new users through UX research (continuing in Q2)
Knowledge Equity research - In order to diversify our ecosystem, we need to learn where opportunities for improvement are (continuing in Q2)
Infrastructure reliability - Gradually increasing reliability of our service through research and allocating resources accordingly (continuing in Q2)

Wikibase Suite

A greater diversity of public and open knowledge projects can rely on Wikibase Suite as a Linked Open Data software for mission-critical use.

We must ensure that more projects are able to independently onboard themselves into the Wikibase Ecosystem by reducing the complexity of software setup, data importing, and maintenance. To support knowledge equity, in parallel, we must ensure that the Wikibase Ecosystem welcomes a diversity of people, knowledge, and disciplines.

Objective:

Experts in the public and open use of Wikibase Suite have taken a key role in determining the future of the product.

Description:

We are investing in building processes that provides more opportunities to partner with, and learn from, expert users in the Wikibase ecosystem. This will enable us to better align our efforts towards the areas of biggest impact for the ecosystem as a whole.

Upcoming Activities:

Partner with the Wikibase Stakeholder Group to develop an outcome oriented roadmap (Q1+Q2)
Publish code contribution strategy for Wikibase Suite (Q1+Q2)

Objective:

Beginners within the Wikibase ecosystem are increasingly well supported in pursuing success with their Wikibase projects.

Description:

A thriving ecosystem needs space for new voices and diverse perspectives. As such, we want to support beginners in finding success with Wikibase Suite.

Upcoming Activities:

We hired a developer advocate in Q1 who will likely be starting in Q3.
We will audit our existing documentation in terms of topic areas and user needs (Q1) and improve or add three key documentation topics (Q1+Q2)

Objective:

Wikibase Suite is reliable for mission-critical use in public and open knowledge projects.

Description:

We will develop and release improvements to the Wikibase Suite software package, with a focus on those relevant to public and open knowledge projects.

Upcoming Activities:

We will work on a series of features which making installing, upgrading, and running Wikibase Suite in a production environment easier and more reliable. (Q1+Q2)
We will continue to work on maintaining a fast release cycle in response to forthcoming Mediawiki releases

Wikidata:Development plan

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