Share the experience of adding controlled vocabulary in Wikidata

1. Video Game Controlled
Vocabulary in Wikidata
LD4P Conference, May 11, 2019
Peter Chan, Digital Archivist, Stanford Libraries

2. Peter Chan
● Digital Archivist, Stanford Libraries, 2008 - present.
● Born-digital / Forensic Lab
○ Migrate files from storage media to managed storage
● Project member in AIMS project (2010-2011)
○ Develop methodology for stewarding born-digital archival materials.
○ National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) Innovation Award 2012 (USA)
● Project manager for ePADD project (2013-2018)
○ Software that support the appraisal, processing, discovery, and delivery of email archives.
○ National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) Innovation Award 2017 (USA)
○ Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) Software Sustainability Institute Award for Research and
Innovation 2018 (UK)

3. Activity related to video game
● Co-Chairman of the International Videogame Data Network (IVDN)
● Member of the Scaling Emulation and Software Preservation Infrastructure
(EaaSI) program
● Proposed the use of SKOS to publish controlled vocabulary in the Game
Metadata and Citation Project (GAMECIP) advisory meeting in June 2014
● Proposed the use of Wikidata to publish video game titles and controlled
vocabularies in the International Digital Game Preservation 2019 Symposium,
Japan

4. Stephen M. Cabrinety Collection in the History of Microcomputing, circa 1975-1995

5. Steve Meretzky papers relating to computer game design and interactive
fiction history, 1978-2009

7. Bay Area video
arcades :
photographs by
Ira Nowinski,
1981-1982

9. Video game controlled vocabulary in
Wikidata
● GAMECIP platform ID (P5379)
● GameFAQs platform ID (P6078)
● MobyGames platform ID (P5868)
● IGDB platform ID (P5795)
● Giant Bomb ID (P5247).................
● No controlled vocabulary for genre

10. OLAC video game genre vocabulary
● OLAC represents audiovisual catalogers in national and international
cataloging communities to help with the development of cataloging standards
and rules
● Proposed by the OLAC Inc. (Online Audiovisual Catalogers) in 2018
● 66 genre terms
● RDF-compliant form can be found at the Open Metadata Registry
● https://www.olacinc.org/olac-video-game-vocabulary
● http://metadataregistry.org/concept/show/id/1012600.html

12. Steps to include OLAC video game genre in
Wikidata
● Propose it as an external identifier property
● Create the approved property
● Create Mix’n’match entry
● Confirm if the proposed entry is correct
● Create ones which do not exist in Wikidata
● Embed the broader relationships
● Translate to other languages

13. Property
Proposal
Discussion

16. Automatically Matched

17. Not Matched

18. Manually Matched

21. “has broader”
● broader concept (P4900)
○ qualifier to indicate a broader concept that the present item is part of, as mapped by an
external source. The statement being qualified should be an exact match.

22. https://tools.wmflabs.org/tabernacle/?#/tab/sparql/SELECT%20*%20WHERE%20%7B%0A%20%20%3Fitem%20wdt%3AP6352%20%3F
OLAC.%0A%7D/Lde%3BLja%3BLfr%3BLzh%3BLko

23. Other related properties
● P3950 (narrower external class) - more specific subclass included in other
ontology but not in Wikidata
● P279 (subclass of) - all instances of these items are instances of those items;
this item is a class (subset) of that item. Not to be confused with P31 (instance
of)
● P2888 (exact match) - (URLs only) used to link two concepts, indicating a high
degree of confidence that the concepts can be used interchangeably

24. Issues in Wikidata
● Properties decided by Wikidata
● Multiple models on items can exists at the same time
● Items can be edited by anyone
● All data publish as public domain CC0 (public domain)

25. What is Wikibase
● Wikibase is the software that enables MediaWiki to store structured
data or access data that is stored in a structured data repository.

26. Wikibase
● Address the following issues
○ Control on who can edit information
○ Implement data model best fit for your need (your own
interpretation of work, expression, manifestation, etc.)
○ Contribute to LOD - Persistent URL
○ Quantitative analysis - SPARQL endpoint

27. Wikibase Issues
● If institutions are not using the same Wikibase, how can they
synchronize among different incidences of Wikibase hosted by
different institutions?
● Resource to host Wikibase instance
● Understand the properties listed in Wikibase
● Know how to install, maintain the software

28. Wikibase - Users
● OCLC (controlled vocabularies)
○ https://www.oclc.org/research/themes/data-science/linkeddata/linked-data-prototype.html
● Rhizome (modeling for preservation of digital art)
○ https://wikimediafoundation.org/2018/09/06/rhizome-wikibase/
● German National Library (controlled vocabularies)
○ https://wiki.dnb.de/display/GND/Authority+Control+meets+Wikibase

29. Rhizome - early Wikibase user
● In the digital arts field, we deal with pretty specialized performance information
that the world at large is probably not interested in, or the community hasn’t
come to an agreement how to describe it.
● Licensing restrictions of Wikidata and Commons prevent certain information to
be stored there: for instance, reference information about software would in
many cases be contained in screenshots, which for Rhizome’s purposes is not
permitted on Wikidata and Commons.

30. Credits

31. Create & Translate & SPARQL
● Tracy Hoffmann, Leipzig University , Germany
● Jean-Frédéric
● Jin-Ha Lee, Associate Professor, Washington University, USA
● Kazufumi Fukuda, Researcher, Ritsumeikan University, Japan