[OSM-talk] Adding Wikidata tags to 70k items automatically

[Andy Mabbett]

On 28 August 2014 12:04, SomeoneElse <lists at mail.atownsend.org.uk> wrote:
> On 27/08/2014 22:15, Andy Mabbett wrote:

>> Wikidata has data on each of these entities which either
>> isn't in OSM (who's the mayor of this town/ vicar of this church?)

> OK - not sure how that's a benefit to OSM as such, though
> I'm sure people could do "useful unexpected things" with
> those links.

That's the point - the benefit is to OSM's users, whcih in turn
benefits OSM in the same way any other enhancements does - making it
more useful, attracting more contributors, etc.

>> or which acts as a sanity check for what is in OSM (We can
>> generate lists where the two disagree, for humans to check
>> and fix).

> That sounds useful, but sounds like "in theory someone
> could generate a list" rather than actually volunteering to do so.

Of course it's "in theory" - we haven't applied the tags, yet.

>> Wikidata has multi-lingual labels for many objects, which OSM
>> renderers can fetch via the Wikidata link.

> That's definitely useful.  It would allow us to split the
> "verifiable on the ground" stuff from the other stuff -
> it should save us having 190 names for Berlin that mostly
> say "Berlin".

Indeed.

> Another one (mentioned on IRC) is a way to get up
> to date population data for places - data that couldn't or
> shouldn't be in OSM for licence reasons,
> or (like your "vicars" example) is continuously changing
> and not easily verifiable.

>> What disadvantages do you forsee?

> Maintainability, as has already been mentioned.  With any
> import there has to be a plan for "how do we make sure this
> data stays up to date", and I'm not seeing that yet.

I'm not anticipating many changes; this "import" gives a leg-up to a
human process.

> Another issue is with "dodgy data" on either the OSM or the
> wikidata side. I've already mentioned "non-existing villages"
> in wikipedia, but there are also examples where the OSM
> side's iffy too, which could result in a false match.

I addressed that in a earlier email

>> I think the issues raised have been addressed; which do
>> you feel have not been?

> Specifally, comments such as "In my opinion, the risks of
> doing this automatically are just too high", "+1 to not import
> blindly but require human confirmation" and "that's why I
> was asking how you proposed to measure it" in those
> threads.

The former pair are vague hand-waving; more specific points have been
addressed, which covered such things (and there is no plan for "blind"
importing). The latter was also addressed.

-- 
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk