Help

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Welcome to the Metabase help pages

Metabase collects information about the activities and resources of the Wikimedia movement: reports, presentations, events, projects and more. These pages explain how to add and describe this information, so that it is easy for others to find and use.

You do not need to be an expert to contribute. Your edits do not have to be perfect, and other contributors can improve them later.

New here? Start with these three steps:

  1. Create a user account. You must be logged in to edit.
  2. Read the guide to getting started.
  3. Use MEOW to find resources that need more data.

Find your way

How to make your first edits, and what makes a good item.

Reports, articles, posters, slide decks, videos and other resources.

Workshops, presentations, conferences, campaigns and edit-a-thons.

Formal and informal projects, including WikiProjects.

Material from content partners, such as GLAMs, added to the Wikimedia projects.

When to create items about people, and how to protect their privacy.

Index terms: the keywords that help people find resources.

How to link to pages on Wikipedia, Commons, Meta-Wiki and other Wikimedia wikis.

Tools that make it easier to find, add and use data in Metabase.

A list of all properties in Metabase, with examples.

How Metabase is organized

The basic structure

All items in Metabase belong to a simple hierarchy. At the top is:

It has one direct sub-item:

See the SPARQL query below for all items that are an instance of either one.

Properties

Properties that match Wikidata

Whenever possible, Metabase properties have the same meaning as a property on Wikidata. We link each one to its Wikidata equivalent with same as on Wikidata (P1). This makes it easier for Wikidata editors to start contributing here.

Examples: organizer (P14), language of work or name (P20), number of participants (P28).

Metabase internal properties

Some properties have no equivalent on Wikidata. We need them to describe the work of the Wikimedia movement in more detail than Wikidata does.

These properties have instance of (P5) → Metabase internal property (Q24).

Examples: WMSE project ID (P9), sorted under programmatic area (P10), Wikimedia platform(s) affected (P13).

For a full list of properties, see Properties.

Temporary free text

Sometimes you need to save a piece of information as plain text for now. For example, you may be unsure which item to use, or the item may not exist yet.

This works like author name string on Wikidata. See Getting started for how to find and fix temporary text.

Metabase and Wikidata

Metabase does not copy information that already exists on Wikidata. For several types of items, we only store a link to Wikidata, and get everything else from there with federated queries. See some examples of federated queries.

Items that only link to Wikidata

Items of these types normally only have instance of (P5) and same as on Wikidata (P1):

If the item is not on Wikidata

Organizations

An organization (Q13) can be a Wikimedia chapter, a GLAM institution or any other organized group. Examples: Wikimedia Foundation (Q50), Wikimedia Sverige (Q9), Nationalmuseum (Q15).

If an organization has no Wikidata item:

  1. Consider whether it is notable enough for Wikidata. If it is, create the item on Wikidata first.
  2. If it is not notable enough for Wikidata, create the item in Metabase. In this case, you can add more information, such as official website (P78) or part of (P17), to help others understand what it is. Give it a clear label and description.

Example: Education Policy Center (Q23587)

Locations

Use towns and cities, not buildings or addresses. For example, use Stockholm (Q78) rather than Norrsken House. This is enough to show where activities take place.

People

If a person has no Wikidata item, see Humans for which information you may add.

Rules and constraints

Wikibase Cloud does not support property constraints. Instead, we list the rules on Rules, and show them on the talk pages of the properties and items they apply to.

SPARQL

Items at the top of the hierarchy

All items that are an instance of MetaBase root item (Q3) or MetaBase root item requiring Wikidata equivalent (Q10): 

PREFIX wd: <https://metabase.wikibase.cloud/entity/>
PREFIX wdt: <https://metabase.wikibase.cloud/prop/direct/>

SELECT ?item ?wikidata_iri ?itemLabelEN ?itemLabelSV ?itemDescEN ?itemDescSV
WHERE
{
  {?item wdt:P5 wd:Q3.}
  UNION
  {?item wdt:P5 wd:Q10.}
  OPTIONAL {?item wdt:P1 ?wikidataQ}
  BIND(URI(concat("http://www.wikidata.org/entity/", ?wikidataQ)) AS ?wikidata_iri)
  OPTIONAL {?item rdfs:label ?itemLabelEN filter (lang(?itemLabelEN) = "en")}.
  OPTIONAL {?item rdfs:label ?itemLabelSV filter (lang(?itemLabelSV) = "sv")}.
  OPTIONAL {?item schema:description ?itemDescEN filter (lang(?itemDescEN) = "en")}.
  OPTIONAL {?item schema:description ?itemDescSV filter (lang(?itemDescSV) = "sv")}.
}

Try it!


All internal properties

PREFIX wd: <https://metabase.wikibase.cloud/entity/>
PREFIX wdt: <https://metabase.wikibase.cloud/prop/direct/>

SELECT ?item ?itemLabelEN ?itemLabelSV ?itemDescEN ?itemDescSV
WHERE
{
  ?item wdt:P5 wd:Q24.
  OPTIONAL {?item rdfs:label ?itemLabelEN filter (lang(?itemLabelEN) = "en")}.
  OPTIONAL {?item rdfs:label ?itemLabelSV filter (lang(?itemLabelSV) = "sv")}.
  OPTIONAL {?item schema:description ?itemDescEN filter (lang(?itemDescEN) = "en")}.
  OPTIONAL {?item schema:description ?itemDescSV filter (lang(?itemDescSV) = "sv")}.
}

Try it!


All temporary free text

PREFIX wb: <https://metabase.wikibase.cloud/entity/>
PREFIX wbt: <https://metabase.wikibase.cloud/prop/direct/>
PREFIX wbp: <https://metabase.wikibase.cloud/prop/>
PREFIX wbpq: <https://metabase.wikibase.cloud/prop/qualifier/>
SELECT DISTINCT ?item ?itemLabel ?val ?qual ?qualLabel
WHERE
{
?item wbt:P38 ?val.
OPTIONAL {?item wbp:P38 ?statement.
?statement wbpq:P41 ?qual .}
     
SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "sv,en". }
}

Try it!

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