Resource directory and Bibliography

Introduction

The Wikibase user community continues to grow. To remain informed about developments, to exchange experiences with other users, to file bug reports or post feature requests, multiple ways to connect and participate are accessible. Documentation and tutorials for (potential) users are available online, but disperse and often not streamlined towards user profiles, novice or expert, with different needs and backgrounds.

WG DHwiki undertook a coordinated effort to streamline the materials located in dispersed but interlinked webpages, making the experience more accessible and intuitive for both volunteers and researchers.

Most of the content can now be accessed via the dedicated summary page on Meta about Wikibase (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikibase) which

These resources can be grouped into three categories, from those that are rapidly changing to those that are more stable:

1. social media and messaging platforms;
2. on-wiki documentation pages;
3. academic publications, blog articles, etc.

Some of them span the continuum between Wikidata and Wikibase: many contributors are experienced in both environments; in some, the broader ecosystem is addressed as a whole.

Social media and messaging platforms

WG DHwiki is contributing to two dedicated on-wiki pages about the Wikibase ecosystem:

• the summary page on Meta about Wikibase (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikibase);
• the social media summary page on Wikidata at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Social_media.

As of 2025, Mastodon and Telegram are the platforms with the most updated content related to Wikbase where users can engage in conversation.

Technical documentation and discussion fora

Content of interest for Wikibase users can be accessed from the following summary pages on different wikis:

1. The documentation page about Wikibase on this Wiki at Structure and features of Wikibase for DH.
2. The presentations made by WMDE staff about Wikibase, published on Commons.
3. The summary page on the mediawiki.org portal (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikibase), which serves as the official technical documentation hub for the software, covering installation, configuration, and developer guides;
4. The already mentioned summary page on Meta (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikibase). This page includes technical aspects, but focuses also on governance, community initiatives, and cross-project coordination related to Wikibase deployment and usage across the Wikimedia movement. It is organized in subsections containing further links to general Wikibase documentation and status pages, together with entry points to Wikidata materials that have direct applicability for all Wikibase instances, such as as glossary pages, policy and governance overviews, tool catalogues, and public request pages for queries, bots or technical support.
5. The homepage of the Wikibase Community User Group at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikibase_Community_User_Group.

Wikimedia Phabricator, accessible at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org, an instance of the Phabricator platform, is the ticket-based forum used for collaborative work on software projects, including those related to Wikibase. Users can e.g. file bug reports, often after discussing an issue on one of the community channels on Telegram. An introduction to the Wikimedia Phabricator is given on the mediawiki.org portal,

The Wikibase Cloud home page at https://wikibase.cloud also provides useful information.

Academic publications and grey literature

The collection of bibliographical items collected by WG DHwiki is accessible on two platforms:

1. In the DHwiki Zotero group library, at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5639268/dariah_dhwiki/library. Here you find bibliographical items in a presentation easy to browse, and options for exporting references in different citation formats or machine-readable representations.
2. On this Wikibase instnace, through the bibliography section on main page, at Main Page#Bibliographical items. Updates to the Zotero group library are periodically exported to this LOD version of the bibliography, using the ZotWb tool (Lindemann 2024).

Wikidata and Wikibase documentation in other languages

Spanish

• Entries about Wikibase in the metadatos vs. datos blog, University of Murcia.
• A page about Wikibase with further links, by Wikimedia Chile.

For a list of bibliographical items in Spanish execute the query below.

#title: All bibliographical items in Spanish
PREFIX dhwb: <https://dhwiki.wikibase.cloud/entity/>
PREFIX dhdp: <https://dhwiki.wikibase.cloud/prop/direct/>

select ?item ?typeLabel ?date ?itemLabel ?langLabel (iri(concat(str(wd:),?wd)) as ?wikidata)
       
where { values ?lang {dhwb:Q202} # language Spanish
  ?item dhdp:P5 dhwb:Q2; dhdp:P8 ?type; dhdp:P26 ?date; dhdp:P11 ?lang.
  optional {?item dhdp:P1 ?wd.}
  
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
} order by desc(year(?date))

Try it!

DH and GLAM related Wikibase instances

A resource worth highlighting is Wikibase World (https://wikibase.world/), a directory that provides metadata of existing and historical Wikibase instances. It should be noted, however, that such census is fully up-to-date only for Wikibase Cloud installations, which are registered automatically at regular intervals. By contrast, information on independently hosted Wikibase Suite instances depends on manual updates. The dedicated category page on DHwiki Wikibase (https://dhwiki.wikibase.cloud/wiki/Category:Wikibase_instances) aims to provide curated descriptive pages for all those Wikibase installations that are relevant to the Digital Humanities community. Please find more information at Examples of existing Wikibase instances in the field of DH and GLAM.

For an overview of GLAM-related Wikidata projects, visit https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:GLAM.