Modeling the Domain of Digital Preservation in Wikidata
Katherine Thornton∗
Euan CochraneThomas Ledoux
Bertrand Caronkatherine.thornton@yale.edu
euan.cochrane@yale.edu
Yale University

Bibliothèque nationale de France
Paris, France

Carl Wilson
Open Preservation Foundation
UK

ABSTRACT
Members of the digital preservation community collate and capture metadata to describe file formats, software, operating systems
and hardware, and use it to inform and drive digital preservation
processes. In this work we describe how the infrastructure of
Wikidata meets the requirements for a technical registry of metadata related to computer software and computing environments.
Collaboratively creating this metadata, and making it available aslinked open data, will reduce the amount of redundant work digitalpreservation professionals do in order to describe resources. Having machine-readable, linked open data that describes the digitalpreservation domain will also allow us to reuse this data in our software applications and information systems, reducing the overhead
when building new tools. Furthermore the Wikidata social andtechnical infrastructure will enable the long term continued accessto the data digital preservation practitioners collate and capture.
Wikidata is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), andis created through commons-based peer production [3]. Simply
put, Wikidata is a knowledge base of structured data that anyone
can edit [40]. The infrastructure of Wikidata is created using free
software, and is designated to the public domain. All content in
Wikidata is licensed so that other may freely reuse the data. Volunteer editors, coordinating their own work, add data to Wikidata.
Through this analysis we demonstrate how the infrastructure of
Wikidata provides distinct advantages to the cultural heritage domain that proprietary knowledge bases do not provide.
ACM Reference format:
Katherine Thornton, Euan Cochrane, Thomas Ledoux, Bertrand Caron,
and Carl Wilson. 2017. Modeling the Domain of Digital Preservationin Wikidata. In Proceedings of ACM International Conference on Digital
Preservation, Kyoto, Japan, September 2017 (iPres’17), 10 pages.
DOI: 10.475/123 4

1

INTRODUCTION

Metadata about software, file formats and computing environments
is necessary for the identification and management of these entities. Machine-readable metadata about software, file formats andcomputing environments allows digital preservation practitioners
to then automate programmatic interactions with these entities.
∗ The corresponding author

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal orclassroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributedfor profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citationon the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored.
For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s).
iPres’17, Kyoto, Japan© 2017 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). 123-4567-24-567/08/06. . . $15.00
DOI: 10.475/123 4

Figure 1: A screenshot of the Wikidata item for TIFF version
6.0 and related properties.

For example, if we ingest a file into the a digital preservation
system, we could configure the system to use a tool such as DROID[2] or Sigfreid [20] to automatically identify the file formats ofresources at the time of ingest into the digital preservation system.
Based on that data, we could then present the user with a list ofavailable software in a collection that could be used to interact
with files of that type. This is an example of machine-actionableinteraction that is possible with a digital preservation system using DROID in combination with Wikidata data to determine thesoftware options.
A technical registry [6] is a data store of descriptions of fileformats, software used to create or interact with files, configured
hardware environments, operating systems and sustainability factors. In Figure 1, there is a screenshot of a Wikidata item and theproperties used to describe the item. The metadata for file formats
in Wikidata includes information about who developed the format,
how it is related to other formats, what the file extensions are, andthe media type(s).

2

FRAGMENTED AND INCOMPLETE

Many researchers and practitioners in the field of digital preservation have identified the fragmented nature of technical registries[21]. When registry data is stored in multiple systems, communication also takes place in distributed settings. In response to thefragmented landscape, several groups have presented plans for how

iPres’17, September 2017, Kyoto, Japanto centralize and unify technical registry information [22, 37, 38].
Both GDFR and UDFR have concluded work. The sustainabilityof a technical registry is important set of factors to consider. The
creation of a sustainability plan for the infrastructure of the registry
is a crucial component to consider. The solution proposed by the
New Zealand team is forthcoming, and infrastructural development
described as the subsequent phase of work [22]. In this paper, we
explore an alternative to creating infrastructure for a repository oftechnical registry data through use of existing, independently supported, infrastructure provided by the knowledge base of structured
data, Wikidata.
Wikidata went live in late 2012 [39]. The infrastructure of Wikidata is collaboratively built via commons-based peer production[3, 4, 25]. Commons-based peer production is the name given to
open collaboration systems where users are creating content thatwill become part of the public domain. This means that all of thework products of the community are free to be reused by others.
The peer production aspect refers to how users coordinate work
amongst themselves. Wikidata is edited by volunteers from all over
the world in more than 350 languages [14].
The MediaWiki software [1] and WikiBase software [41] are theprimary technical components of the knowledge base itself. In thedomain of computational systems, the concept of infrastructure isused to describe technologies that support information systems.
Theorists of infrastructure, Star and Ruhleder, note that infrastructure is often invisible, and because of this, many people take it
for granted [35]. By referring to infrastructure as ‘invisible’ theseauthors highlight the fact that infrastructure is often purposely
designed to be available only to those who are building or repairing
it. For example, the infrastructure of the search algorithms usedby Google are not made visible to users of the search engine. The
database structure of Amazon.com is not made visible to visitorsof the website. In contrast, Wikidata’s infrastructure is open forinspection because the technical components of the system are free
software [33] and the source code for the software is shared publicly.
Using Wikidata as the technical registry of metadata for the domainof digital preservation equates to using the infrastructure of the
Wikidata system to store digital preservation metadata.

3

WIKIDATA: A KNOWLEDGE BASE OFSTRUCTURED DATA

The knowledge base of structured data, Wikidata, combines a data
model with structured data. Editors add content and provide source
information for structured data [17]. Wikidata contains data about
entities structured in a way that is machine-readable as well as
human-readable [14]. As the data management platform of all
Wikimedia Foundation projects, the data is free and open for reuse
within all WMF projects, and also is freely available for reuse outsideof WMF projects [14].
In Figure 2, we see a screenshot of the Wikidata page for entity
Q42332 Portable Document Format. Each item is allotted a page in
Wikidata and has a unique identifier, with prefix Q plus a stringof numbers, ex. Q42332, which is assigned to the item Portable
Document Format. Wikidata consists of two entity types: items
and properties. In Figure 2 the four properties Commons category,
BNCF Thesaurus, image, and topic’s main category are used to assert

Thornton et al.
statements about the item Q114678. In Figure 2 we see four statements about Portable Document Format. Each of these statements
expressed a property of the item Q1146781 . Each item contains alist of claims in the form of triples. The subject of the triple is the
Wikidata item to which the claim refers, the predicate is a Wikidata property, and the object is a date, string, quantity, URL, an
external identifier or another Wikidata item. Claims can be mademore precise through the use of qualifiers. These qualifiers indicate
the contexts in which the claim is valid. Claims can be annotatedthrough the inclusion of references. A claim and its references are
considered to be a statement. A description of the Wikidata data
model can be found in [42].
The knowledge base, Wikidata, contains many millions of suchitems, many of these items are already described by a set of statements. The Wikidata pages for items allow users to view and enter
data [14]. These pages are open for editing by anonymous IP, or byregistering for an account as an editor. Volunteer editors contributeto the project in coordination with one another and all content in
the system is designated as belonging within the public domain.
The content in Wikidata spans general and specialized domains,and is relevant for many application areas [14].

3.1

Collaboratively creating data models

One way that the structure of Wikidata is extended is through thecreation of properties to represent specific relationships between
items. We participated in efforts to extend Wikidata to more precisely represent information from the domain of digital preservation.
We identified pages on the Wikidata wiki where the community
was actively describing computing. We found a active group engaged in Wikidata’s WikiProject Informatics 2 . On the pages of thiswiki project we communicated with other Wikidatans to discuss
the models for representation of file formats, software, computing
environments and hardware environments. We created items andproposed properties to describe different aspects of computing. We
gave feedback on ideas proposed by other editors, and we gathered
feedback about our ideas from other editors. Much of the discussion
within WikiProject Informatics is based around the creation of new
items and new properties for Wikidata. Items can be created byany editor of Wikidata. Editors use the create new item link that isdisplayed on the sidebar of every Wikidata page, and the newlycreated item will be added to the knowledge base3 . Additional steps
are involved in the creation of new properties. Properties must firstbe proposed using a specific template. Once a property proposal
template is applied to the property proposals page, a discussion is
opened and other editors are invited to comment on the proposal.
Property proposal discussions stay open for a minimum of sevendays. Editors vote in support of or opposition to the property, andonce there is sufficient support an editor with the Property Creator4
privilege will create the new property and it will become part of
Wikidata.
An overview of the properties that are currently in use in Wikidata with relevance for software is provided in Table 1.
1 Each of these properties has a identifier assigned to it. The property identifiers all

begin with prefix P plus a string of numbers.
2 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata WikiProject Informatics
3 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:NewItem
4 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Property r eator scModeling the Domain of Digital Preservation in Wikidata

iPres’17, September 2017, Kyoto, Japan

Figure 2: Wikidata item and data organization.
Wikidata Property
Data Type
Property ID
licenseitem
P275
software version
string
P348
official website
stringP856
depends on software
item
P1547
developer
item
P178
readable file format
item
P1072
writable file format
item
P1073
file extension
stringP1195
platform
item
P400
programming language
item
P277
operating system
item
P306
PRONOM id
external idP2749
user manual link
stringP2078
bug tracking system
string
P1401
image
Commons Image File
P18
logo image
Commons Image File
P154
Table 1: Wikidata Properties for software

The most common property used to connect software items tofile format items is the use of the properties P1072 readable fileformat and P1073 writable file format. This allows the relationshipbetween the software and the file format to be machine-readable.
Using structured data from Wikidata in an computational systemfor digital preservation allows us to use this data in a way that helps
the computer program determine what the next step in a workflow(such as presenting a list of software choices to a user based on theuser’s file format) should be. Statements using P1072 and P1073
are made on the items related to software. In Table 2 the properties
related to file format items are listed.
These tables list only a subset of relevant properties. For moreexhaustive lists of useful properties, examples of how they are

Wikidata Property Data Type Property ID
licenseitem
P275
software version
string
P348
official website
string
P856
developer
item
P178
PRONOM id
external id
P2748
LoCFDD id
external id
P3266
file extension
stringP1195
media typestringP1163
replaces
item
P1365
replaced by
item
P1366
Table 2: Wikidata Properties for file formats

used, please see the wiki project5 . There are many properties that
we need to be able to extend the data model for the domain ofdigital preservation. For example, if we consider how the PREMIS
project has modeled their semantic unit environment, we can seethat this concept is not yet represented as a Wikidata property[12]. People who have expertise in the metadata issues and data
modeling issues for the domain of digital preservation who also
participate in Wikidata are in a strong position to advocate for data
models in Wikidata that are compatible with previous models of
the domain such as PREMIS [11] and PRONOM.
Data modeling in Wikidata happens through the use of properties and the use of class-subclass relationships [5, 32]. Models
for domains within Wikidata are being extended as the project matures. For example, the modeling of the molecular biology domaintakes place within Wikidata’s WikiProject for molecular biology[14, 23].Collaboratively modeling the a domain requires interaction
and communication among participants. Muller-Birn et al. foundthat the Wikidata interface is a barrier for contributors who’d like to
5 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata WikiProject Informatics

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Thornton et al.

engage in conceptual modeling, but that it supports instance-level
curation more adequately [25].
We participated in collective data modeling activities through
WikiProject Informatics6 . WikiProjects are sets of wiki pages thatgroups use to perform focused, collaborative work [44]. One avenue
through which we participated in the Wikidata community is theproperty proposal process. The property proposal process involves
using the property proposal template to describe what you would
like to add to Wikidata. Figure 3 is a screenshot of a property
proposal template from Wikidata.
The template provides the outline structure for the proposal.
To complete property proposal, an editor must think through theplanned data type, how this property will be combined with otherentities in Wikidata, and some examples for others to review.
Once a property has been proposed, other Wikidata editors consider the proposal and provide comments or ask questions about
the proposal. The discussion portion of this process helps ensurethat multiple editors beyond the editor who created the property
proposal reviews the proposal. Reviewers are looking out for redundant properties, duplicate properties, properties that would
conflict with other properties, and ensure that all parts are included(such as a formatter URL if the proposed property is an externalid). As of March, 2017, there are 3228 properties available for use
in Wikidata7 . Dozens of properties are created each week8 .
Focused engagement with the property proposal workflow in
Wikidata allows participants to take active roles in the data modeling activities. The negotiation that occurs among editors throughthe property proposal workflow helps ensure that properties aredesigned efficiently.

3.2

Our Wikidata work to dateMembers of our team have been proposing properties for external
IDs from other databases. For example, we proposed and saw created, P2748 PRONOM file format identifier, P2749 PRONOM software
identifier, and P3266 LoC FDD ID. These three properties each havea data type of external id, the property is constructed using thebase URL for the external resource. For example, the formatter URL
for P3266 LoC FDD ID is shown in Figure 4 9 .
We also worked to use these properties to create claims around
items representing file formats. By undertaking data curation of
the Wikidata entities within the domain of digital preservation,
we discovered ways to use properties to model relationships between file formats and other entities. If we are not yet able toexpress a certain relationship, we make note of properties that
do not yet exist which we would like to propose. For example,
we are considering proposing a property to express the concept“part of configured software environment” to bring together setsof software used together for a purpose, such as presenting a particular emulated computing environment via a framework such as
Emulation as a Service10 . A property such as “part of configured
software environment” could then be used to connect items for a
6 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata WikiProject Informatics
7 https //www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special ListProperties/
8 For

acomplete
listofWikidata
https //www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:List of properties
9 https //www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property P3266
10 http://bw-fla.uni-freiburg.de/properties

visit:

base operating system, software that has been installed, etc. The
data could then be reused in a system where that information isdisplayed to a user who needs information about what functionality
can be expected from a particular configured environment.
Understanding the data model is very important when attempting to get data out of Wikidata. There are several options for how
to get data out of Wikidata. It is possible to get structured data on
a per item basis in a selection of data formats11 . It is also possible
to make a copy of a dump of the data. Another option is to request
data through Wikidata’s application programming interface12 (API).
It is also possible to request data from the Wikidata Query Service,a SPARQL endpoint. The name SPARQL is a recursive acronym for
SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language [13]. SPARQL queries
RDF triple stores in order to identify and return sets of triples thatmeet the criteria specified in the query. The fact that Wikidata
maintains a SPARQL endpoint allows for powerful, flexible queries
to be written to get data out of Wikdiata [8, 16, 23]. In the following
section we will provide some examples of how the way the data ismodeled has implications for how we can construct queries to getdata out of Wikidata.

4

OPEN MODELING CHALLENGES

Through participation in the collaborative data modeling activities
in Wikidata, we have observed several open questions that are
relevant for the community in general. We consider these to beopen questions because we have observed different segments ofthe community responding to these challenges using a variety ofstrategies, but agreement about how to harmonize the strategies is
not yet resolved. We will illustrate these discussions with examples
from Wikidata and examples of queries written for the Wikidata
Query Service.

4.1

The Bonny and Clyde problem

One issue that arises when trying to use Wikidata as a format registry comes from its inception: originally the Wikidata entities were
derived from Wikipedia pages. At the beginning of the Wikidata
project there existed simple matches between pages on Wikipedias
and Wikidata. Wikidata served as a hub to allow the alignment
between the different language versions of a given page. Nearly all
Wikipeida articles in all language versions have associated Wikidata items [14]. The notability criteria 13 indicate that this match(having at least one valid sitelink) as the major acceptability factor
for the existence of a item. However, from a format registry perspective, some notions need to be separated. The main examples
come from the different compression algorithms (gzip, bzip2, etc.)
for which there is usually a single Wikipedia page describing not
only the file format, but also the algorithm and a reference implementation. This leads to a single entity with multiple meanings. As
an example, the bzip2 entity (Q273563) was described 14 in 2014 as
an instance of file format and free software, and properly linked
to 19 different sitelinks. Currently only two possibilities exist to
bypass this limitation: (1) either create new entities to reflect thedifferent natures. In the previous example, this implies adding the
11 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata Data access
12 https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php
13 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata Notability
14 https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q283563&direbctionn̄ext&oldid1̄84272967

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iPres’17, September 2017, Kyoto, Japan

Figure 3: A complete property proposal template on Wikidata

Figure 4: The formatter URL is built into all properties with the data type of external id.
”bzip2 Archive” (Q27866052) entity linked to the software entity by”readable/writable file format”(P1072 and P1073) properties. But
this breaks the direct access to the Wikipedia pages describing thefile format and goes against the notability criteria which may leadto a future removal of the entity ; or (2) take advantage of the multicultural aspect of Wikipedia and find one variation that has alreadyseparated the concepts to initiate the right model. An example ofsuch an occurrence is the GZIP program where the Portuguese
Wikipedia has a specific GZ file format page leading to the differentiation of the tool (Q283647) and the file format (Q10287816). Thereremains the issue of generalizing such distinction in the different
languages but the ”Article Placeholder” plugin might solve this [18].
In any case, in order to extend the model and to be able to describe
more precise information, the issue of enhancing the relationships
between the entity and the interlinks requires a solution. This
relationship is important because the Wikipedia pages are the main
way to expose the structured information, primarily through theuse of information boxes. The Wikipedia page is often the best way
to gather corrections and additions from Wikipedians. Even though
no satisfying solution exists currently, the problem is well known
as the ”Bonnie and Clyde issue” 15 and various attempts are madewhich should lead to an option that will meet global agreement.

4.2

Properties refined by qualifiers

Properties are used in Wikidata to represent some attribute of an
item to form a statement, as depicted in Figure 2. Certain types of
15 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Handling sitelinks overlapping multiple items

statements can be expressed by different properties in combination
with a one or more qualifiers. In Figure 5 we see a screenshot ofsome of the claims for item Q20950365, Wikidata Query Service. We
can see that Property 31 instance of is used to claim that Wikidata
Query Service is an instance of a SPARQL endpoint.

Figure 5: The Wikidata item for SPARQL Wikidata Query
Service
In contrast, Figure 6 is a screenshot of some of the claims foritem Q936 Open Street Map. For this item a claim using Property
2699 URL is used to indicate the web location of OSM’s SPARQL
endpoint. This claim is refined through the addition of a Property
31 instance of qualifier to indicate that this URL is the URL for
OSM’s SPARQL endpoint. As we see from the differences betweeniPres’17, September 2017, Kyoto, Japan

Figure 6: The Wikidata item for Open Street Map

how the claims have been structured, the use of qualifiers to refine
properties is a source of flexibility in how data can be modeled in
Wikidata.
Some members of the Wikidata community hold the opinion
that P31 should not be used as a qualifier and have stated theirrationales on the discussion page for the property16 . In situations
where different subsets of the community decided to model data in
different ways there is often a period of time where both strategies
are observed and then a larger discussion is held to determine if one
strategy is privileged over another. The discussions take place in theproperty talk namespace and are archived alongside the property
proposals so that they may be revisited or reconsidered at a later
point, if needed.
This flexibility in how data can be modeled impacts how data
can be queried from Wikidata. For example, a query17 for all items
that are described as P31 instances of Q2621192 SPARQL endpoint
will return a single result18 , that of item Q20950365 Wikidata Query
Service. In contrast, if we structure the query differently19 to ask
for all items where P31 instances of Q2621192 SPARQL endpoint isused as a qualifier, we get 22 results.
A third option for how to structure the query20 is a request for
any item in which there is a P31 statement in a predicate position,
thus returning all 23 results. While it is the case that this third
query allows us to gather all 23 results, it highlights the necessityof deep familiarity with the data model, and how different portionsof the community are working, in order to write a SPARQL querythat will not miss relevant data.
The current state of modeling in Wikidata is that many editors
are working independently and people are experimenting withmany different options for how domains might be modeled. We
have noticed a need for additional tools that could promote awareness [31] among editors of how sub-communities (often affiliatedthrough WikiProjects) are currently working with data models fortheir domains. An example of such a tool is the navigation box
shown in Figure 7. This navigation box was created by membersof WikiProject Source Metadata21 to provide an overview of theproperties most relevant to the work of the sub-community. This
16 See https //www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property talk P31#P31 as qualifier
17 Query url http://tinyurl.com/kw4g39r
18 The examples described in this section performed the way described here as of March,2017. Due to the fact that the Wikidata knowledge base is edited by users it couldchange at any point in the future.
19 See the alternative formulation of the query at http://tinyurl.com/godxqkk
20 See a third option for how to structure the query at http //tinyurl.com/lautbhp
21 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject Source MetaData

Thornton et al.
navigation box provides a glanceable display [9] that anyone wanting to quick gain familiarity with the subset of properties that will
be of use while curating data related to bibliographic metadata.
Rather than scroll through the list of nearly 4,000 properties currently in use, users can quickly find a short list presented via thenavigation box. Many WikiProjects use tables or navigation boxes
to present relevant properties, however not all users visit WikiProjects regularly and may not encounter these lists if they are notalready familiar with work practices of wikis [24].
Another promising strategy to address consistent data modelingfor a given domain is the creation of a portal on top of Wikidata,such as that of the WikiGenomes project [30]. The WikiGenomes
portal provides the relevant set of Wikidata entities so that basic
researchers who would like to engage in data curation can interact
with Wikidata via the portal interface. The strategy of creating adomain-specific portal is one approach to increasing the consistencyof how data is being structured as the portal system design canguide users to structure data according to the current set of bestpractices as understood by the developers of the WikiGenomes
portal.
The open modeling challenges, such as the “Bonny and Clyde”
problem, involve mappings between Wikipedias and Wikidata, thedivergence in the use of properties or properties mixed with qualifiers, and the ongoing data modeling to extend Wikidata properties in additional domains will require creative solutions. Certain
sub-communities are addressing these issues through the development of domain-specific portals which may encourage moreconsistency in how statements are constructed, at least within thedomain. Those interested in contributing to discussions of howelse we might address these open challenges are invited to join the
Wikidata community.
Contributing to a project in which not only the content (structured data), but also the enabling software (MediaWiki and Wikibase), are open to inspection, revision, or extension. The fact that
free software [34] is used to enable this commons-based peer production system means that the infrastructure of Wikidata itself
is subject to discussion and improvement. Some members of the
Wikidata community actively extend the infrastructure by creating
Wikidata-specific software tools that can be used to interact withthe system22

4.3

Querying the knowledge baseMechanisms to get data out of Wikidata are an important component of the infrastructure of Wikidata. The Wikidata Query
Service is not only a SPARQL endpoint, but also a set of tools thatcan generate different visualizations of the data such as timelines,
bubblecharts, and maps [26].
Wikidata uses a distinct data type for properties for external
identifiers to other systems or repositories23 . Data types indicate
the kind of values that are appropriate to use in combination withthe property [14]. As external identifiers are added to Wikidata,
we can begin to see a crosswalk of authorities emerge within theknowledge base. For example, in the domain of digital preservation
many people are familiar with PRONOM IDs, known as PUIDs, for
22 https //www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata Tools
23 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata Glossary#Datatypes

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Figure 7: A navigation box used by Project Source Metadata to provide an overview of relevant properties

Figure 8: Text of a SPARQL query on the Wikidata Query Service endpoint demonstrating how the external identifiers
from different systems are associated with an item.

file formats and software. The Library of Congress in the UnitedStates also publishes identifiers for file formats, know as Format
Description Documents (FDDs). Editors of the “Just Solve the File
Formats Problem” wiki24 have created wiki pages for many fileformats, and these can be uniquely identified by their URLs. Editors
have added statements using properties that have been created for
PUIDs, FDDs, and File Formats Wiki identifiers. In combination we

now know how these three repositories interrelate, overlap, andwhere they do not overlap. Coyle noted the value of such mappingsand pointed out how vital these “switching stations” would be to
the web of linked open data [10]. In Figure 8, we can see a SPARQL
query on the Wikidata Query Service25 . The results of this queryare returned as a table. From these results we find that Wikidata
item with QID Q278934 has an English label of shapefile, a PUIDof x-fmt/235, a Library of Congress Format identifier of fdd000280,
and a File Formats Wiki page called Shapefile.
Beyond providing infrastructure for this type of alignment forcrosswalking between repositories, another advantage of having
digital preservation technical metadata in Wikidata is to allow for
queries that are ask questions of this data in combination withother data from Wikidata. For example, we can ask questions about
software that leverage data from other parts of the knowledge base.
In Figure 9, we see a screenshot of a timeline generated as oneof the result format options on the Wikidata Query Service26 . In
this query we are asking for the dates of birth for the developersof free software to be plotted on a timeline. It is possible to run
this query against the Wikidata Query Service and results will be
returned. This is due to the fact that information about people isalso in Wikidata. In contrast, if we attempted to run this query inthe context of a repository of technical metadata related to digitalpreservation, results would only be returned if the repository had
been populated with data about the software developers. Inclusionof data about people might be considered outside of the scopeof digital preservation. It is also unclear if such a stand-alone
25 To run this query on the endpoint follow this link http://tinyurl.com/gl3nmq8.

24 http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/Main Page

26 Query url: http //tinyurl.com/mstqtpg

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Figure 9: A SPARQL query on the Wikidata Query Service endpoint illustrating how data from the digital preservation domain
can be combined with data about people.
repository for digital preservation would have the resources tomaintain a SPARQL endpoint for their data.
Another example is the query seen in Figure 1027 . In this query
we are asking for the latitude and longitude for the birthplaces ofdevelopers of free software. This query demonstrates the power ofstoring technical metadata in a cross-domain knowledge base, andhow data from the domain of digital preservation can be combinedwith other data to answer a broad range of questions.
Creating SPARQL queries to get data our of Wikidata allows us
to present subsets of this data in a flexible manner. Such queries
can be harnessed to drive future linked-data powered applications
for the digital preservation domain.

5

WHY WIKIDATA?

Some of the challenges of describing the domain of digital preservation are the many divergent perspectives about how to modelthe domain and how to define the entities within it. In Wikidata,
we have the ability to negotiate and refine the items and properties
we need for our work in digital preservation, and to experimentwith multiple strategies in a live system.
Due to the commons-based peer production of the Wikidata community, this is only the starting point for integration of additional
data about the digital preservation domain. As more editors join the
Wikidata community, an increasing number of domains are being
modeled in Wikidata. New items are being created, new properties
are being discussed and created, and more statements are being
asserted, many with references that serve as the provenance forthe claims [27].
There are several communities already working to model data
within specific domains. Examples of well-established data modeling efforts are those of the Su Lab at The Scripps Research Instituteand of WikiCite28 . A group of researchers from the Su Lab havebeen leading efforts to model genetic information related to humans and model organisms in Wikidata [15, 23]. The Su Lab teamhas published documentation of their data modeling activities andcreated tools for their own work and made those tools available forothers to use or adapt. One of the tools that the Su Lab has shared
is Wikidata Integrator [43]. Wikidata Integrator is a Python library

27 http://tinyurl.com/mwuxhse
28 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite

that supports the creation of Python bots to programmatically edit
Wikidata.
Another active community working on data modeling is WikiCite. The participants are working together to model bibliographic relationships, and make bibliographic metadata readily
available to editors who add references to Wikidata or other projects
such as the different language versions of Wikipedia [36]. This
group is made up of participants from many different organizations,many of whom have experience working with bibliographic metadata in several other computational workflows. Members of the
WikiCite community have also created specific tools to support
interacting with bibliographic metadata and Wikidata. For example,
the Scholia project, a web service “creates on-the-fly scholarly profiles for researchers, organizations, journals, publishers, individual
scholarly works, and for research topics” [26].
These sub-communities of the larger Wikidata project are examples of how, in a peer production system, the users are constantly
updating, correcting, and implementing creative strategies to support collaborative data modeling work.

6

CONCLUSION

Through participating in the Wikidata community, we are exploring
the potential for Wikidata to serve as the repository of technicalmetadata for the international digital preservation community. An
advantage to using the Wikidata infrastructure is that this datais structured, queryable and computable [7, 29]. The value of collaborating with people domain expertise in digital preservation increating the data models for the digital preservation is that their
domain expertise is helpful in creating the underlying conceptual
relationships of the knowledge base. Contributors to Wikidata create entity-level content, but also create the conceptual structure forthe system [28].
Wikidata is multi-lingual knowledge base with support for morethan 350 languages[14]. The multi-lingual design of Wikidata
means that people from many different language communities areable to read the content of Wikidata in their own languages. For
example, in Figure 11 we see a side-by-side comparison of the infoboxes for Adobe Acrobat in English Wikipedia, French Wikipedia,
and Japanese Wikipedia. This is an advantage over knowledge basesthat only support users of a single language. Due to the way Wikidata was designed, the work of an editor to add content to Wikidata

Modeling the Domain of Digital Preservation in Wikidata

iPres’17, September 2017, Kyoto, Japan

Figure 10: A SPARQL query on the Wikidata Query Service endpoint illustrating how data from the digital preservation
domain can be combined with data about geography.

Figure 11: A side-by-side comparison of the infobox for Adobe PDF from English Wikipedia, French Wikipedia, and Japanese
Wikipedia.
benefits users across all supported languages as that data is available
in each of the supported languages.
We see value in working to create this infrastructural componentof the web of linked data. We are working together to create thiscontent in a system that was designed to ensure that this structured
data will belong to the public domain in order to avoid the situationof needing to purchase access to this data from a for-profit businessorganization [19].
Making a decision to invest in a project that is building infrastructure for the public domain may not be possible for all domains.
In the domain of digital preservation, activities that contribute to
public domain infrastructure will allow us all to share the work ofmaintaining access to this structured data. We are all free to fork
this project at any time, all data is downloadable at any time, andwe can reuse data from any contributor to Wikidata.

If we are successfully in curating data related to the technicalmetadata of digital preservation then we will have created a powerful resource that will enable others to reuse this metadata for theirown systems and projects. Once we have established which are thereadable file formats for a particular version of a particular piece ofsoftware and curated that data in Wikidata then, by virtue of theCreative Commons Zero (CC0) license29 , others can reuse that datarather than create it anew themselves.
Imagine a future in which the technical metadata we need forour digital preservation work is freely available to all as linked open
data. Please join us as we build this future together.

7

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank Wikimedia Deutchland30 for supporting the Wikidata
project. We thank the Wikidata community for sharing thoughts,
29 https://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/
30 https://wikimedia.de/wiki/HauptseiteiPres’17, September 2017, Kyoto, Japan
feedback, and data modeling work. Specifically, would like to thankall participants of WikiProject Informatics31 for engaging with us as
we work to describe the domain of digital preservation in Wikidata.

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