Happy Birthday Wikidata!
Corinna Schuster
29. October 2022
In the ten years of its existence, Wikidata has become an indispensable part of the Wiki project family. From the beginning, the development of the free knowledge database was an undertaking with big goals. Today, Wikidata is the largest collaboratively created collection of open data in the world — thanks to a community of over 12,000 active volunteers who continuously improve and add to data.
On its tenth birthday, people around the world congratulate Wikidata and the community:
You can also find this video on Wikimedia Commons.
An international success story rooted in Germany
The Wikidata success story began in 2012 in Berlin, when a small group at Wikimedia Deutschland started developing the knowledge database. Now, ten years later, Wikidata has passed the milestone of 100 million data objects and has become an indispensable interface for numerous institutions and projects, first and foremost the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
“Data can enrich our lives so much — if it is made available in an open, linkable and machine-readable form. No other place on the web does this as convincingly as Wikidata, because the knowledge database thrives on its unique international community of thousands of volunteers. Together, we want to continue to ensure over the next ten years that technology we all use every day is built on an open foundation that is accessible to everyone and to which everyone can contribute. This is the only way we can continue to provide access to free knowledge for all in the long term.”Franziska Heine, Executive Director Wikimedia Deutschland
The world celebrates Wikidata!
Wikidata has always been an international project and so the birthday is of course celebrated around the globe. User groups and Wikimedia chapters in Nigeria, Norway, India, Indonesia, England, Italy and many other countries are coming together to celebrate.
All events at a glance: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Tenth_Birthday
Learn more about Wikidata!
As part of Wikidata’s birthday, we published a series of blog posts and interviews — with many interesting stories and details about the world’s largest free knowledge database and its community.
Part 1 on the impact of Wikidata in fostering the Wikimedia mission.
Part 2 on the impact of Wikidata in fostering the Wikimedia mission.
Interview about the beginnings of Wikidata and where the journey will still go.
