[Benestar]

This is a first version of a spice to automatically show results based on Wikidata. More information below or in the introduction.

This proposal currently uses an api wrapper of the Wikidata api to avoid having several requests. To have a stable api, we can provide this wrapper directly on Wikidata. I will create a patch for such an api module if this is going to be merged.

What is Wikidata?

Wikidata is a free linked database that can be read and edited by both humans and machines.

Wikidata acts as central storage for the structured data of its Wikimedia sister projects including Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikisource, and others.

Wikidata also provides support to many other sites and services beyond just Wikimedia projects! The content of Wikidata is available under a free license, exported using standard formats, and can be interlinked to other open data sets on the linked data web.

From the main page (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Pinging @moollaza as he was interested in this wikidata integration.

Pull request template

What does your Instant Answer do?

Parse simple questions/phrases in the form "foo of bar" and search for values on Wikidata.

What problem does your Instant Answer solve (Why is it better than organic links)?

Instead of having to read eg. the Wikipedia article you can directly see the result in a nice format.

What is the data source for your Instant Answer? (Provide a link if possible)

Wikidata

Why did you choose this data source?

It's the new great project for open data, it's free and it's created and maintained by the Wikipedia community

Are there any other alternative (better) data sources?

There may be better sources for some specific data, but no sources have such a broad coverage as Wikidata

What are some example queries that trigger this Instant Answer?

"president of the United States", "population of Berlin", "what are the children of Barack Obama"

Which communities will this Instant Answer be especially useful for? (gamers, book lovers, etc)

very broad topics covered (like Wikipedia and even more)

Is this Instant Answer connected to a DuckDuckHack Instant Answer idea?

something like this was suggested in https://duck.co/ideas/idea/343/improve-0-click-info-with-wikidata-entries

Which existing Instant Answers will this one supersede/overlap with?

it may overlap with some IAs about population data

Are you having any problems? Do you need our help with anything?

yes, merge this :D

What are the terms of use for the API? Will DuckDuckGo need specific authorization (e.g. an API key)? Are there any costs associated with API usage?

Wikidata is licenced under CC0 and no special authorization should be required

What does the Instant Answer look like? (Provide a screenshot for new or updated Instant Answers)

Checklist

Please place an 'X' where appropriate.

[x] Added metadata and attribution information
[x] Wrote test file and added to t/ directory
[x] Verified that instant answer adheres to design guidelines (https://duck.co/duckduckhack/design_styleguide)
[x] Verified that instant answer adheres to code styleguide (https://duck.co/duckduckhack/code_styleguide)
[] Tested cross-browser compatibility

    Please let us know which browsers/devices you've tested on:
    - Windows 8
        [x] Google Chrome
        [x] Firefox
        [] Opera
        [] IE 10

    - Windows 7
        [] Google Chrome
        [] Firefox
        [] Opera
        [] IE 8
        [] IE 9
        [] IE 10

    - Windows XP
        [] IE 8

    - Mac OSX
        [] Google Chrome
        [] Firefox
        [] Opera
        [] Safari

    - iOS (iPhone)
        [] Safari Mobile
        [] Google Chrome
        [] Opera

    - iOS (iPad)
        [] Safari Mobile
        [] Google Chrome
        [] Opera

    - Android
        [] Firefox
        [] Native Browser
        [] Google Chrome
        [] Opera

IA Page: https://duck.co/ia/view/wikidata

[moollaza]

@Benestar thanks for your contribution!

Can you please fill out the pull request template and edit your initial comment. Once completed, we'll be sure to review your PR and give you some feedback.

Thanks!

[Benestar]

@moollaza thanks for the hint, I've added the template

[moollaza]

Let's change this to "Answer"

[airon90]

Three questions:

• is this 0-click answer multilingual (e.g.: if I write "presidente degli Stati Uniti d'America" (Italian language for "president of the United States") it returns "Barack Obama")? If not, how can I contribute without coding (I'm not a coder)?
• is the answer returned with a link (e.g.: "Barack Obama" is not just text but also a link)? If so, do you use DuckDuckGo, Wikipedia or Wikidata?
• What are you waiting for? Why don't you merge the code? :)

[Benestar]

Hi @airon90

is this 0-click answer multilingual (e.g.: if I write "presidente degli Stati Uniti d'America" (Italian language for "president of the United States") it returns "Barack Obama")? If not, how can I contribute without coding (I'm not a coder)?

Wikidata is multilingual "per definition" and you can contribute to it by translating the labels of items there (see https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Contribute). However, I didn't find a way yet to get the language of the user. If that is possible somehow, it should be very easy to use other languages as well.

is the answer returned with a link (e.g.: "Barack Obama" is not just text but also a link)? If so, do you use DuckDuckGo, Wikipedia or Wikidata?

The answers are currently linked to Wikidata though we can change this and link either do DDG or to the connected Wikipedia article.

What are you waiting for? Why don't you merge the code? :)

I didn't have enough time the last weeks to fix the comments by @moollaza but will hopefully address them this week.

[moollaza]

@abeyang this one is ready for an initial design review. It's using our Info, and Media templates. It should look very similar to our Wikipedia answers. It's using Wikidata, but has more flexible queries.

Currently live on: https://beta.duckduckgo.com/?q=president+of+the+United+States&ia=answer

@Benestar I see a couple bugs:

• https://beta.duckduckgo.com/?q=population+of+berlin isn't working
  • Looks like the API isn't responding with any data: https://beta.duckduckgo.com/js/spice/wikidata/berlin/population
• https://beta.duckduckgo.com/?q=who+are+the+children+of+Barack+Obama&ia=answer
  • Images are clipping. Looks like the template needs some adjusting here? We either need a taller image or we need to reduce the size of the body?
  • @abeyang thoughts?

[Benestar]

"population of Berlin" isn't currently working because I only implemented the answers for the item datatype (ie. values which contain other items). I will however also implement views for quantities like the population, times like date of creation or birth date and locations. You can see a list of datatypes here.

The images are actually tall enough but they get displayed in a not so good way. You can see the full image when clicking on the item. However, we will always encounter this problem of cropped images as some images may be horizontal and some vertical.

[abeyang]

@Benestar , I'm not familiar with wikidata, but is their data complete? I just did a few quick sample queries, and a search for Steve Job's children produces 1 result with wikidata, but 4 results with That Other Search Engine...

[lucaswerkmeister]

@abeyang most of the currently existing items were initially created by bots from existing Wikipedia articles, or a few other datasets (administrative districts). In this case, it seems the three other children of Steve Jobs weren’t deemed significant for inclusion in any Wikipedia language edition. I’ve added them now, since AFAIK Wikidata’s threshold of significance is lower than that of Wikipedia.

[airon90]

https://beta.duckduckgo.com/?q=kuussa+tuulee&ia=iatesting
https://beta.duckduckgo.com/?q=data+about+kuussa+tuulee&ia=iatesting

I'm expecting a table like on Wikipedia 0-click info with all data about Q20872523 because sometimes I need a overview of a topic.
Do I need to create another bug report to implement this? :)
I create a BR #2148 to adapt Wikipedias 0-click info to add info from Wikidata
Thank you very much!

[Benestar]

Thanks @lucaswerkmeister for adding that data. This is exactly how Wikidata works @abeyang. Driven by a community the data gets better when it is used in more places. If more users figure out they can actually edit and fix the data the coverage and quality will increase as well.

@airon90 yes that is a different task but should also definitely be done. Wikidata is per definition machine readable and much better in displaying such data tables than Wikipedia infoboxes.

[airon90]

Another bug (maybe):

https://beta.duckduckgo.com/?q=product+certification+of+Roma-Bangkok&ia=iatesting

It seems that there is an answer but it isn't shown:

https://beta.duckduckgo.com/js/spice/wikidata/Roma-Bangkok/product%20certification

[Benestar]

@airon90 for it shows an answer. Note you have to select the "Answer" tab under the search box. https://beta.duckduckgo.com/?q=product+certification+of+Roma-Bangkok&ia=answer

[airon90]

https://beta.duckduckgo.com/?q=product+certification+of+Roma-Bangkok&ia=answer

I know that I have to select "Answer" but no answer tab is shown

[Benestar]

Uhm now that is really strange. For me, an answer section appears with the relevant information.

[airon90]

Now it works for me too. Strange!

[moollaza]

@Benestar sorry for the delay -- I forget where we left off on this. What's the status?

[Benestar]

Hey @moollaza, the status is that this needs more feedback :-) Perhaps this needs a rebase and some updates for the Wikibase api. We now have quantities with units and a lot more useful data so we need a nice way to display this inside of this spice. However, I'd like the simple version to get ready first.