Wikidata: Wikimedia's answer to linked open data

Abstract

Wikidata is the latest project run by Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization sustaining Wikipedia and several related projects. The aim of Wikidata is to collect and structure the key data of every article and page of the 800+ Wikimedia projects, so that they can be read, translated, edited and re-used by anyone (including machines) in every official language of Wikimedia projects. The paper examines Wikidata’s technical and theoretical features; its main objectives; the essential notion and meaning of ‘item’ and ‘property’; the state of the art three years after its launch – with regard to Wikimedia projects as well as to third parties; and finally it provides an overview of the main tools created so far for the reuse of Wikidata’s data.